Alaskan Barren Ground Caribou Hunt with a Custom 1895 Browning

Return to the Last Frontier

It had been five years since my brother and I had hunted Alaska. In the meanwhile we had been to Namibia and Newfoundland together and to Colorado on separate (and unsuccessful) hunts. We both had a yearning for that vast emptiness of the north. For me particularly, it was a yearning not only for the untrammeled character of the last frontier, but for the purity of the hunt itself. Our experience in Newfoundland left a noxious taint that lingered still, faint but persistent, and my frustrating hunt in November 2002 in Colorado, in which I came achingly close to success had been spoiled by, not the failure, but the exploitation of an unscrupulous outfitter who overbooked the camp in the last week of the season (we had seventeen hunters instead of the advertised six). Both of these outfitters asked a lot of money for almost nothing in return and the surprisingly unpleasant personality of each proved the most unwelcome of camp mates on those hunts. I worked very hard on both hunts, hopelessly in Newfoundland and with slim, but real hope in Colorado and of this I have no regrets. But the hunt experiences had been spoiled by lousy outfitting and worse company. Steve and I were ready to restore purity to the experience; hunting in unquestioned fair chase, with deep respect for the game and love of the chase, in conditions that might be primitive, but were well provided, and where we knew beyond any doubt that there would be game.

We made arrangements with Mark Lang of Lake Clark Air, the same outfit that we hunted with in October of 1999. Once again we would be hunting the Mulchatna herd in the Alaskan peninsula, but this time in an alpine setting and a month earlier in the season. We didn't know exactly what these differences would imply, but we wanted to try a change of environment for the sake of variety. Finally, my brother announced that he intended to hunt in as traditional a manner as practicable (and sound - after all, we would be utterly isolated for several days).

A Traditional Rifle

A traditional hunt suited me well. Modern hunting exploits generally leave me cold and while I appreciate the advance of technology, it lacks the allure of old fashioned blue steel and walnut wood. The same can be said for the current crop of ultra magnums. I find nothing in any of the overbore monstrosities worth acquiring. The magnums of forty and fifty years ago are all that anyone ever need ask for, unless they are asking for less (yes, I do like the short action magnums and if I ever replace my beloved .340 Weatherby it will likely be with a .338 WSM, when it finally emerges from the USRAC-Winchester shop).

So, what rifle for this hunt? At first I settled on a very Selous influenced choice: a Ruger No. 1 Medium Sporter with an elegant 26-inch barrel and chambered for the 7 mm Remington Magnum. Not too traditional you say? Well, if loaded like a .275 Holland and Holland or .280 Jeffery circa 1911, using a 160 grain bullet at 2700 fps, it is quite traditional, if a bit newfangled. I bought a New England Custom Guns aperture rear sight that fitted to the Ruger dovetail mount and I also had a Leupold Vari-X III scope in 1.5-5X that would be appropriate if kept on a suitably low power setting.

I had resolved my choice of rifle when I was bitten by the Mannlicher-Schoenauer bug. This is a rifle of which I had read much over the years, but I don't think I had ever actually handled one. When I finally began to investigate the weapon I was obsessed with owning one. Contrary to popular thought, the term Mannlicher does not refer to a full length stock, a feature found on some carbines produced by the Austian gun making firm of Steyr-Diamler-Puch AG (Only some of the carbines had that full length stock and I far prefer the rifles); rather, it is the name of the Austrian answer to Peter Paul Mauser and John Browning, one Ritter Ferdinand Mannlicher. There are several Mannlicher rifles dating from the late 1880s, and all Steyr brand hunting rifles to this day carry the name Mannlicher even though there is no remnant of the old boy's touch left in them. Mannlicher was a genius, who took the best atttributes of the Mauser-derived 1888 Commission Rifle and other designs to create what is arguably the most elegant and sophisticated bolt action rifle design ever produced, beginning in 1903. The name Schoenauer is that of the man who designed its unique and amazingly compact rotary spool magazine. Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifles were originally produced in 6.5 x 54 mm (1903 Model), 9 x 56 mm calibers (1905 Model), 8 x 56 mm (1908 Model) and 9.5 x 56 mm (1910 Model), but in 1924 there was a High Velocity Rifle (aka Sequoia) produced in .30`06 Springfield. Post-World War I arms limitations put a real crimp on rifle production, even for sporting use, else this rifle would doubtless have been even more famous. Numerous notable hunters used the Mannlicher-Schoenauer with great success, typically in 6.5 x 54 mm caliber, although the 9.5 x 56 mm was quite popular with the British, who called it the .375 Rimless Nitro Express. Production of the 1903 action resumed in 1950 and it was imported into this country in American chamberings in the 1950s and 1960s, with several slight design changes over the years. I managed to get a pretty decent 1950 model rifle in .30`06 caliber. The vintage Leupold 3-9X scope ruined the lines and the traditional sensibilities, but I could replace that. I had a great load for 200 grain North Fork bullets at 2550 fps. Once again, I thought my choice was made.

My 1950 Model Mannlicher Schoenauer Rifle in .30`06 Springfield

Fate took another course. Some time prior to this I had commissioned Fred Zeglin, master rifle builder of Z-Hat Custom to build me a custom Model 1895 Browning to be the perfect traditional medium bore rifle for hunting the north woods. I wanted a rifle with the power to quickly dispatch a moose or a bear and enough reach to easily make shots at 200 yards. While Fred had reworked my Remington Model 700 in .340 Weatherby for my 1999 Alaskan hunt, this rifle would be my first completely custom project. These things take time, but as it happened, the 1895 was completed as I was making preparations for my Alaskan hunt and immediately the choice of rifle changed for the last time. Seeing its beauty I had some misgivings at first, but this rifle was built to hunt and all real hunts are messy affairs. It might as well get baptized in Alaska as in Alabama.

The rifle began life as a vintage Grade I Browning Model 1895, produced some time back in the late 1980s or early 90s. I bought it pristine, new in the box, and sent it straight off to Fred, a virgin unfired. A perfectly good .30`06 barrel and set of stocks went in the scrap pile, but such are the sacrifices of custom work. The older Browning was preferred, despite supposed collector value, because it had no tang safety like on the newer Winchesters. All are produced by Miroku in Japan and are of excellent quality.

I asked Fred for a 25-inch number 5 weight Douglas XX sporter barrel in .375 Hawk chambering, which is basically a 9.3 x 62 mm necked up to .375 caliber. Anyone familiar with the 9.3 x 62 mm knows that this is a real thumper; it is generally exempted from the minimum .375 caliber rule in most parts of Africa. The case is practically identical with a standard .30`06 base case and my chamber is apparently cut to those dimensions. It can push a 270 grain bullet at 2500+ fps, retaining about 1800 fps and almost 2000 ft-lbs of energy at 300 yards. When you consider that the modern bonded core bullet, such as the North Fork Technologies design, will shed less than 10% mass on impact, as compared to at least 30% in a good bullet of yesteryear, that puts the .375 Hawk on a par in real terms with the the classic early 20th century .375 Holland and Holland Magnum - no mean performance.

Since I had a cartridge that could deliver the goods at 200+ yards, and a rifle that would permit pointed or semi-pointed bullets, I requested a quarter rib that would mount a low powered scope over the barrel in the "scout scope" style. Leupold makes a fine 2X scope precisely for this purpose and it works perfectly here. My only complaint is that it is not adjustable for focus and my astigmatism gives me trouble. The scope is secured with Talley TNT quick detachable mounts. The rifle also has a fixed standing rear sight and barrel banded front sight, so it can be used in the traditional manner. I asked Fred to replace the stock with a high grade Claro walnut (he sent me examples of blanks to choose from) that would increase the height of the comb for scope use without spoiling the classic lines of the original rifle. Despite this being a potent caliber, I selected a gracefully contoured steel buttplate that was color case hardened along with the scope mounts, hammer, trigger and lever.

A little load work with 250 and 270 grain North Fork bullets using WW-748, H-414 and IMR-4320 produced a load with the heavier bullet that clocks around 2525 fps with the heavier bullet in warm weather with no excessive pressure indicators and provides fine accuracy. My best grouping so far has been 1.5 inches at 200 yards with two bullet holes touching on the centerline of the sighting target; typically I get 3 inch groups at that range, which is not bad at all. The 200 yard shooting was important because the bullets did not group quite where I predicted they would based on the 100 yard group. Word to the wise: if you haven't shot a target at long range, you don't know where the bullet is going. It turns out that (probably due to the forward mounting) the adjustments are twice what you would normally expect; in other words I was moving the aimpoint twice as much at 200 yards as I thought with my adjustments. It took me a while to realize that.

The rifle, shown below, is featured on Fred's website and he is justly proud of his craftsmanship (go here for more details). It is a fine rifle and a pure pleasure to shoot.

My Custom Browning Model 1895 by Fred Zeglin

The Hunt

We arrived in Anchorage on 10 September 2004. Next morning we went to the Lake Clark Air hangar at Merrill Field where our bush pilot Willie from five years before remembered us and my brother's handmade oak pack frame. Willie flew us in the Navajo Chieftain to Port Alsworth on Lake Clark. We noticed that the glaciers had shrunk almost to nothingness in the intervening five years. Believe what you will about global warming, but our climate is changing dramatically.

Mark Lang also remembered us and flew us into camp in his Blackhawk (a bush plane, not the MH-60). It was very windy most of the time, which was a blessing in disguise because this was early September and the bugs were still about. It was also the driest anyone could remember; the tundra was bone dry and it had not rained in weeks. That made movement a pleasant experience, notably in contrast to our previous hunt, but it also apparently affected the migratory behavior of the caribou and (I believe) the antler growth.

I won't belabor the details, but the short version of the story is that neither of us took a caribou that week. I never saw an animal that was as good as the ones we collected five years before and, partly owing to my eternal optimism and the fact that I had only one tag, I passed up the opportunity to shoot a lesser animal simply to get something. I did manage several protracted stalks on promising herds, eventually closing to within 75 to 150 yards of several hundred caribou over the course of the week, but always the great trophy that I sought was simply not among them. The antlers were either of adolescents or possibly stunted by the dry weather. I leave that to a wildlife biologist to conclude. I also think that the Mulchatna herd may be overhunted. I worried about that five years ago and this time it really makes me wonder. Some folks contended that the main body of the herd was still many miles to the south, but I was surprised that we saw no mature bulls in so many animals over a number of days. We never saw any impressive racks taken by other hunters, though I did see one that was nice and not too small.

On the last morning I could have walked a hundred yards and killed a cow for meat, but I decided that would be pointless. In my mind I had been successful as a hunter. I had spotted game, worked around to use the wind and terrain and approached to within easy killing range. I had done all the hunting - what I hadn't done was merely to pull the trigger. I enjoyed myself immensely, despite the disappointment of not collecting a trophy head.

The second thing that I had not done was to make a kill with the new rifle, so on my return I set about rectifying that shortfall. I hunt in the Bankhead National Forest, about an hour's drive from my home, where the state also manages the Black Warrior Wildlife Management Area (WMA). It has relatively few deer, but an unusually high proportion of big bodied deer, by Southern standards. I tallied the statistics collected by the rangers a few years back and the average live weight of bucks with eight points or more was 180 pounds. That is much larger than the typical mature buck elsewhere in this region and routinely this WMA produces bucks that weigh 200 to 240 pounds, which is downright shocking. Most hunters wildly overestimate the weight of deer, just as they underestimate the weight of their rifles. Hunting in the WMA is very restricted, but its good country and I enjoy it. There are miles of undisturbed forest in the Sipsey Wilderness where no one ever penetrates because of the difficult terrain. If you kill a deer here you are either very lucky or you have earned it by hard work (or a bit of both).

Just before Christmas I killed a small buck (around 135 lbs) right at dusk. I nearly passed, but the freezer was bare and he kept walking right toward me, so I finally shot him at about twenty yards in the lower thorax, across the heart. In typical response, he took off in a crunched run, but that 1895 lever rifle with the low power scope was reloaded and came back on line faster than any rifle I have ever handled and I got another shot at about 125 yards that went through the boiler room from the opposite side as the first shot and ended the game. Either wound would have been sufficient, but I always take finishing shots at wounded game. I was as pleased with that young deer as with any other I have taken for the alacrity of its dispatch and the sense of pride I developed in dragging the carcass one and a half miles back to the road. A little luck and hard work.