The .38 CCI shotshells (left) just don’t manage as well as the .45 Colt version. 109 grains of #9 shot in the .38 can handle small chores, but the .150+ grains in the .45 Colt simply shreds fi eld rats and other such critters.
I stopped the ATV and Suzi and I
got off, while I slipped the holster off over my head, laying it on the seat. Ken walked down with a big smile and extended his hand. “You must be the guy from California I heard about. Welcome to Missouri.” I took Ken’s hand and apolo-
Good tools, like this Anschutz .22 Magnum, are always a pleasure to use. It helps to keep the varmints like squirrels, crows and groundhogs more respectful. Quiet and cheap to run, a good .22 Magnum does a lot of the work around here.
gized for being armed on our unex- pected visit. “Hell,” he said, “when I saw you ride up with that .45 I told my wife, well, it looks like our new neighbor isn’t some anti-gun idiot from California!” We both laughed at that and I assured him we were certainly not anti-gun. When I told him Suzi and I are retired cops and I was the editor of Handgunner he laughed again. “Damn, this just keeps getting better and better!” Kent and Cindy have since turned out to be solid neighbors, and we rely on one another for no-end of support at times.
Unexpected Threats So as you can see, we’re not overly
concerned about classic bad guys out here. We’re always prepared, careful about keeping an eye on things, lock- up, even set our alarm at night and when we’re gone, but frankly, violent crime is virtually unheard of around here and property crime is almost al- ways minor. A far cry from what we were used to where cars were regu- larly stolen from your driveway and you almost took your life in your hands if you took the trash out to the curb at night. But there is another kind of threat
The Taurus Titanium Tracker usually lives in this Uncle Mike’s chest rig, in the utility box on the ATV. The fi rst few shots are CCI snake loads in .45 Colt, handy when you step off the ATV to investigate deadfall in the woods.
24
in the country — from animals of all kinds. We’ve had a couple of experi- ences of feral dog packs on our land, there are some bear sightings start- ing to crop up, feral hogs are moving
into our area (“Shoot on sight!” says Missouri Fish and Game) and coy- otes and poisonous snakes abound. Not to mention threats that are more problems for plants and domestic an- imals. Field rats, crows and squirrels can eat you out of house and home and need to be kept to manageable numbers. I don’t mind sharing, but they can’t have it all. Personal protection isn’t always
about bad guys, and in all honesty, we use fi rearms of all sorts to help keep the predator population down and for protection against the bigger animal threats. I’ve spent the last 20 years preparing for this move buy- ing tools, learning to use them and the thousand other skills needed for country living. And, being a gun- guy, I was always wondering about “perfect” guns for country living, or, as I call them now, “Land Guns.” I quickly found what I thought would be right was often far from the mark.
The Problems While the odd pack of dogs or a
lost bear might be a threat, the real- ity is the varmint population is what keeps us busy the most. Crows eat our garden, corn we put out for the deer, rob eggs from the nesting birds and basically eat anything they can whip in an unfair fi ght. Squirrels, es- pecially the non-native grays, are ar- rogant, pugnacious and worse than rats when it comes to gnawing on everything. If you leave your garage door open, they come right inside, steal the dog’s food, get under the workbench and worse. The fi eld rats usually mind their
own business and stay in the pas- ture, but we found they destroy nest- ing birds like quail, which lay on the
REALITY CHECK • 2011 SPECIAL EDITION
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