Outdoors in Alaska

Well, I missed another one! Because of the snow, freezing rain, icy road conditions, and other weather-related factors, I opted to skip attending the Wasilla Hockey Club gun show this past weekend. I also wanted to watch the NFL playoff games. My team, the Denver Broncos, were playing on Saturday and my wife’s team, the Los Angeles Rams, were playing on Sunday.

As things turned out, both teams won their games in dramatic last-minute fashion, in what I refer to as Denver Broncos football. My wife is hoping the Rams and Broncos will meet in the Super Bowl, but that remains to be seen. If that happens, things will get interesting around my house!

Because of the weather conditions, I never left the house last week, other than to attend a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday morning. They told me I’ll probably live, but the best part was that I got a chance to talk with the physician-assistant for a few minutes prior to the appointment. Wade and company have been hunting sandhill cranes for the past three years with the same guide service in the same area where my partner and I are scheduled to hunt this coming fall.

I had several questions about gear, clothing, shotguns, meeting locations, and various other things regarding this hunt and Wade was able to answer several of them. He and his group are booked to hunt again this coming season, but on different days than when my partner and I are scheduled. I was planning to contact the guide service, as Wade had suggested earlier, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask a person with firsthand experience about how things worked.

Our specific hunting plans will begin to firm up as we get more detailed information from the guide service folks as to what to expect.

Since I had a lot of free time during the week, I continued going through the guns with my inspections and fine cleaning/lubrication efforts. I also did some slight cleanup and organization of paperwork on my loading bench and worktable. I’m glad I did since I found a reduced load recipe for a large caliber handgun I’m planning to do some loading for over the winter.

The gun is a single shot, “artillery breech” action, which is no longer made, in 444 Marlin caliber. With full loads, it’s not a fun gun to shoot! However, I did harvest a small bull moose with it several years ago, with a single shot at about 100 yards.

I’m looking to develop a reduced load or two, in the range of 44 Magnum or 44 Special power, using lead bullets. This will make practice easier regarding recoil, cheaper cost, and easier on the barrel since lead bullets won’t wear the barrel like jacketed bullets would. That load uses Trail Boss powder with a 240-grain lead RNFP (round nose, flat point) bullet. Trail Boss smokeless powder was developed for reduced loads in large volume cases (think blackpowder cases which have a large powder volume to hold the inefficient black powder used before smokeless powder was invented).

Trail Boss powder was specifically designed to fill the large case without creating high pressures or leaving large air spaces between the correct powder charge and the base of the bullet, which smokeless powder typically does in the old blackpowder cases.

I also found some notes on what smokeless powder would substitute for another when developing handgun loads. The reloading components shortages over the past few years meant that I couldn’t find powders I had loads for in several handgun cartridges I normally shoot frequently. The reliable sources I found listed Accurate Powder No. 9 as a good substitute for Alliant 2400 powder and Shooters World Ultimate Pistol powder serving instead of Unique pistol powder.

In looking for the 2400 powder over an almost four-year period, I found exactly one pound. Several gun shops said 2400 was impossible to get when they ordered it. I had basically the same experience looking for the Unique powder. I lucked into a deal finding a seller who had three unopened pounds which he didn’t plan to use and offered them to me for what he had paid for them. As a result, I’m well stocked with Unique powder.

With what I had, the one pound of powder I found, and one pound of No. 9 I bought, I figured I was good for a while for the loads I had using 2400 powder. In looking at available powders in various shops, both No. 9 and Ultimate Pistol are fairly available.