TexWeatherby,  thanks for info we met up with Roger and Mark his buddy in Katy TX  one year before we all went to Wyoming for Antelope hunt   that was a great hunt Roger and Mark were great hunting companions,   we lost him way too soon.  my sister-in-law have a 2nd home in Smithville they offered it to us until we find a place.  It's a nice area not too crowded.  lots of places to look at if we move over there. 

we have a couple places in AZ with huntable free ranging Bison if you can get drawn not many tags,   and 1 herd  does cross into the Grand Canyon National  Park where no hunting is allowed, we use to have a third free roaming herd in a small State Park about 40 miles from  of us no hunting them either,  they have since been removed probably 20 yrs ago and I can tell you from first hand experience you don't want to get close to them even on the other side of a barbwire fence line they can tear that fence down fast. 

Seems like always something new out there are they any better I don't know,   I don't use any of the big fixed blades anymore for skinning / caping,  for  butchering   yea I still use them.  as for folders I think any of the name brand are generally pretty decent I kind of look mostly at how do they feel in my hand,  are they safe when bearing down,  not slippery, easy to clean, fairly easy to sharpen,  I'm anal about sharpening.  folders I like are medium to smaller sizes even for skinning 2" to 3" blades  are fine even for elk,  i have Spanish Muela I like the feel of,  William W.  Harsey  more of an EDC , some Kershaws are ok,  at one time or another I used Case, Buck, Uncle Henry, Old timer, Kabar, Boker, as work knives.  Butcher knives I have quite a few I'll use  about a 12 " old no name carbon steel butcher knife for slicing steaks as I don't believe in using a band saw getting bone meal all over the cuts,  a 5" to 6" straight and sweeping boning knives are in my pak I leave in the hunting rig if we need to get picky about  how I want to bone out an elk in the field usually Its a 2 " to 3" folder of some type to get the job done quickly then bag it and carry it out.  I am a firm believer in using steels the old school commercial butcher types,  we have an assembly line at home when we butcher stainless table, some platic covered wood tables,  I have an old Standard heavy duty commercial 220 V.   grinder  I can't pick it up it's on short 4 wheeled cart so I can sit down , made in the 50's I guess,  we don't paper wrap anything anymore  we use 2 sealers it's all Vacuum sealed  and the grind goes into  2 " sleeves and taped when it comes out of the  grinder usually 1 pound of burger in each, and I do double grind. usually about 10% pork fat sometimes Beef fat I get from the butcher.  usually my son and I will cut and my wife will mark and seal the bags then into the freezer.   a little side tracked there.

just an opinion,  too many cartridges in general,   these companies are trying to out do each other, same with ammo companies,  so we end up with ammo shortages as a whole.  there hasn't been a whole lot of stuff that hasn't been tried thru the years in some form or another by some wildcatter.  the one thing that has pushed new cartridges and some older ones is newer powders better suited to wring out the most from each.  the other thing is faster twist barrels in newer rifles to cater to the long range crowd.  you take a 375 Ruger and shorten the action a little  & hop it up a little and you out do a 375 H&H,  so what it ain't making a bit of difference to that animal,  I actually prefer shooting the H&H  recoil more of a big push I think as compared to the Ruger little lighter rifle & snappy recoil. 

Primers can and will go off if seated upside down.  I've seen the go off on Dillons and Ammoloads. www.ammoload.com   things to watch in primer filling in general whether it's a hand primer or automatic primer filling machines we had the old large Scharch primer filler machines these pre-date the Dillon primer fillers.  the automated machines will swage the primer pockets with a die and then seat a new primer even if it were  little tight these geared machines will flatten a  primer even if you were seating with a good press you can flatten a primer.  every now and then if you are going fast with the loader things get to rattling and it will flip a primer kind of looks like it was mushed not the rounded edges as normal.  the other possibility is the primer was loaded in the primer  tube or tray upside down  been there done that,  the old CCI primers the ones with the hard cup metal had problems seating in Dillons back when since that time CCI has corrected the issue. The Ammoloads had scatter shields on them at least ours did.  Remember large rifle primers are .008  taller than large pistol primers.

even the meanest dog gets swatted a couple times by a mean ass cat might think twice about tangling with one after a couple encounters.  no doubt a big mean dog can kill the cat, sometimes dogs just get a hatred for cats and they just go after them, unfortunately  the cat usually gets away plus they roam around at night.  I'm lucky I don't live in the city. 

Bears don't like dogs either,  you never know what ma ma bear is going to do when she has cubs around.  I thought he handled it very well,  not sure what the dog was going to do.