Leather Rifle Sling Customization

| August 14, 2017
Photo Credit: Keith Knoxsville
A Hen and a Drake Green Teal on the truck bed. Not a limit on anything, but a fun morning out.

My leather rifle sling was a little too long, and made the rifle awkward to carry. I bought it from abroad inexpensively, and figured it would need work. Truthfully, I couldn’t buy the raw leather materials in the USA for anywhere near as cheap as I bought this leather sling finished. I figured I would have to remake the sling anyway, so just having to shorten it isn’t ll that big a deal.

Fortunately the sling was actually fairly well made, just too long. I drilled out the factory rivets. I un-stitched a long length of thread, and left it attached to re use after trimming. I used a small drill bit and a vintage hand drill to make some holes for stitching. I also used a larger drill bit to make new holes for rivets. I originally wanted to do this project quickly, because its already deer season, and hoped I could just plug in some chicago screws. However, nobody nearby had chicago screws, and I resorted to copper rivets. I even pulled out my grommet tool(seen in the pictures) thinking I had a ‘long-enough’ brass grommet I could use, but I didn’t. It wasn’t a big deal, just a little more work to set rivets. I set the rivets, and peened them with an old ball peen hammer from my vintage tool collection that needs some restoration work.

The end result is strong, probably stronger than the original rivets and connection points, and a sling the fits me and my rifle well.

Tags: , , , , | Comments

Spring Turkey Hunt 2017

| August 10, 2017
Photo Credit: Keith Knoxsville
A Hen and a Drake Green Teal on the truck bed. Not a limit on anything, but a fun morning out.

I’m finally getting around to posting about my girlfriends spring Wyoming turkey hunt, in the Black Hills. Like a lot of hunting there are different ways to go about it. We weren’t too interested in sitting around in a blind like a lot of turkey hunting is done, so we took the approach of call, listen, call, listen, call em in and shoot one or move on.

The action, yes the ‘action’, was good. If you have gone turkey hunting with this mobile approach then you already know that the action is in calling in and hearing turkeys gobble and approach. Sure you can dump a turkey at 50 yards with a killer 12 gauge turkey gun, expensive choke, and some heavy ammo, or you can call them in to around 10 yards and take a more than adequate shot from a full choked 20 gauge.

Anyway, a bunch of calling a few almost opportunities, and my girlfriend bagged a Merriam bird with her 20 Gauge CZ Upland Ultralight shotgun. (pictured next to her Merriam’s Turkey below). I also made a euro skull mount out of the Turkey skull, also pictured below.

Tags: , , , | Comments