So I have this rifle that the wife selected for me several years ago. If there are evil spirits, this rifle is possessed by a particularly mean spirited one. In two years time, the rifle has been dropped into a campfire, the stock has broken at the wrist, the bolt handle has broken off, it is impossible to keep a scope zeroed on it, the rifle has discharged when closing the bolt, the trigger is horrible, the sling swivel studs have pulled out of the stock at inopportune times (hence the momentary trip into the campfire) and groups the size of pie plates at all reasonable ranges.
With that being said, I decided to go "unload" all of the ammo that I had worked up for it. I have another .308 Win rifle that is displaying a real penchant for accuracy and consistency. The down side is, it really goes through ammo. Kinda like a fat boy goes through potato chips. I scrounged through all of the misc. ammo cans and boxes to gather up all of the loads for the bolt gun. Plinker loads, plain based loads, gas checked loads and paper patched loads of various configurations. None had ever shot worth a darn before. Into a cardboard box they went, in zip lock bags or loose in layers. Why not? I knew they were all safe to shoot.
So the wife and I get out into the woods and get the camp set up. Built a fire, after doing some Elk and Deer scouting in the area. All is well and we were happy campers.
I grabbed a chunk of firewood (a bolt of seasoned spruce), stapled a paper dinner plate to it and walked off towards a steep bank to set a target. Even just burning ammo, a target is a good thing. Figured that I would work on form whilst unloading the unwanted ammo.
Reach into the cardboard box, grab five rounds and fill the magazine. Concentrate on form and pull the trigger. Rinse and repeat. Didn't worry about heating the barrel or anything like that. Why; the rifle was possessed and was destined to become a parts gun for another project.
After burning though a goodly number of rounds, I finally got to the layer that was paper patched. (you-all probably thought that I would never get to this part of the story, huh?)
After banging off about twenty rounds of various paper patched loads, I decided to go take a look at the paper plate. Moseyed on over and to my surprise, there was a nice round group about 3" in diameter low and left of the plate center. Hmmm, what's up with that methinks. Wander back to the campfire and drink some water, and mess about a bit. Grab the rifle, that has cooled down a bit by now, and give it a quick check. The barrel is very clean, no antimony wash at all and nothing else in the way of fouling either. Grabbed another handful of paper patched cartridges and started to bang away again. These were some of the stouter loads that I tried with little success awhile ago. After about the fifth or sixth magazine full, the bolt of spruce just blew up. About half of one end just lost it's all-togetherness. Hmmm... Walked down to the beaten zone with a stapler in hand to fix my target and what did I discover? A nice round group the size of a quarter on the paper plate. Holes in the bolt of spruce that started out at about .30 caliber and grew to about half an inch on exit. Lots of wood splinters and small chunks.
So now I have a possessed rifle that really wants to shoot paper patched. Only a vague idea of what the load it likes is, it would be one of several in the log book with a full case of powder and a patch that doesn't go to the ogive. ...and list of repairs to be made to bring the rifle up to snuff, if I keep it. Oh well, I guess everyone needs a project.