A HUNTING ADVENTURE IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA Members Gary and Norma Buffon
the excitement of being in New Pine Creek, a beautiful place with the Warner Mountains to the east and a very rejuve- nated Goose Lake to our west. There is snow on the mountains and the lake was very full from a lot of rain and snow over the winter. The conditions are differ- ent from last year because it’s a month earlier and the season was late last year because of lots of moisture and the
E
leven months passed and I was once again able to enjoy
colder temps. One thing was the same: the accommodations at the Honker Inn and our friendly hosts Bob and Tatyana Suacci. Norma and I enjoy this area so much that we invited my 88-year-old Mom to accompany us so she could enjoy this wonderful place. We arrived on May 1 about 10:30 a.m. after driving up from Susanville, CA, some 120 miles south of New Pine Creek. Planning for the trip began last July when I ordered a new barrel for my
Savage S-12 from Pac-Nor Barreling in Oregon. I have been quite pleased with the Savage and decided to replace the old barrel with a Pac-Nor barrel given their reputation for quality products, workmanship and service. I sent the re- ceiver and a new recoil lug I purchased from Sharp Shooter Supply to Pac-Nor so they could true the action, install the recoil lug on the new barrel, and make what I hoped would be a good varmint hunting tool. I was not disappointed when I
received the fi nished product in Au- gust: the beautiful SS 24" match grade barrel with a 1:14" twist and 223 Ackley Improved chamber. Not only was the setup very reasonably priced, the qual- ity of workmanship was better than I had expected. I had worked on the stock while I waited and it was ready for me to assemble the rifl e into a fi nished product. I added a new Burris Fullfi eld 4.5-14x scope with mil dot reticle. When the weekend came I was off
The author set up a folding shooting bench in alfalfa fi elds for his Northern California ground squirrel hunting adventure.
to the range to fi nd out if it shot as well as it looked. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was delighted at the accuracy and tack driving nature of the gun. I use a target which has a picture of pool balls with the numbers set in the center of each of the 15 balls. This gives me 15 targets that can be used to evaluate a particular load. I was so impressed with the initial results that I wrote a letter of thanks to Pac-Nor and sent a copy of one of the targets. After three sessions, I had everything dialed in and enjoyed shooting several hundred rounds while forming brass and fi ne tuning my ammo for the May hunt. Enough about the gun and back to
The target during the Northern California hunting adventure: Belding’s ground squirrels.
Page 164 Spring 2012
the thrill of the hunt. There was plenty of ground squirrel activity, although the animals were just beginning their big push to the surface to feed on their favorite green goodies. I started by fi r- ing a few short shots with my Ruger slab side pistol with a 2-7x Burris scope. This was not successful because I had not practiced enough with this setup, so I abandoned this gun for my Savage rifl e. Based on our trip last year, Norma and I learned to work as a team with one person shooting and the other spotting.
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