Because of the prevalence of the platform, it didn’t take long for AR-style rifles to become popular among hunters. Some “purists” will say these modern sporting rifles have no place in the hunting blind, but they’d be wise to look around before saying such things too loudly.
In the standard .223/5.56 chambering, the AR has proven to be a great gun for varmints and other small game. But what if you wanted to hunt something bigger like, oh I don’t know, say an elk or a bear? Is there an AR out there suitable for such a hunt? You bet there is!
A large number of new(ish) calibers have come on the scene to complement some of the existing cartridges that make the AR platform a perfect choice for your big game hunt of a lifetime. Let’s take a look at 10 of them.
Big Horn Armory AR500 in .500 Auto Max

The Big Horn Armory AR500 is chambered for the company’s proprietary cartridge, the .500 Auto Max, a rimless version of the 500 S&W. • MSRP: $1,999
Big Horn Armory made a name for themselves with their SpikeDriver lever gun chambered in .500 S&W Magnum, but they didn’t stop there. Instead, they looked to the semi-auto market and created the AR500.
BHA’s AR500 shoots .500 Auto Max rounds. Built on the same .500 Magnum cartridge, it’s basically just a rimless version of the powerful handgun cartridge that has been popular with hunters for more than a decade.
The gun has a completely-railed upper for you to outfit with the optic of your choice. Load up the five-round magazine and you’re ready to take on anything “from prairie dogs to pachyderms to Peterbilts.”
If it can stop a semi-truck, it can stop any big game animal you’ve got in mind. The MSRP is $1,999.
Read the full article at Range365.com.
Growing in popularity, modern sporting rifles have evolved to become a real option for hunters — even for old-school hunters like the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Doug Painter. Explore the evolution of the American hunting rifle.
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The Start of Something New…My first hunting experience!
By: Heather Marie Johnson In July 2020, my two aunts, plus a friend and I, went on a road trip. During that time, we talked about past and future trips we have been on. We starting discussing hunting trips, because my Aunt Clara has been on a guided hunt in the past and my husband frequently travels with his friends on hunting trips. We talked about other family members who hunt and discussed the fact that we have never been invited to join them. I mentioned that I would love to try hunting some time, thinking we could plan a trip together in the future. The future was going to be much sooner than we thought! Shortly after getting back home from our trip, my Aunt Clara called me and said that she'd seen a scholarship opportunity through the Ladies Adventure Camp Experience (L.A.C.E.) to be nominated for a guided hunt on wild hogs and whitetail does in Texas—and it was to be a trip for the first-time women hunters. I was thrilled Aunt Clara nominated me! After waiting patiently for a few months, she called me with the exciting news that I’d been selected for the scholarship hunt trip to Texas. I was so excited! I shared the good news with my closest friends and family, and everyone was excited for my new opportunity! We flew from Chicago into Texas and met a group of women at a Dairy Queen in Rotan, Texas, to caravan to Hawks Double Mountain Ranch. From the start, everyone was so nice and excited for the weekend ahead. I felt comfortable with this group of ladies, especially Deb Ferns and Kay Miculek who run the Babes with Bullets camps that was the kick-off for the L.A.C.E. program. [caption id="attachment_3765" align="aligncenter" width="450"]



Ingredients
1½ pounds of ground venison 8 ounces of bacon 1 cup of Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs 1 14-ounce can of fire-roasted tomatoes 1 cup of milk ¼-cup of grated parmesan cheese 2 tablespoons of onion, finely chopped 2 teaspoons of salt 1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper ½-teaspoon of ground sage 2 eggs, beaten 1 cup of your favorite BBQ sauceDirections




Try Out More Recipes with NSSF’s Game Meat Cooking Series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF4EE32869227CCE5
Where hunter and classically trained chef Georgia Pellegrini shares recipes from her book, "Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time."I have a love/hate relationship with deer decoys – but the more I understand where and when to use them, the more I love them.
By Bob Robb Back in the Dark Ages of whitetail hunting, before food plots and sophisticated trail cameras and quality deer management and YouTube videos and a plethora of hunting TV shows on cable and all of that, I learned a lot about deer hunting from friends who spent more time in the woods than most sane folks would consider healthy. One of them was Gary Clancy, an outdoor writer and deer hunter extraordinaire from Minnesota who was taken from us far too early, in 2016, by a cancer caused by Agent Orange exposure when he served as an Army point man in Vietnam. Clancy was a soft-spoken, down-to-earth guy who loved to laugh. When he talked about whitetail hunting, I listened, because he knew his stuff. He was one of the first men I know of to start using decoys seriously for deer hunting. His classic 200-plus page book, Rattling & Decoying Whitetails, became a sort of bible on the topic. Gary was killing bucks over decoys that were crude by today’s standards, learning, as he went, the old-fashioned way, through trial and error. What he taught me back then still applies today, and his simple yet effective techniques are even more deadly when using modern decoys.Three Keys to Success
While there are several nuances to using decoys successfully, Clancy stressed three things above all else: placement, scent control and distant visibility. [caption id="attachment_3720" align="aligncenter" width="650"]


Best Time for Decoy Use
Though I’ve used decoys at various times of the season, like Clancy, my experience has been that the chances of having a mature buck come visit a decoy are best during the 10- to 14-day period just prior to does’ first estrus. During this time, bucks are actively scraping and roaming, and they seem to respond to both grunting and rattling, which is a very effective way to draw a buck’s attention to a decoy it might otherwise not see. During the peak of the rut, when most of the mature bucks have already found does to breed, bucks still come to a decoy, but I’ve mostly had immature bucks come then. A mature buck between does might also commit, but everything has to be “just right.” I’ve had my best luck with decoys in the morning when bucks return to bedding areas after an unsuccessful night of seeking out does. I also like using decoys in the afternoons, especially if I can set up in the corner of a field I know does are regularly using. This sometimes means I might hunt a stand in a funnel or known travel corridor between food and bedding areas from sunup until early afternoon, when I might then move my stand location to be near a food plot or other agriculture area.Setting It Up
One of the problems with using some of today’s full-body decoys is hauling them into your hunting area quietly in the dark, then setting them up without sounding like a marching band, for a morning hunt. This is especially true for big decoys that have to be assembled before they’re set up. There are a couple ways to help alleviate this problem. [caption id="attachment_3718" align="aligncenter" width="650"]

Multiple Decoys
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