Elk hunting & paper jackets

[offshore44]

Some more random thoughts and experiences on hunting Elk with paper jacketed boolits.

Spent four days out in the hills recently. The weather was pretty typical for the season. Not as cold as usual but way wetter. The moss on the trees was generating rainy drizzle the whole time. To say that it was damp is an understatement. You had to be careful about bringing firearms into a warm place as the moisture would condense in the firearms immediately and in great quantities.

The patches on the the 458 held up well except for the leading edge. The dampness got to the leading edge and caused the patch to relax. Feeding a round would catch the edge and peel it back unless you were very careful. They would dry right out and go back to being tight, but it took a little care in the field to not ruin the patch after several hours of exposure. Carrying spare rounds in sealed tubes worked wonders as a cure. I only lost two rounds out of the ten that I carried for four days. Much better than last year! One of those may come back once it dries out completely. The patch tore on the other one.

As an aside, the minor horizontal stringing problem can be cured. The wood stock on the off side is touching the barrel for about 2/3 the length of the forearm. It's an easily corrected factory faux pas. It became really evident once the stock swelled up a bit from the damp. That factory urethane finish has got to go, replaced by an over all boiled linseed oil finish. (inside and out) That'll be just another winter project.

I watched a big ol' fat water drop hit the muzzle of the rifle and run down the inside of the barrel. Pulled the loaded round out and swabbed the barrel out with a dry patch and then a lightly oiled patch. Jacked a round back in and that's when the patch tore. Felt it happen. That's what I get for holding the rifle muzzle up. Won't do that again.

No joy on the hunt this year. Logging activities moved one herd I was tracking, and aliens must have abducted the other. I could have swore that I smelled them at one point, and saw lots of fresh sign, but never got a shot. Really cagey critters. The "survivalists" that think they are going to waltz into the woods and snag dinner at will must be better hunters than I am.

The success rate last year was about 14% in the area that I was hunting. I'm betting it will be lower this year.

[Dan Cash]

Have you considered dipping the loaded round, bullet first up to the case neck, in shellac for water proofing? Some military ammo in bye gone years was shellaced over all for water proofing. I am working on a PP project for .300 Savage at the moment and will try the shellac dip; see what happens.

[bigted]

Offshore ... you wouldn't be on the west side of the cascades in Oregon would you? I have hunted this area before when we lived there and I gotta say that is the worst hunting there is in the world as I know it. I got a huge spike that the spikes were over 2 feet tall each side but it were a fluke and I KNEW it was luck and not the tramping I did thru that infernal viney maple. crud makes some great smoking chips but other then that the viney maple is just a plague in an otherwise impossible vertical hunting area.

ok so much for memory lane ... I have been contemplating using the Lee dip lube and allowing it to dry over the boolit and patch tip that is exposed to weather n such. don't know if it would work but I will report when I give it a try.

the shellac would work too Im bettin but don't know how well the patch would peel off ... don't know how the dip lube will react either tho ... more news at 11 unless someone gets there before me.

thanks for posting this real life experience.

[Haggway]

Try using some candle wax on the paper as a water proof.

[leftiye]

Put a penny balloon over the muzzle.

[barrabruce]

Wait till its warm enough to go outside ..like 18 degrees C


Candle wax seems to work.
Maybe bees wax
Run a bead of molten wax around the loaded case with a ink pen nib or candle flame.
Be cafefull thou.

I'm trying some simple lube bees wax a bit of vasalene two stroke and atf

From the hot wet tropics

[offshore44]

Shellac sounds interesting...I currently use a bee's wax variation for water proofing. Works well over all, except for the leading edge of the patch in extreme conditions. I may scrounge up some shellac and see what happens. Thanks for the tip!

Yup, I live on the wet side of the Cascades and hunt in the coast range. I must be a slow learner or something. Vine Maple makes a wonderful smoking wood. Salmon smoked with vine maple is a staple around here. Good stuff indeed. I have a rule...I never shoot an Elk down hill, or on the down hill side of a road. There are places where it would take days and technical climbing gear to recover the critter. The coast range is technically a temperate triple canopy rain forest. The vegetation actually condenses moisture out of the damp marine air and generates "rain" under the forest canopy some ridiculous percentage of the the time.

The Navy issued condoms to put over the muzzle in conditions like that, at least until someone back home got wind of it and raised a stink. I'm guessing that they just didn't believe what we were really using them for. I'll try the penny balloon thing. That should work just fine as well.

18°C? I'd miss out on about half the year around here. Though on second thought, I guess that it runs about that temp most of the time around here. Mid 60's°F...that's about 17 - 18°C right?

In the main, the patches held up pretty well, all things considered. The main body did fine with the bee's wax concoction (a variation of the Matthew's lube, kinda) but that leading edge thing could be a problem. Have to work on water proofing it without gluing it down.

[barrabruce]

Have you tried to wrap long so the leading edge is under bore diameter?
That way the leading edge would be a lot less of an issue.

[Zymurgy50]

A short piece of electrical tape over the muzzle will keep water, snow, and ice out of the barrel. A trick an old timer showed me years ago. Does not change the point of impact in my muzzleloaders.

[offshore44]

Have you tried to wrap long so the leading edge is under bore diameter?
That way the leading edge would be a lot less of an issue.

I do wrap so that the leading edge is under bore diameter. I fiddled with the rifle a bit this morning and it seems that the leading edge was catching on the chamber step for the belt. That long gradual throat in the 458 is very gentle on the patch, the sharp step not so much. Work the action too slowly or too fast and it will catch on the chamber sometimes. Not a lot, but enough to "bunch" the edge of the patch up a bit. Probably around a 1/16th of an inch or so by 3/16th of an inch. I haven't tried putting those rounds on paper, so it may not be an issue. A defect is a defect though. Now that is working the action at the extremes, as in way to slow or as fast as possible. Normal speeds seem to be just fine. The soft, relaxed patch edge exacerbates the issue enough to be a problem. The CZ folks did a good job on feed rail geometry with this rifle. It really wants to feed correctly all of the time. That's kind of what you want in a DG rifle though, isn't it?

Wish they did a better job on the stock fitting though.

Generally, I do like my 45 x 2 1/2 belted express rifle. (458 Winchester Magnum shooting paper patched ) Not sure the craftsman at CZ would approve of what I'm doing, even though the current loads beat the factory target by a very wide margin for accuracy.

A short piece of electrical tape over the muzzle will keep water, snow, and ice out of the barrel. A trick an old timer showed me years ago. Does not change the point of impact in my muzzleloaders.

Nice. I remember hearing of that too now that you mention it, but it was among the other things I've forgot along the way. Thanks!

Wow, post 458 and it's in a 458 thread. The zen of shooting.

[nanuk]

I have been using electrical tape on all my rifles for years. When i did a lot of shooting with my 1B it would have a knob taped on the end from so many layers. Never affected zero or group size what i could tell

[GaryN]

I just use a hunk of duct tape on the end of the barrel. I haven't noticed any difference in zero or group size either. I just shoot the tape off. The pressure blows it off before the boolit ever gets there.

[mikeym1a]

Paul Matthews said in his book that European military paper patched boolits seemed to be sealed with a wax, probably bees wax. I paper patch wet, and after drying, run them through the appropriate sizer AFTER rolling them in xlox. It only penetrated the first layer of the patch. i know this because I had to tear some down for other reasons. And for the reasons that you stated, after loading the round, I roll the boolit tip in the xlox just to keep it waterproof, not that I intend to shoot in bad weather. My arthritis wouldn't like that. Something to think about..

[offshore44]

It's that pesky leading edge that's the issue. I might try Xlox to see what happens... Thanks!