Canadian Last Days Survivalists

Tip comes up empty in search for fugitive

LOLO - Poorly timed, illegal and unwise.

A man's decision to build a ramshackle hut in the woods west of Lolo was all three, which he certainly discovered after being tackled by Missoula County sheriff's deputies prowling for an armed, would-be killer Wednesday morning.

Acting on a tip they received Tuesday night, more than a dozen officers looking for fugitive David Burgert first surrounded then flushed out the makeshift home set in the thick trees of Lolo National Forest, just five miles from where Burgert allegedly tried to shoot two deputies four days ago.

It was around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, after they chased down the fleeing man, that they discovered the off-the-grid resident of the hut was not the former militia leader they've been hunting since Sunday morning.

"Two deputies saw someone inside of it," said Missoula County Undersheriff Mike Dominick. "They saw that it was occupied and there was no vehicle around."

And it looked like something a fugitive might throw together in desperation, said Sgt. Rob Taylor of the sheriff's office.

"It was a good lead as far as the proximity to Sunday's search," he said shortly after Wednesday's raid. "And it's the kind of structure that Burgert would have used."

So the officers - including a few FBI agents - began to plot their plan to capture the man, moving in equipment and personnel overnight.

Around 11 a.m., the man darted from his dwelling, alarmed by the rustling of vegetation outside.

"He heard someone in the brush and took off running," said Dominick. "Deputies blocked him and tackled him."

It was not Burgert, the former leader of the Flathead anti-government militia Project 7, who has been on the lam since allegedly firing on two deputies and fleeing into the woods Sunday morning.

Instead, agents found a man who had been living in a rugged hut he built himself and had camouflaged with branches and bushes. Inside, they found signs that he had planned a semi-permanent residence there - sleeping quarters, food and a handgun.

He was taken away on suspicion of destruction of public property and illegally residing on public land.

That leaves David Burgert on the lam. And authorities continue to warn people everywhere: He is armed, dangerous and not hesitant to shoot at people.

***

It was a good lead in the hunt for Burgert, the 47-year-old man who left federal prison in March after serving eight years for a standoff with Flathead County deputies after law enforcement discovered Project 7's plan to assassinate public officials.

Ban Lead Hunting Ammo: We Are Not Survivalists Any More

Ballistics short course: lead is dense and soft and cheaper than gold. These features make it attractive for use as ammunition. Dense means more shocking power on impact. Soft means instant deforming of the aerodynamic pellet or bullet into a big fat crushing deforming injury-inflicting instrument. The cheaper than gold part is self-evident.

Rifle and pistol shooters like lead bullets because the density holds speed and transfers shocking power. Shotgunners like lead pellets for the same reasons. A faster projectile with a flatter trajectory also makes it easier to adjust one’s aim.

I am no ballistics expert, but over the years I dabbled in reloading hot loads for a .270 rifle with a Mauser action and a glass-bedded Douglas barrel, so there are a few boxes of hand loaded copper and lead bullets in my tidy little armory. I also reloaded shotshells for bird hunting, and have dozens of cases of lead and steel rounds on hand.  (I guess those lead rounds will be consigned to the target range.)

One BB size lead fragment can kill an eagle. Bird hunters can leave 400,000 pellets per acre of intensely hunted areas. Wild swans ingest lead pellets from both water feeding and land feeding.

In the 1980s, the government proposed a ban on lead shot for waterfowl hunting. Ducks and geese and their allies feed in areas where hunters rain down millions of pellets of shot, of which only one or two ingested are fatal, and birds wounded with a few lead pellets were likewise doomed. Poisoning losses were widely decried. Steel shot pellets were the only available alternative at that time.

Sportsmen and gun aficionados protested. Steel, lacking softness and deformity, only punches holes in birds and does not kill them here and now , decried others, engaging in unfounded hyperbole.