Читать книгу Gun Digest 2011 онлайн

163 страница из 495

Discouraging the use of .22 RFs for hunting (but not, of course, for practice and target shooting) was but half of “Rim Fires and Game”; the other half was a ringing endorsement of Tedmon’s ideal small-game rimfire, the Stevens .25 Long. “After having spent a lifetime shooting at small game and seeing it murdered by others, I can only repeat what I have said time and again before: the .25 RF is by far the best small game rim fire cartridge we have today.” Such sentiments were echoed by almost everyone who wrote about this cartridge, including Whelen (“the only rim-fire to use for hunting”), but everyone complained of its unreasonable cost: well over twice the price of .22 LRs. “There is your answer,” explained Tedmon; “Humanity is a hollow term where the average man’s pocketbook is involved.”

For his own use, Tedmon inclined toward the .25-20 Single Shot, experimenting with loads that stretched the potential of this venerable round, but his words in this piece were aimed at the great mass of casual shooters who did not reload. It should go without saying, moreover, that he was not addressing himself to small-bore riflemen in the class of Charles Landis, who hunted with match-grade rifles and target scopes and whose marksmanship and skill in range estimation were fruits of a lifetime of practice and study of the technical minutiae of their sport.