Cold bore shots while hunting

[LR1955]

Just curious, what are y'alls techniques for prepping your rifle for a cold bore shot while hunting?

For my stainless barrel, I had sighted in at hunting elevation the day before hunting opened and left it "fouled".

What about Cr-Mo barrel?

Thanks, Björn

Bjorn:

Most of the 'cold bore' stuff is a myth. If a barrel is that poorly made that a guy will miss a game animal at most hunting ranges (under 200 yards?) then the guy deserves a miss by owning such a poor piece of equipment.

As for elevation changes and zero, you need to have a pretty significant change in elevation before you will miss a game animal at most hunting ranges. You can easily go from sea level to about 3K feet and not be able to tell if any shift to your zero is due to the elevation change or something else. Have a elevation change of more than 3K feet and you can see the difference but you really need to hit about a 5K change in elevation before a change to zero is so great that you can predict it with certainty.

Most zero changes are from a clean bore to a fowled bore. However, if you have a premium barrel, it will be very difficult for you to attribute a change in zero to a clean verses fowled barrel until you hit about 500 yards. If you are concerned about a one minute zero change at 500 yards or more, then do what ever you think is right. The problem with this stuff is that few shooters can positively determine why a change to zero happens and fewer still can predict it well enough to be certain. About the most a guy can do is say 'most of the time a clean bore will shoot higher or lower, left or right.'

One place where you will be able to say a change occurred because of something other than you, your equipment, or your loads is if you zero at a moderate air temperature and hunt in extreme cold. If you have a chronograph, you can experiment with changes in velocity due to changes in ammunition temperature. You will find that when your commercial powders get below freezing and particularly when the temps get below ten degrees, you have very low and irregular velocities. Below about ten degrees and your equipment begins to show problems, particularly if you didn't lube with some type of rifle lube made specifically for extreme cold. Such changes do happen when the ammo is extremely hot, however under those conditions a guy has to contend with a huge amount of mirage, obscurants, and barrel mirage to name a few so predicting what a change will be is much harder if not impossible in extreme heat.

Unless you can absolutely predict a change to within about a half minute, every single day, under every single environmental condition, and that the change is enough to cause a miss at your hunting ranges, then you may be pole vaulting over mouse turds.

If you are worried about it, no problem in shooting a fowling shot or two before the hunt. Just don't be concerned about it when you are hunting.

LR1955