So this morning after walkies I hustled the boys right into the Jeep for chicken chores, because today’s supposed to be a lot nicer than yesterday and I wanted to get back home and get started on yard cleanup.
The Jeep has seen better days; it doesn’t like to climb the steep driveway up the ridge when the transmission is cold. So my route to Landlady’s place is basically the reverse of the walkie route; out my driveway into the wash, around the horseshoe bend in the wash and up Ian’s driveway to the road at the top of the ridge. Sometimes we just stay in the wash all the way, but the Jeep doesn’t have any working shock absorbers…
Anyway – we get back to Ian’s driveway, which we had just exited not fifteen minutes before, and three cows are nonchalantly chowing down on the meager grass of the verge between the driveway and the drop-off to the wash. This is not permitted. I have a rule: I get my yard and Ian’s yard, and the cows get everything else. This must be periodically explained to the cows. So I stopped the Jeep, got out (while unzipping my coat so I could get to the gun,) and started walking toward the nearest cow, shouting for it to “get outa here.”
The cow looked at me as if to say, “Oh, here’s another of those annoying humans, Myrtle. Why are they allowed to just walk around loose, bothering decent cattle?” It showed no inclination to get outa here or anywhere else, and if it had been a bull I’d have gotten distinctly nervous about my prospects for growing truly old while doing stupid things like this.
Finally it decided I really was being too much of a bother, and turned away. That got the other two moving, and I (first mentally inventorying what sort of ammo I had loaded) fired a shot into the ground to hurry them along.
Because of my chingered-up shoulder, for most of the winter I’ve carried my little 9X18 Makarov, which when fired does not make an impressive amount of noise. Just in the past week or so I’ve regained enough movement and strength in my right arm to move back to the Taurus Tracker. The Tracker is a compensated .44 mag…
And even though only loaded with .44 Special CCI Blazers* one of the big problems with it as an EDC gun is that any time you fire it without earpro you’re damaging yourself. It’s loud. The cows seemed to agree, and skeedaddled.
I turned back to the Jeep: Little Bear was in the driver’s seat, clearly annoyed that I had gone off to chase cattle without him, and Ghost was nowhere to be seen. He’s always been a wuss about gunfire and I found him right where I expected, tucked under the instrument panel in front of the shotgun seat. He’s gotten so fat and stiff he had an awful time levering himself back out of there.
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*”What ammo to carry” is a constant issue. When the cattle are around, the pistol is most commonly just a noisemaker. I resist using my limited supply of expensive commercial ammo for that purpose. With the Mak I carried the gun with a hardball round in the chamber and a magazine full of Hornady FTX, then the belt mag was full of hardball. That way if I needed to scare off some cattle I could quickly swap mags and not piss away my limited supply of expensive whiz-bang ammo. The revolver being more complicated to change ammo in, I keep it loaded with CCI “flying ashtray” Blazers which are at least available locally if not exactly cheap. Then I’ve got speed strips of cheap cast reloads and Cor-Bon .44 Magnum, so I’m good for anything between casual plinking and discouraging a bear.
I’ve carried my tracker 44 with Remington UMC 180gr soft point ammo before. Yeah I don’t light those off without ear pro anymore unless my life is on the line. They throw a 2-3ft fireball, and you’re hearing the angels sing for the next dozen hours or so.
I did run some of those over the chrono once, yeah got an honest 1600fps outta the little 4″ barrel. Put em throught the 20″ barrel of the lever gun and they ran out to about 1950-2000. So for a “light little” 180gr load, they are warm suckers.
My usual “Michigan load*” is a 240gr hard cast SWC running about 1150-1200fps. A light magnum-ish load. Thats not as bad, but it still an event to avoid without ear pro.
* Michigan load. Capable of stopping anything dangerous I’m going to find in the woods in Michigan. Includes large black bears, moose, wolves, badgers and rabid chipmunks. As well as two legged predators as encountered.
Thanks to my days in the military not a waking moment goes by without a damn whistling in my ears from tinnitus.
What to carry, ammo wise, is a conundrum with a revolver. Joel have you ever given thought to making a few blanks and stashing them in a pocket? That way the .44 is ready to go and (if there’s time) you can switch out 1 round from the cylinder then make a boom without wasting money on the projectile. Just a thought.
What you need on your rear-view mirror is a dangler in the way of earplugs for those moving-the-turistas-along events.
I keep some in my pocket. But when you’re just firing one round ad hoc, the situation usually doesn’t seem to encourage holding a time out while you pull them from your pocket, open the case and stuff them in your ears.
“Little Bear was in the driver’s seat, clearly annoyed that I had gone off to chase cattle without him”
Letting him do the deed of running off the cows would have totally solved the problems of what ammo and ear protection. I’m guessing that letting the dog loose on them is probably not any greater crime than shooting in the vicinity of them, even out here in the west where cattle have all the rights.
At the forest house, all it took to run off the neighbor’s cattle was to approach them like you wanted to pet them. Might be worth a try in your neighborhood. 😉
“you’re just firing one round ad hoc”
Yeah, and you’re just damaging your fragile hearing ad hoc. Unless you have eyes in the back of your head, you need those ears to hear what’s sneaking up behind you. Earplugs are less hassle than hearing aids. Ask me how I know, dammit. Please take a few seconds to put in those plugs.
What year TJ is the Jeep and how much (if any) lift is on it?
For some reason I have a pile of Jeep parts.
Mine is an 06 LJ and I still have the decent stock shocks that came off it. If they will work on yours I’ll gladly pass them on
01, and quite a lot. It’s got some sort of dealer aftermarket rock climbing package, so I never know what to order in suspension parts.