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| Copyright 2010 by Jackson Landers. |
The zombie piece was way ahead of its time. For years, if you Googled 'zombie gun' my blog was the very first thing that popped up. Then zombies got cool and eventually even the big gun magazines copied the premise of my piece. An ammunition company even started packaging cartridges a la zombie. Maybe sasquatch hunting has finally arrived in the mainstream?
My new book, 'Eating Aliens,' includes a very brief possible sighting of a sasquatch in the wild swamps surrounding Lake Caddo, near Louisiana's border with Texas. I'm not saying that it was definitely bigfoot that I saw, but I kept my gun lowered so we'll never know for sure.
Hunting Sasquatch: The Right Rifle for the Job
In the spirit of the piece I wrote last year exploring the question of what kind of firearm would be ideal for use against hordes of zombies, I now turn my attention to the question of the ideal sasquatch rifle.
Let us first consider the physical characteristics and natural history of the creature. Sasquatch is said to stand between 7 and 10 feet tall at maturity. It is a large, hairy bipedal creature thought to be a primate, possibly a remnant population of an early hominid, such as Gigantopithecus blacki. Most credible reports of sasquatch sightings in North America indicate a creature that prefers forested habitat in the Pacific Northwest. Anecdotal evidence suggests an omnivore.
Sasquatch is typically shy and is unlikely to seek a direct encounter with humans in it's territory (although exceptions have occurred).
In consideration of the likely habits and range of an individual sasquatch, it seems probable that we are dealing with something not unlike a black bear. An omnivore of this size in the habitat of the Pacific Northwest would probably require a territory of 30-50 square miles. Seasonal variations in food sources will require movement throughout this large territory. The high caloric demands of such a large beast probably preclude the formation of year-round clans larger than that of a mother and her young, since the amount of available food in any one area will not always be large enough to support larger groups. This is consistent with typical sightings of a single sasquatch in the wild, with occasional glimpses of a pair. In this sense, the effect of habitat on the social behavior of sasquatch may be similar to that of the orangutan. The size of sasquatch's brain (extrapolated from the size of the head) would suggest a species that is capable of living in large social groups, given adequate habitat.
While it's shy behavior is similar to that of a whitetail deer, the sasquatch is much more difficult to pattern as a prey species. We can anticipate that hunting the sasquatch will involve the mental challenges of hunting big woods whitetails, the physical rigors of an elk hunt and the hazard to life and limb presented by the pursuit of the grizzly bear. In this sense, hunting the sasquatch could be called the ultimate North American hunting challenge.
This unusual combination of difficulties demands a rifle carefully considered for taking on sasquatch.
As in the consideration of any firearm used for hunting, it is best to first determine what cartridges would be well-suited to the quarry. Then we can figure out the best sort of rifle to be used to deliver that particular bullet to the target at the prescribed speed. Sasquatch is indeed big, but is most likely thin-skinned in the manner of a human or a lion. Despite it's enormous height, we are probably talking about an animal with a torso that is lesser in diameter than that of a grown bull elk. This tells me that we can dismiss outright the idea of needing any sort of African-style big bore cartridge. .375 H&H and everything above and beyond that would be overkill, involving unnecessary trade-offs of increased weight and diminished accuracy over longer ranges in favor of a level of energy that is simply not necessary.
I suggest that what we should really be looking at is elk cartridges. 30-'06 would probably represent the entry level. A fast .33 would be more to the point. Perhaps .338 Federal. The odds of needing the flat-shooting characteristics of the 7mm Remington Magnum are low in the sasquatch's forested habitat. But the foot pounds of energy delivered to the target are certainly there in spades and one never knows if the only shooting opportunity of the hunt could come across, say, a 400 yard clear-cut in a timber-managed state forest.
Many of the fast .30s would also fit the bill. .300 Winchester Magnum is the obvious one that comes to mind.
Clearly there are plenty of reasonable choices of cartridge out there for sasquatch. For purposes of this exercise, I'm going to go with .300 WSM. It allows us a shorter action than the full-length magnum and thus a lighter rifle. It's also a common enough chambering that in a pinch, ammunition can be bought at any far-flung store in North America that sells ammo. This is not to be dismissed on a hunt that will take one far from home.
Onward to the actual rifle. A bolt action is the first choice here. We want a working gun that can withstand all the weather and rain that the Northwest can throw at us in the course of a long hunt. Certainly a composite stock and stainless action. Remington's XCR (eXtreme Conditions Rifle) series of model 700 rifles comes to mind as an obvious off-the-shelf choice. The XCR has Remington's proprietary Trynite coating over a stainless barrel and action, which supposedly resists even salt-water immersion. I have an XCR in 30-'06 and I can attest to the fact that one can sit in the rain for hours without a trace of rust appearing. However, note that your scope base and rings are unlikely to have the same quality of protection and they can start to rust up on you even though the actual rifle is taking the beating without complaint.
Let's keep the barrel length short. Sasquatch is unlikely to stick to trails which you find convenient. Odds are pretty good that you'll be doing a lot of bushwacking on a sasquatch hunt and you don't want a barrel that gets hung up on every bit of brush above your head. with the rifle slung over your shoulder. 22 inches would probably be acceptable. 20 inches might be better, depending on how tall you are. The loss of velocity from cutting off that much barrel is typically negligible within 300 yards.
The question of weight in a rifle of this sort is a tricky one. Yes, is is possible to get a very lightweight XCR built. Every last fraction of an ounce of structurally unnecessary metal is machined away, even to the extent of hollowing out the knob at the end of the bolt handle. This is very tempting in a rifle that one will be carrying up and down mountains for days, possible weeks on end as one searches for sasquatch sign. However, for most shooters it is probably a bad idea with a rifle chambered for a magnum cartridge such as .300 WSM. That is rather a lot of recoil by most people's standards and making the rifle really lightweight will make that recoil even worse. Mass resists motion in a proportional manner, meaning that a lighter rifle will kick backwards more so than a heavier rifle. Most people cannot shoot a truly lightweight rifle in a magnum chambering with the sort of accuracy that a sasquatch hunt demands. Let's face it; if you so much as glimpse one during the course of your hunt, you are very lucky indeed. Hunter opportunity will be extremely low and there will be no second chances if you flub the shot.
The only wise weight-reduction measures for most people would be going with as short action as your cartridge can be stuffed into, a lightweight composite stock and a short, fluted barrel.
We don't have any idea as to how readily the sasquatch goes down when hit. Certainly there are many animals out there which can respond to hits in vital areas in a manner contrary to anything that anatomical science suggests should be possible. Cape buffalo have been known to charge and gore people to death after multiple shots straight to the heart. They're dead on their feet, but they're too angry to concede the point for a few minutes. Because of this big unknown, I think it's not a bad idea to be using a rifle with a detachable magazine and a spare in your pocket in case you find a furious, wounded sasquatch bearing down on your person. We just don't know if these things might require shot after shot once their temper has been raised. You don't want to be standing there fiddling with individual cartridges in that situation.
Remington does offer a 'DM' version of many of their 700s. It's also not too difficult to convert an existing 700 for the use of detachable 4 round magazines, although you will have to be sure to obtain a stock that accommodates this. My own 700 is a DM version and I can assure you that the detachable magazines are very easy to use, feel exactly the same as a hinged floor plate while shooting, and are securely enough attached that there is little to no chance of the thing dropping out at an inconvenient moment.
This is not a rifle to mount an inexpensive scope on. It's one thing to use something like a Pine Ridge or a Tasco on the rifle that you use to take whitetails for meat on your home turf. If the scope fogs up or fails, it's not that big a deal. It's a ruined afternoon, not the hunt of a lifetime. When you are 50 miles from the nearest road, 1,000 miles from home and following sasquatch sign for days on end and your scope suddenly fogs up, you'll be a heck of a lot madder at yourself for not having bought high-quality glass like a Swarovski, Zeiss or Leupold. Do look for something that offers exceptional brightness and light-gathering in low-light conditions, since by many accounts sasquatch is largely nocturnal and your best opportunities to shoot may come at dusk.
So here's what we're looking at: A Remington Model 700 XCR chambered for .300 WSM, with a fluted barrel of 20-22 inches and detachable magazines. I am not saying that this is 'the only sasquatch rifle.' Just that this is a particular set-up that answers the purpose. Certainly there are custom Weatherbys and Rugers and so on that would also do the job. Someone could probably even make the case for an all-weather Browning BLR.
Sasquatch is unquestionably the most challenging prey in all of North America. This is proven by the fact that nobody has ever managed to get one. If it doesn't exist at all, then that only makes the task all the more difficult. If you should decide to join the hunt for this mysterious beast in an extremely politically incorrect way, don't just grab your whitetail gun and assume that it's going to do the trick. Look for a rifle that will be the right tool for the job.
[Photo copyright 2010 by Jackson Landers. This depicts a custom Mauser in .35 Whelen that I built with Paul Fritz. While it isn't the same gun I describe in this piece, I think it would do the job on bigfoot very nicely.]
