Riflescope Blog: Expert's reviews, news, notes on rifle scopes, hunting optics, shooting, binoculars, night vision sights, gun accessories, and more

Since the beginning of recorded history, humans have had existential questions on profound matters never quite answered fully or correctly. Questions about God, the afterlife, our universe, and Canada geese come to mind. First three are comparatively easy to answer, but mankind still wonders about Canada geese and why they exist. Most think they are here to fertilize every #%$*&^%# lawn outside a bank or shopping mall or playground sandbox. That may be part of it, but the main reason they are here is for us to kill the damned locust-like honkers with whatever means available (in season with a license and state and federal stamps and non-toxic shot). After the carcasses are collected and pillow cases filled with breast feathers you still have to do something with the meat. Some folks like to thoroughly char the meat over apple wood for a couple hours, then throw away the meat and eat the wood. I have a better recommendation. The following recipe is one of my Shirley's very favorite entrees in the world. I heartily endorse it.

Ingredients:

Breast fillets from 3-4 geese cut into one inch chunks

One bottle of Kikoman's Lite Teriaki sauce

One pound of thick uncooked bacon, cut in half

Your favorite fresh vegetables for grilling

Extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt

Method:

Remove all fat and fillet goose breasts into cubes approximately one inch square. Marinade in plastic ziploc bag with enough Teriaki sauce to cover them. Squeeze out air from bag. Let the goose sit in the refrigerator overnight or several hours. I prefer to use the Lite sauce due to much less included sodium. Not really for health reasons, but the regular is just a bit saltier than I like.

Dip half piece of bacon in marinade and wrap around goose chunk. Skewer so that the bacon stays on. Alternate with vegetables of your choice. I use mushrooms, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, various colored peppers, zucchini, onions, or whatever I have a taste for or whatever is ready in my garden. Use whatever you like. There are no rules. Experiment. I have even used pineapples and occasionally jalapenos. Sprinkle vegetables with salt and baste with olive oil.

Using two skewers on each kabob will prevent the food from spinning on the skewer when you turn them.

Grill over medium heat for 15-25 minutes. Overcooking will ruin the meat. Rare is what you want. If you want your bacon a bit crispy, baste with remaining teriaki sauce about 5 minutes before the food is done and turn the heat up if using a gas grill. You may also microwave the bacon for a minute before wrapping it around the goose. Have a water bottle handy for flare ups. I usually serve the kabobs on a bed of wild rice.

The preceding and following recipes work equally well on blue geese and snow geese.

Ingredients:

For goose:

6-8 goose breasts

One cup honey

4 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup apple cider

Seasoned salt

For water pan:

Bottle red wine (your choice dry or sweet)

Remaining gallon of apple cider

Small handful of whole cloves

6-8 cinnamon sticks

Hot water

For smoker:

6-8 chunks of fruit wood, about the size of your middle finger, soaked for several hours in water

Cooking spray

Method:

For goose, sprinkle with seasoned salt. Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Add honey and cider and heat until warm, stirring occasionally. Add goose breasts and coat. Remove the breasts and place in bowl for transport to smoker.

For water pan, combine red wine, cider, cloves, and cinnamon. Fill remaining space with hot water. Check water pan when checking goose and add hot water only if needed. Resist the temptation to open the lid unnecessarily. Open only for basting and turning meat. Every time you open the lid you add another lengthy period of cooking time because the heat builds up slowly. Every time you add water it also slows the cooking time. Such temperature variations also tend to dry the meat.

For smoker, place wet wood chunks around heating element or place around coals so that the chunks smoke slowly. Carefully install filled water pan. Spray grates with cooking spray. If you don't, clean up will be terrible with this recipe.

Heat until water is simmering and place goose breasts on smoker grate. Don't touch it for an hour, then baste breasts quickly. Turn, baste again and recover. Check again in about an hour. Depending on the temperature of your smoker, the breasts may be done in anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to over 2 hours. Meat will shrivel when cooked, and have lovely grate marks singed in. Again, goose should be more rare than not. I usually put the least pretty breast on the top grate for slicing and sampling for doneness. Remove the breasts when done to your liking and wrap with foil to rest and redistribute the internal juices.

I prefer mine cold, sliced thinly against the grain, and served with my homemade horseradish. This is also excellent with a variety of mustards. My Shirley and I like honey mustard or stone ground, but use what you like. Again, experiment. These slices can be put on crackers with cheeses, or even on a roll for a delicious sandwich similar to roast beef.

Many hunters won't eat geese to save their lives. I guarantee these recipes will change their minds. Enjoy!

I’m still working on my friend Jerry the instructor’s shooting package. His model 70 Heavy Varmint is lapped, recrowned, polished, mounted and ready to go. I’m configuring his gun case now. I decided on a Storm 3300 gun case. I own a couple of Pelican 1750 gun cases and have taken them tens of thousands of miles. They are still absolutely perfect besides some battle scars. Storm is the direct competitor to Pelican, or was, anyway, because Pelican recently bought Storm. The cases are very close to each other in construction, but the Storm is just a bit less expensive. Both have lifetime warranties. I thought I would opt for the Storm to save some cash and get to know them a bit better. A Pelican 1750 was opened on one side of my pool table and the Storm 3300 on the other side. This is what I found when I compared the two gun cases:

The Pelican case is much heavier in weight, by almost 6.5 pounds. It weighs almost 26 pounds with nothing but foam in it. It feels much more substantial. The lid does not flex when opened as much as the Storm, which has less thickness all around. But 6 pounds is a lot to carry. Advantage, Storm.

The middle hinges on the Pelican gun case are much more secure and enclosed than on the Storm. Advantage, Pelican.

The Storm has a total of 6 latches. Four in the front and one on either end. The latches are equipped with a center button that is pushed to relieve the tension so the latch can be opened with ease. The Pelican has only four latches, but they are substantially sturdier. They are a two piece design and can also be opened easily. With the combination of the thicker material the Pelican is made out of, and the sturdier latches, I would say overall toughness goes to the Pelican. The older Pelicans had a one piece latch that was a bear to open and close. I’m glad those are gone. Advantage, Pelican.

The carry handle is wide and covered with rubber on the Storm, making it very comfortable to pull. The Pelican handle is a bit sturdier but not very comfortable. Advantage, even.

The dimensions of the cases are almost, but not quite, identical. Advantage, even.

The wheels on both have similar construction and glide smoothly even heavily loaded. Both are absolutely superb. The wheels on my well-worn Pelican cases still spin freely after many trips to states, countries, and continents. Hard to improve on this. Advantage, even.

The Pelican case has thicker material around the padlock holes, and also has metal inserts around the hole. Advantage, Pelican.

The hard plastic sticker meant to be meticulously and permanently affixed to the Storm case was put on crooked. Lack of attention by one single monkey pretty much set the tone against Storm. Would you buy a new car with the dealer sticker pasted crooked and with wrinkles in it? It’s only aesthetics, but my friend is paying a lot of money for a lifetime case. It should appear as a $200.00 case, not something just slapped together. Terrible, terrible. This alone could be a deal breaker for many, not just compulsives like me.

Now here’s the real deal breaker with the Storm case. I usually put my guns in a case so the right side of the stock is up, with the muzzle to the right, and the butt stock an inch away from the left inside edge of the case. Most of the guns I travel with have a serial number on the right side of the gun. When getting checked in by airport TSA, the easier it is to pass through expediently, the better. If your gun doesn’t have to come out of the case, better still. When your gun is in the case like just described, the heaviest part of the case is on your left. With a Pelican case, the carry handle is on the muzzle end. Therefore, the heavy part of your gun (and whatever other heavy equipment you’ve included) is over the wheels. Like my Grandpa the carpenter said, "Let the saw do the work." The analogy translates to: let the wheels do the work. Why have the heavy part close to the handle where you have to use arm strength to muscle it around? Answer. Don’t. It’s stupid. The Storm case has the carry handle on the opposite side as the Pelican, the wrong side, at least when I put my gun in the way I like. This was the ultimate reason I returned my Storm and bought another Pelican 1750. If you don't care how your gun is positioned inside the case, this is a moot point.

Conclusions: The Pelican has the carry handle on the correct side for a weight-down carry. This is critical to me. If both cases had the handle in the proper place for me, and the Storm case didn’t have the stupid sticker on crooked, I would have bought the Storm for my friend Jerry because it’s lighter. By quite a bit. Not as sturdy, but Jerry isn’t traveling the world, he just wanted a good case. The Storm 3300 is not a good case, but an excellent one, and a bit less expensive. I don’t think it is as sturdy as the Pelican 1750, but I wouldn’t expect any issues with any hard use of any kind. Since I never know what to expect on whatever trip I’m on, I will opt for the Pelican cases, the same ones I have always relied on. Simply put, the Pelican 1750 case is the best gun case for a hard use traveler I have ever seen. You only have to pay for it once. The warranty is “You break it, we replace it, forever!” A tongue in cheek caveat to that warranty is “except for shark attack and children under three.” Funny.

The first thing to know about purchasing any laser rangefinder is that the maximum ranges listed for a particular unit are for use with large, smooth, reflective targets under ideal atmospheric conditions, which means cloudy and clear. You may get a reading of 1000 yards off a light colored building, but only be able to read a tree or a deer at half that distance or less, and a flag on the green at a couple hundred yards maximum. Golf rangefinders are first priority rangefinders, meaning that they read the closer of two objects in the aiming area.

The Bushnell Pinseeker is my favorite golfing rangefinder for many reasons. The first reason is that it offers a bright, clear picture. Many rangefinders start off in the negative column because they don’t even let you see clearly enough. The Pinseeker also has 7x magnification. This means that the objects you are looking at seem 7 times closer than what your unaided eye sees. This is an appropriate amount of magnification for a laser rangefinder that has the capabilities of ranging up to an amazing 1600 yards on large, reflective surfaces under ideal atmospheric conditions. It will also range a tree at 1000 yards, and a flag up to 400 yards. Sorry, Tiger, even your best drives won’t go that far. The tremendous ranging capability of the Pinseeker is the second reason it’s my favorite.

The third reason is the reticle, or aiming point. I love it. It is a simple circle that you place around the object you want to range and hit the power button. Your distance is immediately shown in the LCD screen in large, easy to read numbers.

The fourth reason I like the Pinseeker so much is that it is so simple even a duffer like me can use it without thinking about how to work the thing. Some rangefinders have so many electronic options and modes and lines and stuff cluttering up your viewing screen you may think you’re looking through the cockpit of a jet fighter. I don’t pretend to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but simple is better in most cases.

The size of the Bushnell Pinseeker may initially seem like a drawback because it’s a bit larger than others on the market. Wrong. It is a very big plus, with no detriments. The larger size makes it extremely easy to hold on distant targets with both hands. A golf rangefinder is also not something that you will carry on your belt. It stays in your bag. If you need to be dropped off by your ball while your partner takes the cart to his, you can always loop the lanyard around your neck or just carry it. It is not obtrusive.

The Pinseeker option targets the flag only, and not the background. When in the Pinseeker mode and you hit the power button to get a range, a circle will surround the small icon of a pin and flag in the lower left side of your screen. This is telling you that the trees 30 yards behind your flag are not being targeted, but rather just the flag. With the Pinseeker mode off, you can use the scan mode. Hold down the power button and scan the unit and get a constantly changing reading. If, for instance, you are in scan mode and you start from the left of the flag and slowly move it to the right to the flag, your rangefinder may read the woods behind the green and display, say, 90 yards, 89, 88, 87, 86, and then all of a sudden you come to the flag and it reads 60, you know you just positively read the distance to the flag.

The Pinseeker comes with a classy soft case with a magnetic closure and a waist strap, a lanyard for the unit, and easy instructions. Like I said, even I find it easy to use. The Bushnell Pinseeker gets my highest recommendation for a golfing rangefinder. I also recommend getting the model with the “slope” feature if you are not competing in tournaments. The “slope” feature is a digital inclinometer and gives the exact horizontal distance to the ball or flag, and compensates for inclines and declines. Line of sight distance down a steep hill may read 180 yards, whereas the horizontal distance may be 30 yards less. It helps to choose a club more accurately. Beware, the “slope” edition is illegal for tournament use whether in the “slope” mode (which you can turn off) or not. You may not even legally have a “slope” edition in your bag. The Pinseeker without “slope” is the Tournament Edition number 205102. With the “slope” feature it is number 205103.

Bushnell also offers a golf cart mount as an accessory. It is item number 203119. It attaches the rangefinder to your golf cart for easy access, and has a quick release clamp. Another optional accessory is the Push/Pull Cart Mount number 201612. This is an adjustable accessory that inserts into the golf cart umbrella holder and the bottom of any rangefinder with a tripod socket to help steady it. The excellent case that comes with the Pinseeker is also sold separately and will fit any rangefinder regardless of brand. This is number 203120. Any one or more of these accessories may be worthwhile options for your Pinseeker or other rangefinder.
By the way, Sergio Garcia is the spokesperson for the Bushnell laser rangefinders. If it’s good enough for Sergio….

This October I have two elk hunts scheduled. The first one starts at 9500 feet and I expect this hunt to be the most demanding I've ever attempted. I think I may just shoot myself before I go so I won't have to trouble anyone to carry my body back down the mountain. I'm not the perfect physical specimen these days. Not that I ever was. But I take my hunting very seriously, and know I have to get back into shape, so I started working out this weekend. I entertained some friends last Friday, and by Saturday morning the flotsam and jetsam of the wicked and debauched was piled around the game room and spilled into the gun room. My workout session consisted of three trips from downstairs to the recycling bin in the garage with arms full of empty beer bottles. Quite the exertion. Yep, I'm serious about getting in shape.

This obviously had nothing to do with this week's cooking. Country ribs with Maytag blue cheese (you must try this best of all blue cheeses) and apple slices (fruit counts for good, right?), grilled pork chops with a fiery Jamaican rub, chicken pot pie with real cream, and chocolate cake and other health foods, too.

I did take a walk with Rad with the intention of losing an ounce or two. I doubt it took because when we go out he carries my beer and I eat peanuts. So I probably came back a bit heavier.

Reticles, Red Dots, and Lasers training is coming up this Wednesday. All the troops here are invited. If we head off a few questions a day and make the sales agents more familiar and comfortable with products, then both we and the customers win.