I hope you never have to know or live with an anal retentive over analytical jerk like me. Sometimes, I get so caught up in trying to figure out the optimal result of a particular decision that I forget all about the other things going on around me. A particular thought will consume my every waking moment and it ends up shaping my mood and attitude towards the really important stuff.

Take my latest obsession for instance... I have committed to getting a new deer hunting rifle as a small reward for working hard. I have a good job, with a good company, and I give it my all, all the time I am on the clock. I know to separate work from home and try not to mince the two. This quarter, I have literally busted my ass to get as many jobs completed on time as possible and after reviewing my quarterly numbers, I've done quite well. So I feel to some extent that I deserve a reward to me, and my family also should reap benefits. More on those later...lets talk about my gun.

I'm frugal. I hate spending more than I have to on something that will more than adequately do the intended job. Let's face it, a gun is a gun, right? Wrong. A gun is something that can be handed down from generation to generation, and hunting is a legacy to be handed down as boys mature to men. Nick is showing some interest, and Jack appears to be me, reincarnated...I can only hope that the only remaining future Bashams will enjoy hunting to the degree that their great grandfather did. I have two guns from Papaw and will always cherish them both. I want something to hand down to my kids, and I'll be damned if it's gonna be a POS Rossi single shot cus that's all I can afford. But I can't afford a Remington or Browning. Mossberg makes good guns, but recently there's been a bit of bad press about the Mossy Bolt Action guns, and I like my teeth right where they are. So...no ATR100 for me. But hmmm...Savage makes a good reliable gun...but it's just right out of my range this time around. THEN I find out about the wonderful new gun Marlin just announced last year. The Marlin XL7 is quite a piece of work, and given Marlin's long standing history I think this rifle will do just fine and it can be had just under the 3 bill mark leaving about a hundred bucks for a scope and enough overhead to get a few boxes of ammo to get the barrel broke in and sight in the scope in preparation for this fall.

But what caliber? If not for the restriction of the rifle of choice, I'd probably go for a .257 Roberts, .260, or some of the other low recoil guns that throw effective deer medicine. The Marlin only offers 6 calibers right now and my choices are limited to .243, 7mm-08, .308 for short action and the long offerings are .270, .25-06 and 30-06. I don't want the cannon, and .308 or .270 is the high end of tolerable recoil for a teenage boy. I have a good 8-10 years before Nick will be fostering the idea of hunting deer so we have some time to work up a decent load and put a few notches on the stock so he knows the gun has history. The .243, though a wonderful shooting caliber is on the light end of what I want to use. There is a chance of going to South Dakota to hunt with my uncles for muley and whitetail in the near future and after reading a bunch of writing by Jack O'Conner I think the .270 might just be the cat's meow. So okay...gun and caliber are chosen.

Now the scope. HOLY MOSES there's alot of choices. And did I mention I'm cheap? I mean FRUGAL? Frugality and rifle scopes don't work well together. Good optics and good money go hand in hand. Though I can't justify the $1000 price tags of Swarovski and Zeiss offerings, I know in my heart of hearts that to the right individual, these scopes are worth every penny. Just not on a $300 gun. Tasco, Simmons, BSA and Barska are the bottom of the barrel price wise and though they are okay scopes, with questionable quality, they are the only offerings in my price range. I set 125 as my max on a scope and was about to pull the trigger on one of Tasco's World Class scopes when I found www.swfa.com

I currently have a BSA 4-16x40 Mildot scope on my Marlin 882SSV .22WMR that does quite well for what I ask of it. It's quite a squirrel sniping machine, and delivers a 33 grain Remington V-max pill into a solid .75" group at 100 yards. It does far better than I can do, that's for sure. So I'm not against BSA but I'll never own another adjustable objective scope on a hunting rifle again. It's just not practical. I need something that I can mount quickly and fire, not fiddle with knobs. The PA woods are tight, and your shots present themselves in split seconds, fleeing just as fast. I found a BSA Panther 3-10x40 for 79 bucks. It does all i could want and my only complaint is the stupid sloped scope front that will negate using butler creek flip up scope covers. Though it comes with a goofy bikini cover, I'd rather have the BCSC's.

I like Mildots - they are easy for judging distance and if you have the formula memorized you can quickly calculate distance to target...if necessary. With the .270 and typical deer hunting distances as what they are in PA, a rifle sighted at 2" high at 100 will hit dead on at 200, and 4 inches low at 300. So just put the crosshair where you want the bullet to land and squeeze. A deer kill zone is about 8" circle centered on the elbow joint on the shoulder when standing still. So I don't need mildots. I just need a good quality hunting scope. Low and behold, SWFA has 2 3-9x40 Nikon's for 99 bucks each. Sold. Thanks for listening and helping me decide. The extra scope budget now allows for me to get the covers and the extra cleaning jags and brushes i'll need for the .27 caliber tube. I have lots of .22 caliber stuff, but nothing larger. I suppose I should pick up a couple brushes for the 12ga shotgun too...that poor thing hasn't been cleaned since I blasted the last two deer this past season.