American Handgunner May/June 1977

only about two per cent of the land in thatostensibly wide-open state is actually freeto the public. If you want to hunt Texas,it'll be on somebody's property, and if itisn't yours, you can expect to pay for theprivilege. It's fee hunting in the wild, notpreserve shooting, and the game is as wildon the Y-0 as it is in that 2% of freeprairie. It's not for armchair hunters.Which left me with a good hunt comingupl and something to come up with myselfthat hadn't been done yet. I got the answeroutside the cabin that first morning as wewere getting set to go. Hal was toying withmy Dan Wesson, and I with the beautifulcustomizing job that had been done onHal's Python by Jerry Moran of Clio,Michigan. "What a terrific double action,"we said almost simultaneously.Bing! Light-bulb-over-head! Eureka!"Hal," I asked, "has anybody ever shotgame out here, with a handgun, double action?"''Sure, lots of people use double actions.""No, I mean, shooting a double action,double action?" He paused only for a second."No," he said, and added the logicalquestion, "Why would anyone want to?""To score a first," I said, addingquickly, "It makes sense. I do a lot of dou-ble action shooting in combat competition.The top Masters there are turning todouble action shooting at even the longranges. The theory is that you don't breakyour hold to cock the piece, and that onceyou've mastered double action shooting,you can hold and squeeze for closergroups that way."he theory had, at least, worked for me.Since I had gone to DA-only, my fifty-yardscores had improved noticeably. I personallyfeel that, at least in target shooting,a slow rolling DA pull, feeding backthrough the trigger finger into a concentratingmind, allows a shot to break morenaturally with the sights where they belong.I had found in bullseye shooting, forinstance, that the "roller7' trber of a European-22 like the DES Unique 69, wasaciually m-ore controllable than the crisp"glass rod" triggers on American pistols,because with the constant rolling motion,you didn't know quite when the firing pinwas going to be loosed. This makes itvirtually impossible to jerk or heel the gunby anticipating the let-off."Double action it is," Hal shrugged, notaltogether convinced.My Dan Wesson was sighted for wadcutters,Hal's Python for a heavier -357load than the 125-gr. Remington hol-Harvey Goff points out distant cluster of Corsican sheep to author.The species is fast, wary, super-intelligent and a tough challenge.lowpoints we were going to use. Werepaired to the very adequate range ashort distance from the main house andcabins* and sighted in with the ear-splittingRemingtons. Even through my Clarkear protectors, the blast was fierce. Butthe accuracy was tremendous* and thatwas half of what counted: the rest waspower, and that would be tested soonenough.Harvey Goff was the guide who took usout. The Y-0 is big, some 1251000 acres,and you need a guide partly to give you anidea where the game might be, but mainlyso you can find your way back, especiallyif you're a Yankee who tends to get lostany place where he (a) can't find a streetsign on every block, or (b) can't give thecamel its head and trust it to find the nextoasis.It was Harvey who spotted the first Corsicanrams* the species Charlie hadselected as being fast, wary, super-intelligent,and an all-around tough challengefor a wheelgunner. They were travellingthick and close and distant, spookingwhen the 4WD pickup was still hundredsof yards away, but we were able to see wellenough through the binoculars that therewasn't a good set of horns among them.The hours went by. So did the Corsicansheep. We must have glassed fifty beforeHarvey lowered his binoculars andpointed to a big, grizzled ram who wasbusily cutting a couple of ewes away from