Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote

I have been studying on the one shot case lube and the one shot gun lube and cleaner and think that either one of them would work well to protect my loading dies better than WD40. I am also sure that the gun lube would work well for my firearms as does the frog lube. I believe that I will continue to use Frog Lube on my firearms for now but can see where any of these products would have a place to be used and reasons for each of them. As with any firearm and caliber they have their place and use that varies depending on what we intend to do with them. Daily use verses long term storage has a lot to do with my choice of the product used as well as the weather conditions. At this time, I have not experienced any problems with the Frog Lube and any of the weather conditions well below zero to well above 90 degrees F in dry dusty or wet snowy or rainy conditions so that has a bearing on my use of it on my firearms. Long term storage of some of my loading dies has a bearing on my decision to go with using one shot gun cleaner and lube on them. Time will tell me if there are better products made available. Thank You to all for their helpful input. I don't take this type of decision lightly as these items aren't cheap to buy in the first place and they shouldn't be needlessly replaced by my neglect or ignorance in taking care of them.
 
I have been studying on the one shot case lube and the one shot gun lube and cleaner and think that either one of them would work well to protect my loading dies better than WD40. I am also sure that the gun lube would work well for my firearms as does the frog lube. I believe that I will continue to use Frog Lube on my firearms for now but can see where any of these products would have a place to be used and reasons for each of them. As with any firearm and caliber they have their place and use that varies depending on what we intend to do with them. Daily use verses long term storage has a lot to do with my choice of the product used as well as the weather conditions. At this time, I have not experienced any problems with the Frog Lube and any of the weather conditions well below zero to well above 90 degrees F in dry dusty or wet snowy or rainy conditions so that has a bearing on my use of it on my firearms. Long term storage of some of my loading dies has a bearing on my decision to go with using one shot gun cleaner and lube on them. Time will tell me if there are better products made available. Thank You to all for their helpful input. I don't take this type of decision lightly as these items aren't cheap to buy in the first place and they shouldn't be needlessly replaced by my neglect or ignorance in taking care of them.
I also watched a video of knife planchets out in the weather with various lubes. Including bore butter. WD 40 turned out to be the best of the lot after 30 days. Guessing it was due to the silicone in it adding a protective coating. Granted Frog lube was not in that test. I used WD40 in the past to wipe the outside of firearms down. Mainly the wood & bluing. I don't think you want to get to much in a trigger group that will be setting for a while. I heard it has caused problems. But I never had any. For I don't spray it directly on to the firearm.
 
I have been studying on the one shot case lube and the one shot gun lube and cleaner and think that either one of them would work well to protect my loading dies better than WD40. I am also sure that the gun lube would work well for my firearms as does the frog lube. I believe that I will continue to use Frog Lube on my firearms for now but can see where any of these products would have a place to be used and reasons for each of them. As with any firearm and caliber they have their place and use that varies depending on what we intend to do with them. Daily use verses long term storage has a lot to do with my choice of the product used as well as the weather conditions. At this time, I have not experienced any problems with the Frog Lube and any of the weather conditions well below zero to well above 90 degrees F in dry dusty or wet snowy or rainy conditions so that has a bearing on my use of it on my firearms. Long term storage of some of my loading dies has a bearing on my decision to go with using one shot gun cleaner and lube on them. Time will tell me if there are better products made available. Thank You to all for their helpful input. I don't take this type of decision lightly as these items aren't cheap to buy in the first place and they shouldn't be needlessly replaced by my neglect or ignorance in taking care of them.
I normally spray mine down with Lucas CLP. I'm a Lucas fan for just about everything lol. Been using their oil additive for probably 20yrs. Started using their gun care products when they started making them and had good luck so far. Something else to think about is everytime I unpack something new and it has a desicant pack in it, I save them and put them somewhere I want them. Such as die boxes, bags of brass, etc. Rice in nylons do the same thing.
 
Confidence boosters! Only 325 yards, but perfect shots. And I used the mouth call to stop them with a short howl ( battery was dead in my e-caller). Then I was able to stop the second one with my best imitation of a hurt coyote. I probably just sounded like a coyote hunter in distress, but it worked.
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I also use the descant packs I have some large ones that came with a large lath I helped install years back I put them in the oven and heat them now and then to make sure they are dry. I used a lot of WD40 when I worked in a uranium mill refining ore it was a high humidity and corrosive environment with water, sulfuric acid and ammonia involved in the process. I did find that over a few years' time it would kind of thicken and form a varnish type of thick stuff, but I have seen a few different gun oils that did that with time. Over the years I have taken some firearms apart that it looked like they still had Kosmo line in the hidden recesses that I don't think ever had any on them to begin with so figured it was the old lube breaking down. Last year I fixed the trigger on an older Smith and Wesson 38 special and when I got into it, I am sure that it hadn't been cleaned since it was at the factory new in the early 70's. It had some pretty sticky thick stuff around where the trigger parts were supposed to be able to move freely. With those revolvers you need the correct fitting screwdriver bits so that the screw heads look the same when you put it back together as it did when you started. I still have the ones I made for the job years ago. It also got some new gun black to take care of a few rust spots. It at one time had been an EDC but when the guy passed his wife sold it at a pawn shop gun dealer who let a friend of mine have it for a good price. The original trigger pull was over 11 lbs. I ordered the parts and it ended with a 5 lb. pull. She was able to get 8" groups at 25 yards with it then. Just a little trivia.
 
When I started learning to hunt, trap, snare and call coyotes The e-call that I saw was a battery powered 45 rpm record player with a recording of the guys dads caged coyote howling to some distant coyotes. The first howler that I saw was the same guy's dads one that he had made out of the mouthpiece of a clarinet with a brass reed made out of shim stock. Next came the Bill Austin howlers and the Circi closed reed calls with the little reeds taken from dolls that squeaked when your sister turned them on their backs. Next came some calls made by Major Bodiker called Criter-calls in three sizes peewee, standard and magnum. I still have a standard criter call that was a gift. In the 80's there was a coyote callers craze, started by Bill Austin, of people howling coyotes, making howlers for sale. One notable writer and publisher went so far as to say he had been studying and learning coyote language in secret and had come up with a new howler that was unsurpassed by anyone else's. A lot of the older Government guys had been voice howling for years and I tried to figure that out and could get some coyotes to answer but soon figured out that Bill Austins male howler did a ton better than me, I also liked his female howler, it was just a little smaller in length than the male howler both being made from sch. 40 PVC pipe and plastic notebook covers of the correct stiffness, but with practice learned that I could make female howls on the male howler by where I placed my lips and teeth on the reed. I went up and visited a trapper in Montana that voice howled and did very well at it who showed me a howler that Vern Dorn had given him made out of a fifty-caliber brass, he had found where the B-17's and B-29'S learned to fly and shoot before deploying during WWll here in Wyoming out of the Casper Army Air Corps Base, now called the Natrona County International Airport. I saw some then that were made from duck calls that had a little bit of fine tuning to get them to make howls and some that were diaphragm elk and turkey calls. Before long came the cassette tape caller made by Burnham Brothers and Johnny Stewart. Some tapes were of good Quality and some not so much. Dust, rattling around in the truck hot weather, cold weather was your enemy. They first came out with batteries you had to replace then ones you could recharge. The world of calling has had some major changes made to it in the last 30, 40 or 50 years. But coyotes being coyotes and people being people there are still some challenges to hunting and calling them to this day.
 
I had a very satisfying end to a good day of coyote hunting yesterday. I had been seeing a crippled coyote up the valley, but it was very elusive and the sightings I had were always of it disappearing over a far ridge or melting into the brush. It was packing a front leg, and although I was pretty sure I wasn't responsible, I really wanted to finish what somebody attempted to do. I had tried calling which only resulted in it leaving the area if I saw it at all. And when I did see it leaving, it would never stop to look back like they usually do before it went over a distant ridge.

At the center of its home range is a series of ridge top hay fields that all the coyotes in the area liked to mouse in, as it stayed mostly free of snow from the wind. I had hiked up there and hunted it many times, but it was really difficult to get a shot because of the fairly flat rolling terrain. I could only see parts of it from any one place, and usually ended up spooking coyotes at close range and not getting a shot. But there is a high point on the south end of the hay fields that overlooks the whole area. I hadn't attempted to approach it from that direction because of the very deep crusted snow I had to go through to get to it.

So yesterday I decided the snow had melted down enough to go for it. The first 200 yards were pretty tough going, but after that it was smooth sailing for the mile hike up to the ridge top. When I got to the top, right off I spotted a mousing coyote at the far end of the hay fields, well out of range. I slowly moved up until I could see the near end of the fields and there it was—the three-legged coyote, mousing below me and for the first time, unaware of my presence. I just had to get through a fence and crawl far enough over the crown of the hill to get set up for the shot. I managed that without being seen and ranged it at 426 yards and almost no wind. An easy shot, but I had those nagging doubts from recent misses playing in my head so I was a little nervous. And the coyote had laid down facing me and didn't present a very big target. I just reminded myself that my rifle was tuned perfectly and I was capable, and I concentrated on a spot very slightly left of center until the trigger broke. It was a perfect hit! A very gratifying end to a hard-to-get coyote hunt!
 

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