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Rifles, Reloading, Optics, Equipment
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Cold Barrel Shots
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<blockquote data-quote="Teri Anne" data-source="post: 2294233" data-attributes="member: 118816"><p>In reality I have found that fouling shots are indeed necessary, at least when competitively shooting. Why? Well our reasoning and it seems to have borne itself out over the year and many different competitions, courses of fire as well as different rifles seems to be that the first shot out of a clean bore will always go a bit wacko. In the Army the rule was, "You shoot it, you clean it before putting it away." This always meant that there was a light coat of oil in the rifle bore. As we all know oil is a liquid and as such is susceptible to gravitational puddling. This puddling, it is thought causes different friction withing the barrel for the first couple of shots which in turn causes the fliers. The fouling shots would burn and blow out the oil leaving a uniform surface inside the barrel for the bullet to travel through. A partial solution to this issue was to run several dry patches through the bore before heading out to the range. While this helped it did not completely eliminate the fliers, only made them fly a lot less from the rifle's zero. In competition we usually had two sighting shots prior to each stage, which were used to fire fouling shots prior the the first shot for record. In case some of you have not noticed I am a stickler for sub moa accuracy out of my rifles. I have also learned that it doesn't matter if its a Winchester, Tikka, Remington or Browning, each and every one of them will shoot a flier or two out of a squeaky clean barrel and then settle down to it's natural zero. To answer the second part of the question, "Is it OK to not clean the barrel until the end of the season?" There are varied thoughts on this and I'm sure some will disagree with me. First of all it depends upon your rifle. If you have a stainless steel barrel they are more impervious to corrosion than are steel barrels. The next consideration is what ammo you are shooting? The more modern ammunition these days is not as corrosive as those of years ago. After shooting, take out the bolt and take a good look down the barrel using a bright light. If there is no evidence of crud in the barrel then there won't be any concentration points for corrosion to start. If there is crud left in the barrel, clean it and then look for some better ammunition. It has been my experience that inexpensive ammunition is usually made of somewhat inferior components and will not burn as cleanly as the premium ammunition. When I buy factory ammo for the .270, .308, 30-06 and 300 Win Mag it's going to cost between $45 and $70 for a box of 20. You will also find that the premium ammunition not only burns cleaner, but it is inherently more accurate. So without visible crud in the barrel and a rifle not exposed to moisture it is generally safe to not clean the barrel during a normal deer season which is most states ranges from 7 to 14 days. Another thing one might consider if you are a hand loader is to load up a few cartridges with only primers. Just like when hunting with muzzle loaders and you fire a couple of primers to check to make sure the nipple or breech plug is clear it also burns out any residual oil in the bore. I have tried it and it seems to work, magnum primers work best for this and still may not burn out all of the oil residual, but it will help. So now that I have said my peace, let's hear from others and how they solve the clean bore flier issues.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Teri Anne, post: 2294233, member: 118816"] In reality I have found that fouling shots are indeed necessary, at least when competitively shooting. Why? Well our reasoning and it seems to have borne itself out over the year and many different competitions, courses of fire as well as different rifles seems to be that the first shot out of a clean bore will always go a bit wacko. In the Army the rule was, "You shoot it, you clean it before putting it away." This always meant that there was a light coat of oil in the rifle bore. As we all know oil is a liquid and as such is susceptible to gravitational puddling. This puddling, it is thought causes different friction withing the barrel for the first couple of shots which in turn causes the fliers. The fouling shots would burn and blow out the oil leaving a uniform surface inside the barrel for the bullet to travel through. A partial solution to this issue was to run several dry patches through the bore before heading out to the range. While this helped it did not completely eliminate the fliers, only made them fly a lot less from the rifle's zero. In competition we usually had two sighting shots prior to each stage, which were used to fire fouling shots prior the the first shot for record. In case some of you have not noticed I am a stickler for sub moa accuracy out of my rifles. I have also learned that it doesn't matter if its a Winchester, Tikka, Remington or Browning, each and every one of them will shoot a flier or two out of a squeaky clean barrel and then settle down to it's natural zero. To answer the second part of the question, "Is it OK to not clean the barrel until the end of the season?" There are varied thoughts on this and I'm sure some will disagree with me. First of all it depends upon your rifle. If you have a stainless steel barrel they are more impervious to corrosion than are steel barrels. The next consideration is what ammo you are shooting? The more modern ammunition these days is not as corrosive as those of years ago. After shooting, take out the bolt and take a good look down the barrel using a bright light. If there is no evidence of crud in the barrel then there won't be any concentration points for corrosion to start. If there is crud left in the barrel, clean it and then look for some better ammunition. It has been my experience that inexpensive ammunition is usually made of somewhat inferior components and will not burn as cleanly as the premium ammunition. When I buy factory ammo for the .270, .308, 30-06 and 300 Win Mag it's going to cost between $45 and $70 for a box of 20. You will also find that the premium ammunition not only burns cleaner, but it is inherently more accurate. So without visible crud in the barrel and a rifle not exposed to moisture it is generally safe to not clean the barrel during a normal deer season which is most states ranges from 7 to 14 days. Another thing one might consider if you are a hand loader is to load up a few cartridges with only primers. Just like when hunting with muzzle loaders and you fire a couple of primers to check to make sure the nipple or breech plug is clear it also burns out any residual oil in the bore. I have tried it and it seems to work, magnum primers work best for this and still may not burn out all of the oil residual, but it will help. So now that I have said my peace, let's hear from others and how they solve the clean bore flier issues. [/QUOTE]
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