This past weekend again had its share of thrills at the range and it seems this mixing up of ammo and the numerical thing confusion again took the prize for the day.

A shooter quite near me is really talking to himself because his rifle is “patterning”, rather than grouping, and at 50 yards besides. So I walked over and just took a peek at things. Darned if he was not shooting 270 Win ammo in his 30-06. Since that .277 bullet bounced down the .308 dia barrel, there was no way it could group.

So I gave him a few of my 30-06 shells to use, so he got his gun pretty well zeroed, and was going to buy the correct ammo on his way home.

Oh, muzzle loaders are not immune to goof ups either. Seems a fellow there forgot to take the ram rod out of his barrel and then fired it. He was very lucky the gun did not blow up, as he now had an “obstruction” in the bore, but it just fired the ram rod like a javelin, ruining it of course.

Honest folks, I’m not dreaming this stuff up. It really happened, and happens every week at the range. Seldom do I have an uneventful trip and the few weeks just before Deer season are the worst. This is because this is when all the “once a year” shooters are at the range.

This same muzzle loading shooter continued to have problems. Seems the ram rod incident rattled him so badly, that the next shot he “attempted” to fire just went pop. After due consternation, he figured out that he had loaded a Sabot, but no powder.

At that point, he had had enough, and packed up and went home.

I could not help noticing a shooter there spraying his ammo down with WD-40. Now I just had to find out why he was doing that? His explanation made absolute sense;

“To help them feed better” was his answer. Now how can I dispute logic like that? The thing he did not realize is that WD-40 is a great product for what it was designed to do, penetrate and lubricate. Ah, penetrate, that is the magic word. He did not realize that that WD-40 will creep in between his case and bullet and contaminate the powder, and/or creep in around the primer and foul it so it will not fire at all.

It is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, loosen stuck or frozen nuts and bolts. It also has a lubricating effect, just like he wanted, but he also did not know that after a while it will collect dust and dirt and get sticky and then his gun may not work so good after all.

I had a shooter once tell me of using WD-40 on his 45-70 straight walled ammo, as if he did not, he could not get his Ruger #1 to extract them. I think he had his reloads a bit to hot and that is why he had extraction problems, since he had no trouble with factory ammo.

Speaking of “lubrication”, I even saw a guy putting Vaseline in his Browning lever action one day. Again why? “To make is smooth as butter”. Well, butter is smooth and great when it is warm, and just like Vaseline, when it gets cold, it can get rock hard.

I’d hate to see the problems this fellow had in the north woods on the first day it got down blow freezing. He’d be lucky if he had a single shot.

Have you ever heard of “chasing the cross-hairs”? It is shooter, that fires a shot, and it is 1.5” from where he thinks it should be. So he makes a scope correction of 6 clicks to put it in the bull.

Then he fires another shot, and it is NOT in the bull, but 1” from it. So the shooter makes another 4 click correction, and fires a third shot and now is 2” on the other side of the bull. So he corrects in again, a fires a 4 th shot. This one goes 2” on the opposite side of the bull.

Now he is frustrated. What he is doing will never get him in the bulls eye, as he is not that good a shot to make such small corrections. He should shoot a 3 or 4 shot group, and see where it is located. Then let the barrel cool down, make a correction, and then fire another group. This is the only way he will ever get it sighted in properly.

To keep shooting with a hot barrel defeats most all zeroing in. Hunting shots are taken with a cold barrel, so you want to know where your gun shoots with a dead cold barrel. The first shot is what really matters, because nothing beats bullet placement.

If you need help with anything, feel free to write Terry anytime at tblauwkamp@superior-sales.com or call days to 616-896-6500.