Best recreational hunting books according to redditors

A reply to /u/Dereliction

Great question!

Maltese falcons were already very famous, in part due to the treatise on falconry written by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, among which titles is King of Sicily, at a time when Malta was a fief of the Kingdom of Sicily. So, Maltese falcons had long been very desirable, and given the popularity of falconry among the royals of Europe at the time, to be gifted a Maltese falcon is a sign of honor.

Even today you can order a copy of this book, "The Art of Falconry", although you may have to spell out the author's name as "Frederick Second of Hohenstaufen."

Finally, Charles V didn't "give" Malta to the Knights, he rented it to them, under feudal contract in his capacity as ruler of Sicily. This is why the text of the grant specified what should happen in case of succession of the grand master, who should assign the bishop of Malta (the viceroy of Sicily, not the knights), how Malta should not engage in activities against Sicily, etc.

Perhaps most telling is that there are conditions for returning Malta to Sicily if/when the Knights were able to re-conquer Rhodes their original home, or if it decides itself to relocate elsewhere. So Charles expected the situation to improve such that the knights could relocate to a more advanced position, instead it ended up being a long-term home for them.

A good way to increase your knowledge base is reading. Here are some books I have read and would recommend.

A. Navy Seal Shooting by Chris Sajnog.

Probably the best book to learn about the fundamentals. Chris covers the mental mastery of shooting better than any other book I am aware of.

B. In The Gravest Extreme by Massad Ayoob.

If you own guns for self defense I would recommend this book. While this was written in the 1980's it is still relevant today. It is the definitive work on deadly use of force law in the United States.

C. Combat Shooting (Or any other book) by Massad Ayoob

Ayoob has established himself as perhaps the authority on defensive handgun use through his extensive use of case studies.

D. The Book of Two Guns by Tiger Mckee.

This was written primarily revolving around the AR-15 and 1911. However, It's principles are applicable to any fighting rifle or handgun.

Read more about falconry before going into this.

Seriously, becoming a falconer is more work than people think. You can't just buy a falcon and wing it, nor can you take one training class and expect to be ready to fly one let alone own one.

Here are some things you need to know about falcons:

• they are the fastest flying bird in the world, with a top recorded speed of 242miles/hr.
  
• they are extremely sensitive to temperature, stress. Say you have a bird, and he overheats in the summer. He will become very sick, so you try everything you can to cool him down. You are successful, and his core temperature is back to normal. Your bird dies anyway, because despite everything you do to help, it's the stress of the whole experience that will kill him. Because of this danger, taking care of a Falcon is a crucial responsibility that is nothing like having a pet dog or cat.
  
• they can easily contract a deadly foot fungus called bumblefoot. You must clean their feet once a day to avoid this. Believe me, cleaning a falcon's foot is not a walk in the park. Expect to have puncture wounds on your hands all the time. If you find a tiny red spot on their feet and confirm that it is the start of bumblefoot? You need to isolate the bird immediately. Clean everything in its cage, throw out its perch, throw out the bedding, gravel, their food. You basically need to start over from scratch. It is very expensive. If your bird's bumblefoot gets as extreme as the picture in the wikipedia article I linked to, prepare for losing your bird. The guinea pig in the photo might not die from it, but a falcon most certainly will.
  
  Falcons are not pets like other birds (parrots, budgies, etc). They will not warm up to you easily. It takes weeks of perseverance and trust-training to even get to the point where they will perch comfortably on your arm. They are birds of prey and you need to respect that. They will hunt, they will kill, and this is the purpose of falconry. You will learn from the falcon how to hunt, not the other way around. Small animals are at risk, and if your falcon attacks one, it will be your responsibility.
  
  Though this book is about 800 years old, it is one of the most complete and best books out there on the subject. http://www.amazon.ca/Art-Falconry-Frederick-II-Hohenstaufen/dp/0804703744
  
  
  
  

This guy right here. I read it while I was bored in Air Force tech school and it was a great resource.

You may want to take a look at a book like this and related titles on the same page. It's cheap and although it's not the definitive resource, it's certainly a good introduction to hunting.

Also, depending on your skill set, you may want to practice aspects of hunting which are often overlooked but are necessary to get into range and a take a shot. Things related to camping and fieldcraft, like:

• physical fitness
  
• hiking
  
• camping
  
• packing light
  
• navigation: compass/map/GPS/stars
  
• studying public lands for hunting
  
• recognizing animal sign and calls
  
• spotting
  
• tracking
  
• hunting seasons
  
• camouflage both personal and blinds
  
• moving quietly in the wild
  
• first aid and survival
  
• dog training and handling for hunting
  
  And then finally, shooting, including target practice and weapons handling and safety. I wish you both luck on your journey!
  

You could go to a pay to hunt place and they could maybe set you up, but I don't think someone will be able to take you out and teach you to still hunt, which is what it's actually called. You gotta be stupid quiet when doing something like that. Deer can hear for a long, long distance. Your best bet is to just go out in the woods and try it. It's hard and it'll probably take years of practice, but that's what the hobby is all about really. Honestly, you don't even need any gear off the bat. Just find a place you want to hunt and go for a walk and look for deer. Hunting is like 80% scouting unless you have private property or something. Here's a good book I recommend on the topic. It's very, very detailed and will at least get your mind in the right place to try it out for the first time:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DUGSQMU/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

A lot of oversimplification and a few mistakes. Rinker is the best introduction for the layperson (although it has a few trivial mistakes as well) and McCoy is the bible (there is an errata sheet to correct the errors), but is only for those with post-grad mathematical chops.

The ballistic coefficient is a value assigned to a bullet representing it's ability to travel through air.

It is used in various ballistics formulas to predict it's exterior ballistics. (How it travels to targets.)

This book is available at most book stores and online, and is excellent for the layman, and technical person, alike.

Edit: Oh yeah, the bigger the number, the more efficiently it travels. (Resists wind, and maintains velocity.)

You are potentially impacting far more than the distance you're able to see. There are entire books devoted to managing hunting land. I'd read a couple before doing anything.

Here's a good one:

https://www.amazon.com/Strategies-Whitetails-Charles-J-Alsheimer/dp/0896893316

Digging around elsewhere, I found this thread on oldgobbler.com; outside of Tenth Legion, books lots of people there are recommending:

• A One Man Game by Kenny Morgan
  
• The Old Pro Turkey Hunter by Gene Nunnery
  
• Practical Turkey Hunting Strategies by Ray Eye
  
  Haven't read any of these, but picking up One Man Game now.

This is what i'll be reading!

Oh, gotcha. Sorry, it doesn't actually state it in the document provided. I was just showing that it does account for the different bullet weight. I believe I read that explanation in this book, but I'm not sure.

I haven't read this book yet, but this question was asked sometime ago, and this book received several recommendations.

https://www.amazon.com/Strategies-Whitetails-Charles-J-Alsheimer/dp/0896893316

I'm reading this as you know how to fire rifles well but are new to pistols and are having trouble. If you used iron sights on rifles I'm assuming you have sight alignment, sight picture, and trigger pull fundamentals. That leaves the biggest culprit your handgun grip, recoil anticipation, and stance. I highly recommend getting a laser insert such as the LaserLyte Laser Trainer which will help you work on the fundamentals without the recoil doing dry fire. I recommend the book [navy seal shooting](Navy SEAL Shooting https://www.amazon.com/dp/194378700X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_LP2zzbTG326QX) by Chris Sajnog. It's got some good info. He also has a youtube channel with some pretty good info. For pistol grip I found Jerry Miculek's video helpful.

One tip my wife taught me on trigger control when adjusting to recoil is focus on saying the word "squeeeeeeeeeezzzzeee" in your mind when you are ready to fire, slowly adding pressure to the trigger until the shot happens. It avoids the anticipation because you are almost surprised by the shot when it finally goes off.

In person lessons are good if you can get them. If you don't have someone to help you try setting up a video of you shooting so you can see what your stance and movement looks like.

One last note, when I took my California fire arms training they made a big deal about not shooting water because of the danger of ricochet it poses. I have no experience with it myself, but just thought I'd pass it along.

I don't know if you are a reader or have time to consume a book before season, but I'm gonna recommend a couple of books. The first is Ray Eye's Turkey Hunting Bible I read his beginner turkey hunting book and it is replete with years of knowledge and written in a good ol' boy way that I love. This includes most of the information in that plus a bit more. Cannot recommend this enough for first hunting.

The second is Hunting Pressured Turkeys by Brian Lovett This contains a bit more advanced stuff once you get the basics.

Man has been hunting without 'baiting' deer for a millennia.

Tried and true tactics for those who don't throw out a pile of bait for young stupid deer to feast on:

• Heavy producing Beech and Oak ridges
  
  
• Most fruit woods, but especially apple trees
  
  
• The edge of AG fields, especially corn and soybean
  
  
• Primary Scrape Areas - anywhere you find multiple scrapes within a relatively short distance. It can be as few as 2-3 scrapes within 10-15 yards, or 5-6 in a 60 yards stretch.
  
  
• Licking branches with accompanying scrapes
  
  
• Rub lines
  
  
• Bedding Areas
  
  
• Well worn game trails
  
  
  In my experience you will never see mature deer at a bait pile during regular hunting hours. Especially in pressured states like MI. The mature deer will scent you and will simply visit your bait pile during the midnight hours.
  
  Also, if you are really wanting to challenge yourself I suggest reading a few of John and Chris Eberhardt's books. They are a father and son team of hunters from Michigan who only hunt public land and permission-given private land. They rarely bait, and instead rely on heavy scouting and a scent control regime to pattern and profile their deer. They also offer plenty of practical advice for hunting on a budget and in situations where you can't or wont use bait, or are hunting property adjacent to a hunter who does bait. I highly recommend reading them if you live in a heavy hunting pressure state like Michigan.
  
  Bowhunting Pressured Whitetails
  
  Bowhunting Whitetails the Eberhart Way
  
  Precision Bowhunting - A year Round Approach to Taking Mature Whitetails
  
  While these books focus heavily on bowhunting the tactics and advice can be applied to any season.
  

I'm an Irish falconer, so I'm not sure how many of the practices cross over for the test. But these have always been my reference books:

Emma Ford - Falconry: Art & Practice

Jemima Parry-Jones - Falconry

Jemima Parry-Jones - Training Birds of Prey

Best of luck with it!

To add to this - I highly recommend this book to all hunters (bow and rifle alike):

https://www.amazon.com/Tracking-Wounded-Deer-3rd-Find-ebook/dp/B07D3ZBQ4N/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=tracking+wounded+deer&qid=1574664284&sr=8-6

https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Wounded-Deer-Comprehensive-Tracking/dp/1616088362/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=tracking+wounded+deer&qid=1574664319&sr=8-2

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/tracking-wounded-dear-how-to/9780961740771-item.html?ikwid=tracking+wounded+deer&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=1

At some point - you might not make the perfect shot; why not arm your self with some knowledge and some of the experience of others in tracking game.

there's an ebook version for $26, if that helps: https://www.amazon.ca/Hornady-10th-Handbook-Cartridge-Reloading-ebook/dp/B01MZ9FI53/ref=sr_1_2

Make her read Blood On The Leaves . It’s written by a former wildlife officer and full of stories where someone was injured or killed while hunting because they fucked up.

It is terrifyingly easy to accidentally kill someone with a shotgun when you think it couldn’t possibly hit someone

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Ive enjoyed this book.

Similar history with me as well. I'm a hunter by nature, so whenever I get in the woods, it is the most refreshing thing ever.

Have you ever seen a book that had 100% 5/5 reviews? This one does. I bought this book several years ago and it is by far the best, most insightful book about deer and deer hunting in existence.

https://www.amazon.com/Strategies-Whitetails-Charles-J-Alsheimer/dp/0896893316

Start with this book and you will know as much or more than a person that has hunted for 10 years.

Whether you hunt this year or next - get the book.

Ok... Now that you have that covered, get out in the woods (after hunting season) and look for rubs and scrapes.. Its also fun to go shed hunting (searching for dropped antlers) in March or so.

Do that and you've got yourself a great start.

This would be a great place to start: How to Bag the Biggest Buck of Your Life. Larry Benoit is a legend.

Soft is a relative term. As for literature you can try looking up this book in the library. I've not read through this particular one so I wouldn't say buy it.

>The data for foot-pounds of force is taken from expected use: a 9mm round through a Glock 19, a .308 through a 24" barrel, etc. It should be noted that you'll lose muzzle velocity the shorter your barrel gets. I believe this also increases felt recoil, right?

A little more complicated, but true enough in practice. A shorter barreled weapon usually has faster burning powder. So if you run a .45acp through a long rifle barrel (20") you might end up with less muzzle velocity.

The only thing (if the cartridge is the same) that increases felt recoil is the weight of the weapon, and the way the firearm deals with recoil. If you fire a .308 in an ultralight guide rifle - it is going to hurt. If you have a shorter barrel, there will be less recoil entering the firearm but negligible as to what you feel. Once the gasses exit the barrel they aren't acting on the gun that much anymore. That is why silencers and muzzle breaks reduce recoil - because the gas that used to just flow away is now pushing forwards on the gun, reducing recoil.

If the weight of the gun is the same, the way that the firearm deals with or uses the recoil becomes very important. In a very rigid firearm (say an ultralight scandium/titanium revolver) there is no energy absorbed and slowed by the frame - it ALL goes into your hand (ouch!). If you get a polymer frame, the firearm flexs a bit and slows the recoil making it more comfortable.

If the firearm actually makes use of the recoil energy (autoloaders) then part of that energy is being used to cycle a new round. This reduces the recoil delivered to you, and makes it slower and more comfortable. Roller locked delayed blowback designs (MP5, G3, etc) do a great job of transferring the recoil impulse into a lighter weight bolt and using acceleration to absorb the energy instead of mass. Personally, I think this was one of the greatest systems there was (and is to a far less degree) for shooter comfort - but there are wear issues that are more of a concern (100k rounds or something) than in locked bolt designs.

When you get into the more recent guns, they start to use most all of the above. My FN FS2000 shoots like a dream. Polymer frame, somewhat heavy gun, lighter bullet, piston driven locked bolt, longer rearward travel of the bolt group, and everything hits flexible on flexible, energy absorbing stock. My wife can shoot this and doesn't find it much different than a .22lr 10/22.

Then you get into the designed for recoil guns, and I know of only one - the KRISS. I read about this thing a long time ago, and it seemed ingenious, but although it popped up in the magazines from time to time it never "took." But they are real now (as in you can buy them) and while I haven't shot one yet, apparently the hype lives up to the performance. In these guns you take all of the above, and add purposefully engineered methods of reducing to eliminating recoil. The idea is that you take the recoil energy and make it go up and down instead of back, in a basically mutually exclusive waste of energy.

http://www.kriss-arms.com/technology

From the one guy that I have met that has shot one (an owner of a very large gunshop) he described it as "irrelevant."


>Do you have any good information on the upper limits for this sort of thing? I made the mistake of shooting a hand-loaded .45-70 I wasn't ready for -- that was at least 3,000 ft/lbs (yeah, I know, "I swear it was this big"). How much more could you load a .45-70, for example, before it's unsafe? How little energy could you pack in a 9mm before it will fail to cycle (I know this is very dependent on the gun, and many cheap handguns won't cycle even with solid factory ammo)

This is something you have to find bit by bit, and with the help of advanced hand loaders. There are people who use "cups" (I can't remember the exact name, but I think that might be it) to load up rounds and then they can determine chamber pressure by the deformation of the cup. If you are willing to be more patient, and a little more risk taking you can slowly work your way up and see how the brass performs.

So unfortunately, no help there.

>Very true. The reason I think muzzle energy is a great indicator of a firearm's power is Newton's 3rd Law. Two cartridges with equal muzzle energy but a different bullet shape (or weight to speed ratio) may have different stopping power, but two cartridges with equal muzzle energy will have equal recoil. Since most "I'm interested, tell me more" type shooters are interested in getting experience with firearms -- not getting information on how best to take down an animal -- I think that set of statistics is the most valuable.

For sure, for sure. I really was just trying to fill in some of the blanks you left. As I said your post was great.

>I definitely agree with that and every point you've made seems like it's deserving of a post -- 'beginners guide to safe, humane, effective hunting', perhaps. I was more interesting in the mechanical, experiential explanation of general firearms terms. Personally my only real interest with firearms is in target shooting, so it's clear why I didn't focus on hand loads, stopping power, etc. Out of my realm of (amateur) expertise.

I can tell you aren't going to remain in that "amateur" (let's be real, you know more than 98% of people at LEAST) stage for long. Once you get bitten - people usually go nuts on it. I went way overboard, but hey - it is fun learning about it. :)

This is the ballistics book that got me more interested in it -http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Firearm-Ballistics-Robert-Rinker/dp/0964559854/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370674745&sr=1-1&keywords=ballistics

As a warning - you have to really enjoy it because it is like 500 pages and it doesn't read like a mystery novel. LOL

Don't edit your post, because it was great and factual - it just provided an incomplete picture. For most people purchasing a lower powered round is actually quite a bit more helpful in practice.

Sorry for barraging you with text again. This is just a topic that I really enjoy, so I probably ramble off point and write more than I need to. :)