The Becker Brotherhood and the Primitive Hunter's Multi-Purpose Tool

I was gonna say that squirrels....I don't wish on anyone. I've heard they're good eating - but they are rodents and a nuisance of the highest order. They're "smart", in a persistent sort of way; I lived at a place that had bird feeders we could watch from the dining room table. The squirrels would get a new challenge every couple weeks that was (an attempt) to prevent them from getting into the feeder, and every single one they figured a way around, over, under or just plain bypassed (one challenge was particularly difficult, and we saw one of them running down ever thinner branches in nearby trees figuring out which one would bend enough to get him within launching distance of the feeder) every single obstacle that was put up. My sister had an electrified birdfeeder, and they would get into it and just take the shocking until the battery ran down. They chewed through the gas tank of my grass trimmer, they chewed up the trim on my old house, they've completely chewed up my shed and nested in there over the winter....DON'T, just.....don't wish for squirrels. They breed like rabbits and are a shitload more destructive in some respects. I was in a house once where one had fallen down the chimney (or maybe was spelunking) and did a couple thousand dollar's worth of damage (over the weekend while the owners were gone) to the newly installed wood trim trying to get out. I had them in the roof of my old house and who knows how much damage they did to the insulation and roof structure before I was finally able to evict them and kill the ringleader. No, coote....you really don't want squirrels in NZ. They'd be running the place before you knew it.
 
In Texas, it depends on which county you live in and it changes by year.

For the current hunting year, Sept 01 2015 - Aug 31, 2016, -
- 157 counties with no bag limits, no possession limits, no season limits, just 366 days to kill squirrels
- 51 East Texas counties that have Oct to Feb + May as a legal hunting season for squirrels, bag limit- 10, possession limit 20
- 46 counties that have no season allowed at all.

The beggars can be quite destructive, eating up grain in bins, chewing holes in roofs to get into attics, etc.

This past December, my Christmas present from the local squirrels was the totaled destruction of of my Prius. Overnight, one of the fat little bastards chewed through 80% of the primary cable trunk under the hood. Initial estimate $7500+ to repair, which exceeded 65% of the KBB value. I thinned them out down to 0 before the pecan trees leafed out, but the other day I saw 2 chasing each other in the pecans. Now I sit on the porch every morning from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. with a loaded 22 hoping for a clear shot.
 
Had a squirrel chew up the wiring on the Jeep Cherokee I used to have, now if I see more than one around the house it means it's time to thin them out.
 
Thanks for the squirrel info. So they might end up running the place eh? I wonder if we can get some to stand at our next elections... they're smart, you can eat them, they're unlikely to impose income tax.... and if they become a nuisance you can call someone to trap them and take them away.

Geez.... I'd really spit the dummy if they chewed up my wiring. We already have rats which do that kind of thing sometimes.
 
coote said:
Thanks for the squirrel info. So they might end up running the place eh? I wonder if we can get some to stand at our next elections... they're smart, you can eat them, they're unlikely to impose income tax.... and if they become a nuisance you can call someone to trap them and take them away.

Geez.... I'd really spit the dummy if they chewed up my wiring. We already have rats which do that kind of thing sometimes.
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Yeah we wish squirrels were on our election ballots too. We always end up with rats. It's a rat race. Down here on the Border we marinate goat , wrapped in foil and BBQ it. They call it cabrito. Great photos!
 
coote said:
Geez.... I'd really spit the dummy if they chewed up my wiring. We already have rats which do that kind of thing sometimes.
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we call them tree-rats for a reason around here for a reason.
 
granitestateofmind said:
... They're "smart", in a persistent sort of way; I lived at a place that had bird feeders we could watch from the dining room table. The squirrels would get a new challenge every couple weeks that was (an attempt) to prevent them from getting into the feeder, and every single one they figured a way around, over, under or just plain bypassed (one challenge was particularly difficult, and we saw one of them running down ever thinner branches in nearby trees figuring out which one would bend enough to get him within launching distance of the feeder) every single obstacle that was put up. My sister had an electrified birdfeeder, and they would get into it and just take the shocking until the battery ran down. They chewed through the gas tank of my grass trimmer, they chewed up the trim on my old house, they've completely chewed up my shed and nested in there over the winter.
Click to expand...

The classic clip...

[video=youtube;_2a5AA30RTY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2a5AA30RTY[/video]

A new one...

[video=youtube;KUDOTefoVAA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDOTefoVAA[/video]

Some squirrels are more persistent than others....

[video=youtube;l3Ya6z-NlDo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Ya6z-NlDo[/video]
 
I raise chickens so squirrels are the bane of my existence. They are terribly bothersome pests but also terribly delicious. We have a season on them here as well and it is mainly just in the winter. However, if they constantly get into your shed and coop and constantly mess up your feed and everything else then I am allowed to kill them as a nuisance animal. They like to stash or "squirrel" away a food supply for winter so it isn't just that they eat some of the food but rather they just keep filling their cheeks with feed and going and stashing it somewhere. There is probably a hundred pounds of chicken feed "squirreled" away around my place. Damn hoarders! I have an air rifle and a .22 at the ready and any squirrel that steps foot on my property does not have much time left in this world. I do think they are kind of cute critters but they are still the enemy. They are very territorial and the males battle for territory and for mates and it is a constant battle for them. For this reason if you kill all the squirrels on your property you usually do not have to wait long for more squirrels to move in since there are always younger males out there struggling to claim some turf. In the few places I have lived they have been a fairly renewable resource.
 
Wow. Thanks for all the info on squirrels. I didn't realize what they were capable of. I guess my conception of them came from children's books and nature programs. Those videos were great.
 
Back to hogs for awhile, although maybe this thread should be changed to the Beckerhead Pest Management thread. :D

Coote, for a short time, there was the BK9HH, for "Hog Hunter". This variation was simply a 9 with the swedge sharpened to make it more "stabby". Since you will soon have 2, maybe make your own HH for dispatching hogs. My limited knowledge on the subject implies that a hog would be the more difficult stabee, a stabier knife would be better. I don't know because I've never stabbed either one. Never needed more than 1 bullet for a goat and my preferred method of a shot, but still kicking, hog has been a second bullet from beyond tusk range.
 
Yes, sharpening the swedge would make the '9 very easy to push in I'd imagine.

I'd be reluctant to do it because my conceptual ideal of a knife is only ever sharpened on one edge. When I'm operating on auto-pilot, my subconscious knows that one edge is dangerous, but it is OK to touch or brush past the other. One sharp edge means 'tool' and two sharp edges can mean 'weapon', and I'm a 'tool' sort of a guy. I have seldom hunted pigs with dogs, and I'm unlikely to do much of it in the future.... but I think that a single-edged blade is a better choice when there is a great tangle of undergrowth, exhausted hunters, a lunging pig, slippery ground and excited dogs.

However... having said that.... I tried pushing my BK2 into a pig once and found that it took quite a bit of effort. The '9 looks like it has a better point for the job though. I hope to hog-test a factory-edged '9 soon. If the results aren't satisfactory, I may indeed sharpen a bit of that back edge.

This discussion reminds me of the fact that some bowhunters lubricate their broadheads and the first few inches of their arrow shafts with something like Vaseline to get better penetration. I have a mixture of beeswax and olive oil for this kind of thing.
 
I've never lubricated broadheads for penetration. I do it to keep the dang things from rusting. I've had broadhead edges develop a significant rust layer just while waiting for a deer to come by the blind when the humidity is high.

As far as lubing the shaft to aid penetration? I have a bigger problem with the shafts being pass throughs on the little German Shepherd size things we call deer here in central Texas. Our skinny little goats might not even know they've been hit by an arrow until they're dead.
 
coote said:
Yes, sharpening the swedge would make the '9 very easy to push in I'd imagine.

I'd be reluctant to do it because my conceptual ideal of a knife is only ever sharpened on one edge. When I'm operating on auto-pilot, my subconscious knows that one edge is dangerous, but it is OK to touch or brush past the other. One sharp edge means 'tool' and two sharp edges can mean 'weapon', and I'm a 'tool' sort of a guy. I have seldom hunted pigs with dogs, and I'm unlikely to do much of it in the future.... but I think that a single-edged blade is a better choice when there is a great tangle of undergrowth, exhausted hunters, a lunging pig, slippery ground and excited dogs.

However... having said that.... I tried pushing my BK2 into a pig once and found that it took quite a bit of effort. The '9 looks like it has a better point for the job though. I hope to hog-test a factory-edged '9 soon. If the results aren't satisfactory, I may indeed sharpen a bit of that back edge.

This discussion reminds me of the fact that some bowhunters lubricate their broadheads and the first few inches of their arrow shafts with something like Vaseline to get better penetration. I have a mixture of beeswax and olive oil for this kind of thing.
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even sharpening only the first 5mm of the swedge will make a big difference in ease of penetration.
once you've started the wound, the main cutting edge will do the rest.
 
I think you are right 1066vik. That would be a good option.

Zzyzzogeton... that sounds like serious humidity. Do vehicles, firearms and metal roofing deteriorate quickly in the area?
 
Central Texas humidity usually ranges between 40% (average low) and 85% (average high), rarely dropping below 18% and we have many days at 99%. This past week has been running between 65% and 85%.

Any bare metal will rust at the drop of a hat., Not as bad as Houston, Galveston, Corpus Christi, etc along the Gulf coast (and any other ocean side community) but bad enough. If you don't keep your knives, guns, tools, etc oiled, they WILL get rusty. I have some steel plates that were sitting in a closed shop and never rained on that rusted just sitting there. My throwing knives and tomahawks will begin rusting if I leave them out overnight.

As far as deterioration goes, it's not that bad. We don't use salt on central Texas roads because we get so little snow and ice in our area, they just use sand on the rare occasions (1x-3x per winter), so our vehicles don't suffer from extreme salt exposure like people get up north. Our metal roofing is either galvanized or coated, so it takes years to start rusting.

Also, broad heads are typically NOT made of the bestest steel. Most of the info just says "carbon steel" and the way the heads dull, bend, warp, etc makes me think that most of them are made of cheap low carbon steel that has never seen the inside of a HT oven. A few of the replaceable heads advertise that their insert blades are made of S30V, but I think that is overkill (no pun intended).

My grandfather and great uncle used to make their own broad heads out of whatever the 1920s/1930s equivalent of A36 mild steel was. They'd use ad coal forge, heat up some thin stock, beat the hell out of it to make it thinner and then cut it to shape. Sharpening was done with a file and Arkansas stone. They would coat the sharpened heads with a really thin coat of heated bee's wax.
 
So when your grandfather used to make broad heads, did the head have just a simple tang that was bound into a slot on the shaft (like some might call a trade point)..... or did they make a socket that the shaft would fit into? Interesting.

I've made simple trade points from scrap stainless steel sheetmetal. I used to work as a maintenance fitter in a fish processing factory and there were heaps of offcuts to make arrow heads from. I think I used 16 gauge. Sometimes I hammered it to try to work harden it, but I don't think it helped much. It would still hold a good enough edge without the hammering.
 
I've been thinking on what Zzyzzogeton and 1066vik said about sharpening the swedge. So tonight after dinner I did a little bit of grinding and honing on the swedge of both my '2 and my '9.

I believe this '9 might now be classified as BK9 PHH. The partial hog-hunter with just a tad of sharpening on the swedge.

Both knives should now be better for removing splinters. The '9 is on the right.

SwedgeGrind_zpsbz40mzeg.jpg
 
They made trade points. No real machine shop experience for making sockets. They could do general forging like tools and horse shoes, but they didn't have the tools or training for fine work.

They did it because they were dirt poor farm boys. From the tales, their bows were shaky, the arrows were crooked, the points not the finest in the world, but they worked well enough to bring in rabbits to help fill the pot at home. Bullets were saved for deer. They usually got squirrels with a fence line snare. On the rare occasion my grandfather used a 22 for squirrel hunting, he was expected to leave with 5 bullets and come home with 5 squirrels or 5 squirrels and bullets, total. If he "wasted" a bullet, he didn't get to eat any of the meat at dinner that night.
 
This is great information Zzyzzogeton. And very interesting. It would be great to travel back in time to talk to some of these early people about their methods and experiences. If only I had my current knowledge and interests back when my grandparents' generation was still around.
 
coote said:
I've been thinking on what Zzyzzogeton and 1066vik said about sharpening the swedge. So tonight after dinner I did a little bit of grinding and honing on the swedge of both my '2 and my '9.

I believe this '9 might now be classified as BK9 PHH. The partial hog-hunter with just a tad of sharpening on the swedge.

Both knives should now be better for removing splinters. The '9 is on the right.

SwedgeGrind_zpsbz40mzeg.jpg
Click to expand...

looks good!
 
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