4
DONATIONS WANTED .22LR ammo & rifles for Elbert County 4H
Contact:
Bill Howard (719 481 3587)
Colorado Gun Collectors
President John Kelley 12990 N 6Th St Parker, CO 80134 303 840
2372
Gun Show Chairman Les Palmer 3490 E. Orchard Road Littleton, CO
80121 720-482-0167 [email protected]
Secretary/Treasurer Newsletter Editor Bill Pittman 8075 S.
Harrison Way Littleton, CO 80122 303-773-0238 [email protected]
Monthly Meeting Schedule
Monthly Meetings are on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, except
for the December meeting. In December we have Christmas Dinner on
the first Saturday. Meetings start promptly at 7:00 P.M. They are
held in the American Legion Hall at I-25 and Yale Ave., Exit #202
from I-25, East on Yale and take the 1st right.
New Members
No new members
Buying Guns online? $30 transfer Fee for CGCA Members
Call Dave 303-733-4200
Buying Guns online? $30 transfer Fee for CGCA Members
Call Don 303-877-4831
CGCA Hats $12 CGCA Runners, Burgundy or Green $50 Call Les
Palmer 720 482 0167
Colorado Gun Collectors Association 50th Annual Gun Show Denver,
CO May 2015
Setup: Thursday May 14, 3:00 PM to 8;00 PM Friday May 15, 10:00
AM to 7:00PM Show open to the Public May 16th 9:am to 5:00 pm &
17th 9:00m to 3:00 pm
Show Chairman: Les Palmer, 720-482-0167
March 17, 2015 April 21, 2015 May 19, 2015 June 16, 2015
July 21, 2015 August 18, 2015 September 15, 2015 October 20,
2015
November 17,2015 December 5, 2015 January 19,2016 February
16,2016
GUN SHOWS 2015 Dates change and Shows are cancelled, so check
before you travel
Mar. 22-23, Denver, CO Merchandise Mart Tanner Gun Show
720-514-0114 Apr. 11-12, Tulsa, OK Expo Square Wanenmacher Gun Show
918-492 0401 Apr. 18-19, Pueblo, CO State Fairgrounds Tanner Gun
Show 720-514-0114 Apr. 19, Golden, CO, Jefferson County Fairgrounds
Colorado Militaria Show 719-593-2171 Apr. 25-26, Denver, CO
Merchandise Mart Tanner Gun Show 720-514-0114 May`2-3, Colorado
Springs, CO Event Center at Rustic Hills Prospectors Sertoma Gun
Show 719-630-3976 May 23-24, Riverton, WY Freemont County
Fairgrounds Wyoming Weapons Collectors 307-742-4630 Jun. 13-14,
Dallas, TX Dallas Market Hall Dallas Arms Collectors Association
972-369-6062 Jul. 11-12, Cody, WY Riley Arena WACA 605-430 0889
Jul. 11, Golden, CO, Jefferson County Fairgrounds Colorado
Militaria Show 719-593-2171 Jul. 11-12, Colorado Springs, CO Event
Center at Rustic Hills Prospectors Sertoma Gun Show 719-630-3976
Jul. 24-26, Kansas City, MO K.C.I. Expo Center MVACA 913-220 7383
Aug. 8-9, Colorado Springs, CO Event Center at Rustic Hills
Prospectors Sertoma Gun Show 719-630-3976 Sep. 12-13, Colorado
Springs, CO Event Center at Rustic Hills Prospectors Sertoma Gun
Show 719-630-3976 Oct. 24-25, Colorado Springs, CO Event Center at
Rustic Hills Prospectors Sertoma Gun Show 719-630-3976 Nov. 14-15,
Tulsa, OK Expo Square Wanenmacher Gun Show 918-492 0401 Nov. 27-28,
Colorado Springs, CO Event Center at Rustic Hills Prospectors
Sertoma Gun Show 719-630-3976
COLORADO GUN COLLECTORS ASSOCIATION Spokesman Volume 50 Number 3
March 2015
Hunting with Collectable Savage 99 Rifles By David Royal I got
my first Savage 99, an EG in 300 Savage caliber when I was 13. My
Father had given me a Marlin 336 in 35 Remington the year before.
When I first saw that beautiful 99 I knew I had to have it. My
Father didn’t have any problem with me trading the Marlin along
with $20 for the Savage. It was money I had earned that Summer. The
Savage had a Chicopee Falls, Mas-sachusetts, barrel address and I
believe the serial num-ber started with a five meaning that it was
late 1940’s to early 1950’s production. The deer were scarce that
hunting season in the Ocala (Florida) National Forest and I didn’t
get a shot with my new Savage. The next Summer I decided I had to
have a scope so I bought a Weaver K3 with a rangefinder reticule.
The range-finder featured a second horizontal crosshair. The best I
can remember the distance between the two cross-hairs was six MOA.
I don’t remember why I thought I needed a rangefinder reticule. I
also got a Pachmyr pivot mount since I wasn’t sure the scope would
work well in low light. Unfortunately the rifle wasn’t facto-ry
drilled and tapped for a scope mount so I had a gunsmith do what is
unspeakable from today’s per-spective. I had him drill and tap it
so he could mount the scope. We hadn’t seen anything the first day
of deer season in 1959 so we headed in to camp late in the
afternoon. I had been looking through the scope a lot that day
getting a feel for it since I’d never hunted with a scoped rifle
before. It was just after sunset. A deer materialized out of the
woods about 75 yards ahead of me, I raised the rifle, placed the
crosshairs centered on its chest and dropped the deer dead in its
tracks. I dis-covered right then that the scope worked fine in low
light and never pivoted the scope over after that ex-cept to clean
the rifle. My Father had been following me but had stopped and was
looking behind us so he didn’t see the deer or see me raise the
rifle. Needless to say the shot and the dead deer laying in front
of us
was a real shock to him. I killed two other deer with that rifle
over the next few years. After starting col-lege and with military
service looming in the near fu-ture I sold the 99EG. I went on
active duty in the Navy in 1966 and was transferred to Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba. I was too jun-ior to get leave at Christmas that year so
I settled for Thanksgiving. It seemed like none of my friends were
around and I was bored so I decided to go hunting. The only Savage
lever action available around Ocala was an 1895 in 303 Savage. I
really wanted another 300 but thought the 1895 was pretty cool so I
bought it. My Father was too busy to go with me so I had to go
hunting alone in my bright red 1956 Thunderbird. I don’t remember
what I planned to do if I got a deer. Load it in the trunk of the
Thunderbird I guess. I guess I was lucky I didn’t get anything. The
next year I managed to get leave at Christmas. My Father took off
work and we went hunting in my Father’s station wagon. That was
lucky for me be-cause I shot a whitetail with the then 71 year old
Sav-age. I still cringe to think of trying to get a deer in the
trunk of the Thunderbird and the mess it would have made. At some
point around this time I had begun to develop a bad case of
magnum-itis. I was selected for the Navy Enlisted Scientific
Educa-tion Program and reenlisted in the Navy in 1968. I was then
transferred to Seattle, Washington, to attend the University of
Washington. I decided at that point I could afford a new Weatherby
Mark V. I shoot left-handed and the only new left-handed Weatherby
available on short notice was a 257. I ordered it with a gold inlay
with my initials on the bottom of the fore-arm, an engraved floor
plate and a few other enhance-ments. I only hunted with it from
time to time but it served me well. I still have it and the 1895
Savage.
MARCH PROGRAM John Porter
Transitional Military Ignition Systems
The majority of the members attending the February Members
Meeting voted that the article on Metal Fingerprinting was not an
appropriate subject for the CGCA Newsletter' Part 3 will not be
printed.
You can contact the author Robert Ulbricht at:
[email protected]
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I chose to get commissioned in the Marine Corps in-stead of the
Navy and wound up at Camp Pendleton. After getting married I got
out of the Marine Corps. I stayed in California and settled into
making a living and didn’t hunt much. California doesn’t usually
come to mind as a great place to hunt. The little bit I did hunt
was in other states requiring vacation time that I usually spent
visiting my family and my wife’s family. I started visiting my
cousins in Wyoming in the late 1990’s and decided that I would like
to take up elk hunting. Figuring the 257 was a little light for
that I got a left-handed Weatherby Accumark in 300 Weatherby. It
was great. I killed a number of elk with it between 2003 and 2012
and a moose in New-foundland in 2012. I shot the moose in the front
of the chest at 120 yards as he was getting up. Be-tween the impact
of the bullet and his momentum in getting up he literally went over
backwards and stuck both antlers in the dirt. It was beginning to
dawn on me that maybe I really didn’t need that much fire power. I
had also gotten seriously into collecting Savage 99’s around 2006.
I decided in 2013 that I should try hunting with the Savages. That
Fall my cousin’s husband, Dave Harper, and I went to our usual elk
hunting place. Dave is a paraplegic so we’re limited to easy
terrain when we hunt together. The elk in this area hang out on a
feed ground that hasn’t got any water. In order to get water it’s
necessary for them to cross the ranch where we hunt to get to the
Green River a few miles away. I had decided to hunt with my 1927
vintage Savage 99G that had been drilled and tapped and had a 3X9
Bushnell scope mounted on it. It reminded me a lot of my first
Savage 99. Dave and I got to the ranch just at good light and saw
the elk out of range heading for the river. We thought we’d missed
out since they don’t always come back to the feed ground the same
day or if they do come back they may use a different route. We
drove around the ranch pretty much killing time but hoping we might
run across a few stragglers or that the herd would re-turn. As we
were driving back along the road near the feed ground I was looking
at a ridge that’s about a mile away. It’s one of the routes the elk
use to return from the river. It looked like there were a couple of
small trees where there shouldn’t be any trees. I told Dave to
stop. Almost immediately a couple more lumps appeared on the
ridgeline. I checked them out with my spotting scope. The lumps
were elk and they
were heading directly towards us. That’s why they looked tall
and narrow like trees. It turned out that the whole herd of a
couple hundred elk were heading right at us. See Figure 1. Figure 1
Part of the herd of elk of November 2013. Photo taken when they
were about 600 yards away. I got out of the truck and Dave turned
it around so he could shoot from the driver’s seat. When they got
within five or six hundred yards it was obvious they saw the truck.
I had moved about 50 yards away and was hiding behind some sage
brush. Miraculously they kept coming right to us. I always let Dave
shoot first because he has trouble getting situated where he can
get his rifle on target. But I always have a target
picked out and am ready to shoot when his rifle goes off. They
finally stopped and started milling around at 200 yards. We were
apparently right where they want-ed to go. I picked out a large cow
standing broadside and had my scope aimed at the area of the
backbone above the shoulder. As soon as Dave’s rifle cracked I shot
too. My elk dropped, flopped around for a few seconds and lay
still. Dave had killed his elk too. See Figure 2.
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Figure 2. The author with a cow elk taken with an 86 year old
Savage 99G, 300 Savage caliber.
I didn’t get my antelope license for 2013 so I was through
hunting for that season. I had reserved a caribou hunt in
Newfoundland for late September/early October 2014. Newfoundland
has a lot of wide open country and the cost of the hunt is pretty
high. It was really tempting to take one of the Weatherbys in case
I had to take a long shot. instead I took a Savage 99R that had
been produced in 1950. It is a 300 Savage and I put an early
Leupold Vari-XII 3X9 scope on it. My guide and I had hunted several
days without seeing anything worth shooting. The hunters normally
stay in the lodge and go out each morning hunting pretty close to
the roads. In order to get away from the other hunters we had
walked in to my guide’s remote trapping cabin the second day and
spent the night. We hadn’t seen anything and hunted our way back to
the four wheeler by late the next morning. We were heading back to
his house when we spotted half a dozen cari-bou about a mile and a
half from the dirt track we were on. We parked and started stalking
them. They actually were moving in a somewhat quartering direc-tion
towards us. There was very little vegetation in this area but we
used some gullies and large rocks to get to some small trees that
were only about eight to ten feet tall. A doe and a young stag
busted us at about 200 yards but kept coming toward us. They were
apparently curious about us. When they were about thirty yards away
I took the photo in Figure 3. I had leaned my rifle against a tree
so my hands were free to use the camera. I then peeked around the
tree and there was the stag also about thirty yards away. Needless
to say I got rid of the camera and picked up
the rifle. His antlers were not real long but he had two
shovels, the antlers were heavy and very symmetrical so I took the
shot. He stumbled a few feet and fell dead. See Figure 4. Figure 3.
Young stag and doe caribou in New-foundland, October 1, 2014.
Figure 4. The author and a caribou stag taken in Newfoundland
with a 1950 vintage 99R, caliber
300 Savage. Continued next month.
