Temp home to range

[lead chucker]

Has any one ever took there 68 f from there home and shot at the range at a temp of 35-40 and after an hour and the ammo gets colder You start seeing better groups. I can imagine that bullet lube will get harder and behave differently when its cold. My worm ammo was first cold shot high and grouped up lower and after i was there an hour may ammo was cold and with another cold shot every thing seemed to get back to normal. has this happened to any one here????? I thought i had my lube issue worked out. This is with a 44 rifle. Mabe i need to slow it down a bit. Yester day was cold and my gun shot good groups all day. That first shot is the most important shot for hunting . My gun was still dirty from the day before.

[btroj]

Temp can make a big difference. Some lubes like the heat, some do better in the cold. Some don't care.

Key is to know what your lube does froma cold barrel for hunting situations.

[zomby woof]

I'll notice during winter match shooting, cold barrel flyers. We'll shot a string of sighters, go down and patch our targets. My first shot back will be a flyer (low left if I remember). Then right back into good groupings.

[Dan Cash]

It is not just the lube that is causing shot dispersion, temp really affects propellant performance.

[mdi]

It is not just the lube that is causing shot dispersion, temp really affects propellant performance.

This was my first thought too. I'm sure temperature will affect bullet lube preformance, but more noticeable would be powder temperature variations affecting groups. IMHO only...

[btroj]

I don't think 35 to 40 degrees makes much change in powder. I have never noticed a difference until below 20 degrees or so.
A temp difference from 68 to 40 is 28 degrees. My ammo can go froma 68 degree house to a 100 degree range and that larger difference makes no change in ammo performance.

I think it is more a lube issue. Lubes are far more temp sensitive in my opinion than powder ever will be. 30 degrees is a huge change to a lube, powder can be unchanged with over 50 degrees change.

[1Shirt]

Agree with btroj's last comments. However once the temps get down around the freezing mark, most bets are off unless you have kept the ammo in a warmer environment just prior to loading, and shooting before the ammo chills to ambient temps.
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[Crusty Deary Ol'Coot]

Interesting!

I ran a test this Summer, as H335 was doing quite well in my 45/70, behind a boolit from one of Bruce's 465gr molds.

Comments came in that I could have ignition problems in the winter, so not wanting to find that out the hard way, I took some loaded rounds and stuck them in the freezer for the better part of 2 weeks.

Took the baggie of ammo out and stuck it in a small cooler packed with ice packs and headed out to shoot.

Set up the chronograph/bench/targets and then removed the rounds, one at a time, from the cooler and fired for effect.

Groups were still very huntable and as I recall, the velocity was only off about 35fps.

No miss fires or hang fires!!!!!!! :bigsmyl2:

Keep em coming!

Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

[Lizard333]

There is an article in the most recent edition of hand loader where the author mentions vast temperature changes effecting the 44 special if I'm remembering right. I think the powder was either hs6 or h110. He said at cold temps the bullet would barely come out of the gun. My guess would be your powder and not your lube.

[btroj]

For those of you wo live in our southern tier of states- 35 to 40 degrees ain't cold. Not even close. Get around 0 and you start getting into the realm of cold.

I doubt the powder is the issue. Cold powder also doesn't group well as the OP said the gun did the previous day.

I still bet it was the lube.