Tom I'm glad the provided tube mount was modifiable...you got her done! The factory obviously has at least two mounts variance options & possibly three.
I like the bold script, I've vision impairment & the bold pops on my lap top.
Wild cats were my first center fire passion. Started with 22 Hornet & fire formed case Hornet K, then the 220 Swift...these were already Wildcats that the factories had adopted and produced rifles and ammo for. The Hornet was a decent performer out to 200 yds. on quiet days & the Swift over 300 but wind was a problem with the light pills. Prairie dogs don't like being shot at the noise alone puts them on high alert after the first shot is fired. I now relate to that. Though a first shot might be from a 100 yards the second would have to be taken much further back, 200 plus yards and each shot drove them underground so shots were taken ten to 30 minutes apart. Barrels cooled too much in between. One benefit was the 220 Swift barrel life was greatly extended. I also tried the 225 Winchester & 22-250 in this time frame, both of which had been Wild cats but adopted by the factories as standard loads. I killed Turkey, Fox, Coyote, Crow and Bobcat as well with all these standard weight firearms (the Swift was a heavy barrel version) calling each except the Crow which at that time we had the world's largest Crow population in peanuts just 40 miles to the East.
My itch for a 25-06 rifle came from the great sports editor Warren Page & an article he wrote on Wildcats, he was a great advocate for varmint hunting and target shooting with these calibers. He mentioned the 25-06 as the solution for taking Groundhogs at what seemed to me impossible ranges of 600 to 700 yards back East. He went on to credit Mashburn Arms in Oklahoma City with building the best rifles chambered in this caliber and the dies to load the round. I had already purchased several of my rifles (used) from them and they were first class. Long story cut way short I had them build my first and second custom varmint guns, both 25-06, the first a Winchester model 70 action and the second a Remington 600.
These rifles allowed me to park and shoot out of the bed of my pickup at ranges that did not set the dogs to alert. I could shoot at 600 yards and they didn't detect the sound as danger. I did however learn that any misses needed to be high, because if the shot fell short and kicked dirt on them they then went on alert, not always though. I had many dogs that did backflips and then examined the ground in front of them, more curious than alert. Miss high all day and they went about their business as normal . Kills also put them on alert but death to unknown causes didn't keep them in their burrows too long. Long range shooting was the key to a potentially good shoot. This was not hunting, it was just shooting (there is a big difference) to eradicate & limit the towns spread in area.
I was very fortunate to live here and to be so close to Mashburn arms, as a teenager I was typically the only customer in the shop under the age of forty or fifty, so it took a couple of purchases and answering a lot of my questions before they started taking me seriously; then they treated me like family, great memories and great people. Mashburn arms was one of the cradles of Wildcat development in the forties and fifties & stamped that name in shooting history.
I also like new stuff especially when it becomes old!
Rick C.
