Bob Milek / Elmer Keith Memorial Hunt

[Radamus]

Cool comp Shoe! I enjoyed reading the opening because this hits home for me. I have a original Contender from the mid/late 80's and is the root of my affection for the Rival. I've had mine about 25 years. The beauty of this handgun is the ability to change out barrels in all kinds of flavors and configurations, (ironically the Contender was never chambered in .308, that wouldn't come along until the Encore with increased size and frame strength). The guy I bought it from, a family friend, had several barrels and loads of pieces and parts for grips/sights and forearms. Among this spread was a caliber I'd never heard of. the guy spent some time with me explaining and making some rounds for this one wildcat barrel I would be getting. We went to his shop and he ran me through the process of transforming some 30-30 cases into the venerable .357 Herrett, of which this comp is connected to. Since those days I've come come to appreciate the work those guys did and the Herrett is one of my favorite rounds to show off. It is a pain in the ass to make and when properly loaded is a real hammer. After fire forming you only size the neck as in the Contender it headspaces on the small shoulder. The tricky part of this is the 30-30 being a rimmed case designed to headspace on the rim so it's a tricky little process. The only downside to this round is case life, I rarely get more than 5 or 6 reloads before head separation signs appear but some cases are slightly tougher than others. There's a vast amount of history behind the development of Herrett wildcats for those who like an adventure in reloading! -

Steps to make the .357 Herrett goes- Lock and Learn! Take a 30-30 case, trim .25 off the neck- ball expander through the neck to open up for .357 pistol bullets- load with full charge - fire form the case to create the shoulder - check OAL in case some of the brass flows out, face off and neck size after that!

Go out there with purpose! The rival performs better in this game that it gets credit for imo, one of my favs!

[BuiuRei]

Thanks for hosting, SoftShoe!
One question: is the muzzleloading pisol valid?
Another thing: the yotes that are just for the "by the pound" bonus need to be shot with the .308 or .44 for the bonus as well?

[SoftShoe]

@ Radamus: My own fav is the 30 Herrett. I still have mine as well but now the barrel sits in a Case Hardened G2 frame that I had a trigger job done one with a set of custom grips. The guy that made them was a retired WV coal miner who just liked making stocks for Contenders. I have 2nd stock from him as well in Royal Walnut. You should see the figure in it! He called the stock thats on my G2 "Plow Handle" grips. I dont recall what he called the one. I will have to post a pic of them.

EDIT: I get 15-20 shots per case. The trick is I use nickel plated brass. I ran into the same trouble you did so thought I would try nickel & have never looked back.

@ BuiuRei: Yes any pistol is fine so feel free to use the ML one as well. If you going for the Milek or Keith bonus's the coyotes will need to be shot with the 308 or 44.

[Radamus]

Thanks for hosting, SoftShoe!
One question: is the muzzleloading pisol valid?
Another thing: the yotes that are just for the "by the pound" bonus need to be shot with the .308 or .44 for the bonus as well?

Pistol is a pistol right? I hope the smoke stick is good` I just carried it out on a hunt - and Thank You EHR for the worst load of garbage in a single hunt for some time! - Tip for ya Ivan - make sure it's loaded w/.45 and not .50 if you shoot a yote ~ don't need to ask me why I pointed this out do ya?

Oh, something tricky I just noticed- I submitted my hunt just to check out it works ok - I shot 1 yote that counted for the by the pound segment, but it shouldn't have - Not that this could actually be a thing, just an observation.

[Tod1d]

Oh, something tricky I just noticed- I submitted my hunt just to check out it works ok - I shot 1 yote that counted for the by the pound segment, but it shouldn't have - Not that this could actually be a thing, just an observation.

Fixed, thanks. I checked that the M/L Pistol was legal, but didn't check which ammo.

[J_Birdman]

Tod1d, would it be possible to highlight each "best of species" on the leaderboard so that we can easily see the 100% animals we're trying to compete against? If not, thanks anyway.

[BCKidd]

Enjoyin' the six guns SS! Nice comp, what makes it even better is seeing the host participate, my goal is to beat you! Peace.

BCKidd.

[DYEUZ]

Fun comp so far . All is normal for me . Good hunts and lots of bad ones .

[SoftShoe]

I mentioned posting pics earlier of a couple of my pistols with custom stocks. Forgive the low quality, I did it with my phone.

Contender G2 with a case color frame (limited production) chambered in 30 Herrett (caliber Bob Milek was instrumental in creating) with a 14" barrel & Bushnell 2-6x long eye relief (pistol) scope. Silver stud in the forearm is for mounting my bipod. The guy I bought the stock from called it a "Plow Handle" grip. Its not readily apparent in the pic but the back of the grip is very wide making it excellent at distributing recoil. This is purely a hunting gun, I have taken everything from field mice to deer with it but it probably gets the most use shooting coyotes. Loaded pretty hot with a 125gr Nosler Ballistic tip does significant damage on deer sized critters.



Contender chambered in 22 Hornet with a 10in barrel sporting a 4" hi rise mount. It typically has a Bushnell elite 4-12x rifle scope on it but I sent it back to bushnell a couple weeks ago. I was tuning it up to hunt some gophers on the east side of my property a few weeks ago & noticed it would not hold a zero. Zero the pistol to hit the bullseye at 100yds. Pick up the pistol & shake it then fire a shot & the bullet would hit 3" away from the mark. Obviously something seriously wrong with it. In any case this stock is a variation of his Plow Handle & is done in Royal Walnut. The pic doesnt do it justice because you can only barely see the curl in the wood but in person it has a very strong curl to it. Very pretty!



I would imagine many if not most of you are scratching your head at that mount. I used to do allot of Silhouette shooting & this was the pistol I used to compete in the Field Pistol category. It is very good for shooting unsupported. What you do is use one hand on the grip & the other grabs the scope & mount. You then tuck your elbows to your sides & bring the scope up to normal rifle scope eye relief to shoot.

[Grizdude]

Nice comp! Thanks for hosting, SoftShoe! I'll give it a shot... or two!