Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Express Rifles and Big Bores Only Great quote from Mountain Men TV show

The guide in Alaska was on chasing a Kodiak for himself.
His own rifle is a 375 H&H.
He noted clients often asked him what rifle to bring.
He said: " You can bring any rifle you want, as long as it's 375 H&H."

Love this crusty old timer.
His boat is to die for !

Mike Horstman.
I was puzzled by his bear rifle having a blind magazine, no floor plate, no barrel sights.
It would be harder to clear in case of a jam.
It would not be dumping a magazine of ammo with a floor plate popping open, however.
Of course a jam would never happen with the sleekly tapered .375 H&H, heh-heh-heh.
But the cartridge weight is so light that a magazine full of them would never pop open a floor plate, heh-heh-heh.
It's a wash, heh-heh-heh.


His rifle looked like a stainless M70 Classic .375 H&H in a synthetic stock, non-factory barrel ?
Was it a Remchester like a Kimber ?
I wonder what he would say if I showed up with a stainless-synthetic .458 WinMag
with 404-gr Shock Hammer at 2500 fps ?
He would probably think it was OK if I was paying for the hunt.

No backup iron sights on barrel and he carries the rifle like a briefcase, gripping the scope with one hand like a bucket handle.
To be continued after the bear is down ...

Haven’t watch the show……but, I like the guide already! I thought that I was the only guy that “disrespected” my scope by using it as an handle! 🙂 memtb

Mike Horstman got his bear.
A 25-year-old boar with well-worn teeth and battle scars.
Mike knows what he is talking about when it comes to aging Kodiak bears, and the hunting of them.

Mike did not use his rifle scope as a handle anymore in the finale episode, Episode 13.
He only did it for a few seconds of a scene near the end of Episode 12 of Mountain Men.
The only other thing I can critique on his rifle scope respect is he should get some flip-up lens covers on that abused scope,
as much as it rains on Kodiak.
Scope looked like a Leupold Vari-X II, 2-7x33mm, gloss black in nickel-plated Leupold rings and the old JR-style 2-piece bases,
with windage screw on rear base and rotating dove tail for front.
Both bases overhang the loading/ejection port slightly.
All-in-all, maybe not the best for luggage-handler use.

Kudos for Mike reloading his own ammo.
He used Barnes TSX for his demo .375 H&H loads.
One bullet and the bear dropped, DRT.
Looks to me like it was a spine hit a bit far to the rear, paralyzed hind legs, butt went down,
forelegs thrashed once as the bear turned about 90 degrees to his left and died on his right side.
Hind legs did not move as it crumpled.
Bear was shot almost from the rear, quartering away and was hit just forward of its butt, high on the right side of bear.
Bullet exit wound on left side of bear is visible in one brief shot of dead bear, high on left side of bear,
about where I would say the chest meets the abdomen.
DRT.

Mike has a muzzle brake on his .375 H&H rifle.
He also wears a Medic Alert bracelet that says "Blood Thinner."
I guess he wishes to reduce bruising of his shoulder.

It is amazing what you can see if you DVR the episode and advance it frame-by-frame at the important seconds of time.

Riflecrank, I was nodding in full agreement until……you mentioned the muzzle brake. Unless it’s a “very” light H&H ……2+ inches of useable barrel length was wasted with the brake, or the break made it longer and more difficult to handle in the thick stuff!

Other than that little disagreement with his tools…..I like his choices! memtb

Front sights grab branches.

Amazing all the expert advice from the guys who have never hunted on Kodiak island, not to mention ever killed a Brown Bear.

I remember one show where the client had this silly huge "tactical" rifle with a long bbl and huge protruding magazine and a giant scope. Mike had to tell him to shoot the bear several times before he did. All it takes is money.

The worst part of that show is the idiot who thinks you can chase away Pumas and they won't come back.
He also drags around an AR when 94 Trapper carbine would do anything he needs done.

Must be participating on a neighboring hunting forum! 😂 memtb

I seen some doozies here before but this is new.

Bullshitting is easy, eh ? Tell us more. OK:

I spent 5 years in Alaska and soon as I became a resident hunter I went self-guided for a week, some might say misguided, to Kodiak for deer and fun with the bears.
Had a Kodiak bear press his nose on my tent so his nose and mine were separated only by inches and a layer of nylon cloth,
one moonless night at Spiridon Moor on the shore of Spiridon Lake near Spiridon Bay.

A couple years later I drew a brown bear tag for another Kodiak week at Jap Bay.
Misguidedly I ran at King Kong of Kodiak glassed from a mile away, got within 300 yards of him before he ran.
Had he not been sitting 50 yards above the camp of a couple of bowyers, watching them with his head on paws,
sniffing their breakfast bacon, I might have been sneakier, and I might have been less of a hero to the deer hunters.
Maybe I saved their bacon ?

I hope Mike has an opening, guiding Kodiak when I get it all together for a brown bear hunt there.
To heck with leaving it to someone else.
404-gr/.458 Shock Hammer at 2500 fps MV should do nicely.
Now back to critiquing his .375 H&H,
the good, bad and ugly of it all:

Good:

Good, bad, or ugly, it depends on the eyes of the beholder:

Rifle Crank can you get a close up of the powder he used? I watched the episode and it looked like coffee grinds?

Definitely ugly, carrying rifle using scope as handle:

The barreled action is definitely light, so is the scope,
but about the stock I do not know.
Weatherbyesque Monte Carlo butt and grip with flat-bottomed and flat-sided, long, fat forearm might turn it into a medium-weight rifle.

MadDog4298,

This is the best I can do, no picture of a labeled cannister was found by me:





Looks like an extruded smokeless with medium to short grains, yes, almost the color of coffee grounds.

I do not think Mike has been reduced to making his own BP yet,
but if the supply chain forces him to, he probably could.
He is still getting supplies, and still has electricity to power his simple RCBS digital scales.
Same as the first digital scales I had.
Mine is long since caput as well as a Hornady that dispensed and weighed the powder, a second digital caput for me.
I am back to using metered throws, a manual trickler, and mechanical balance beam scales.
To heck with the modern stuff.

Riflecrank thanks for the pictures.