Locavore Hunter, in a post on teaching new hunters to build their own rifles, has a nice quote on my favorite cartridge, perhaps more commonly called the 7 X 57:
"The 7mm Mauser has a fascinating history that I won't get into just now, but suffice to say that the sort of person who favors a 7mm Mauser will find approving nods from the right sort of people. Its like driving a car powered by a straight six engine or listening to Dave Brubeck albums on vinyl."
My choice of cars (a Morgan?) or albums (Zevon, also on vinyl-- think I still have one or two) might be different, but I like the concept. Reading Vance Bourjaily 1st eds?
Hint: the post title points to a couple of examples of interesting history.
11 comments:
My college roommate had an old Spanish bolt-action in 7mm Mauser. As I recall, it kicked like a small cannon, but Noor used it for plinking tin cans on USFS land out by Buena Vista (Virginia). More than adequate for the task...
Funny-- it is usually a very mild cartridge. Mine is, even with a carbine- length barrel-- much more so than a .30- 06 or even a .308. They are often recommended for women-- Jack O'Connor's wife shot one on everything-- and the recoil- shy. Conversely, they "punch above their weight"; Bell used one on elephants (insanely but well) and Corbett on man- eating tigers, both in the ".275 Rigby" version (exactly the same but with an English name).
Of course old military rifles can have everything from weird stocks to headspace problems, though I don't know if that would affect recoil...
Well, this was about twenty-five years ago, and I was a skinny kid not overly accustomed to firearms, so it might have seemed worse than it was. Or I might have got some of his guns mixed up--again, a quarter-century ago, and he did have more than a few...
"Suffice to say that the sort of person who favors a 7mm Mauser will find approving nods from the right sort of people. Its like driving a car powered by a straight six engine or listening to Dave Brubeck albums on vinyl.
My choice of cars (a Morgan?)"
Well said Steve , BUT
Take it from me that THE choice of car ought only to be a Bentley!!
JohnnyUK
Elegant but too BIG John-- a pigeon gun?
Steve
Do so agree, but,as one appreciates, and even you acknowledge , a Bentley does "find approving nods from the right sort of people" , don't you know? - at least here in UK, AND Rollers always seen as sooooo gauche!
JohnnyUK
John-- the same applies here, or did in my youth (neither exist in Magdalena, perhaps needless to say). One of the prominent families in my home town of Easton Mass (born in Boston, grew up just south) had TWO identical old Bentleys but wouldn't have dreamed of the ostentation of having a Rolls.
If memory serves they also has Parker shotguns -- "good honest Yankee guns" (;-)
Uuuh-- that is, "had"-- need more coffee. Sounds like a LOLcats!
Parkers? Ah well- each to their own. I suppose I will have to put up with one of Herve Bruchet's little 20G Damon Petrick masterpiece "trinkets" in my dotage . However, like an old Bentley , it professionally and unostentatiously "perfectly does the job ", and will still be around, and admired in 100 yrs time, unlike me !! Sustainable consumption ?
JohnnyUK
If I came down to two guns they would doubtless be English and/ or French. But John-- regardless of what they think Out West, a half-Italian is not a "Yankee" in Boston, and might have different tastes(;-) Yankees deplore what they think of as ostentation-- Puritan roots?
Betsy Huntington and the late naturalist, falconer, and writer Frances (Flint) Hamerstrom were true New England WASP Yankees. Fran, by far the older, shot a 20 bore Parker since she was Aldo Leopold's first female student until she died in the 90's. (She once inspected my guns when I wasn't home and told me I wasn't poor because I "had good guns and boots"). Bets had a plain Parker 16 and her niece's husband had two.
Another cultural wrinkle; Lib is culturally rather the Bay Area equivalent of a Yankee. Her grandfather on her mother's side, who knew the Huntingtons in China, had a Parker. But he got it from a rich Italian-American and it was a highly engraved grade! Unfortunately at least for scholarship's sake her mother sold it.
Hi Steve
Quote ;
She once inspected my guns when I wasn't home and told me I wasn't poor because I "had good guns and boots".
She clearly had her priorities right as well!
Parkers are a uniquely American product, for which you can be justifiably proud. However, I can't say I am enamored with the form of the action , but who am I to comment - "Chacun a son ( or sa) gout !"
You have a great hunting season with whatever you can find to hunt, and with whatever weapon suits - BEING THERE is all that really matters - ENJOY!.
JohnnyUK
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