Prep time essential to success in hunting

By Randy R. Mabe
Staff Writer

For those who hunt whitetail deer in the central North Carolina district, opening day of muzzle-loading season started Saturday and ends Friday. The opening date for the gun season is Saturday and the season runs through Jan. 1.

Before sportsmen enter the woods trying for a shot at that buck of a lifetime, they need to spend time preparing and practicing with their equipment.

Question No. 1 to ask yourself: "Is my firearm ready?"

Modern muzzle-loaders have come a long way from the days of flintlocks and side-hammer caplocks. Today's muzzle-loaders have weatherproof primers, concealed hammers, bolt-actions and accuracy beyond 150 yards. But for the most part one thing remains the same. Muzzleloaders must be properly cleaned and sighted in, perhaps more diligently than conventional modern smokeless center-fire rifles.

Horror stories abound about hunters pulling their smoke poles from the gun safe only to find that the final cleaning at the end of last hunting season was forgotten. The result? A gun that is incapable of being fired without serious attention and quite possibly a gun that is ruined.

Largely, black powder and the more modern versions of powder such as Pyrodex, Jim Shockey's Gold, Triple 7 and others still leave a powder residue inside the bore of muzzle-loading firearms. When purchasing a muzzle-loader, the buyer should obtain detailed cleaning instructions for proper maintenance and safety.
Proper cleaning is essential

Usually the gun must be completely disassembled with all parts cleaned with a cleaning solution, then dried, oiled lightly and reassembled before storing. Never store a loaded muzzle-loading firearm. Modern guns come with instructions on how to remove a charge; otherwise the gun must be discharged and then cleaned.

To clean the rifled barrel of a muzzleloader, moisten a patch with black powder solvent and use a ramrod with attached brass jag to push the patch through the bore.

It is important to use the proper size patch and brass jag to match the caliber of the rifle. Otherwise, the patch and jag might become lodged.

Modern center-fire rifles use less-corrosive ammunition than black powder, yet serious shooters often clean their rifles after one or two shots when zeroing in the gun at the shooting range.

It is also important to clean the rifle before storing. Poor accuracy is often the result of powder and copper residue that has filled the rifling inside the rifle's bore.

Use quality cleaning tools and solvents. The cleaning rod should rotate (as the rod pushes a patch through the barrel) while the handle remains motionless. The jag, patches and brass brushes should match the caliber of the firearm. Read information on solvents to be sure you are purchasing the right one for the job. Some remove powder residue and others remove copper residue.

Military shooters and sportsmen seem to prefer Otis Gun Cleaning kits. These kits range from $10 to $100 and can be found at Cabela's, or go online at www.otisgun.com.

Once your firearm is clean, secure and ready to go to the shooting range, make sure your ammunition matches the firearm. Discard any old, damaged or poor-looking ammo and practice only with the same weight (grains) that you will be hunting with. The trajectory of the bullet changes drastically when shooting a 180-grain bullet in a rifle that is zeroed in using a 140-grain bullet.
Dialing in your scope

Most gun hunters today use scopes. And scopes require time at a shooting range to dial in these powerful optics.

A common malady at the shooting range is a condition called trigger flinch. This comes from anticipation of the recoil that is often acute with large-caliber rifles such as .30-06, 300 mag, .375 and others. Muzzle-loaders of .50 caliber and larger as well as 10-gauge shotguns also pack a punch. Gander Mountain offers a device that reduces recoil. The Caldwell Lead Sled ($99) has a padded rear rest that fits against the shoulder and cups the butt of the gun.

Recently, Mike Farmer of Kernersville spent time at the Rockingham Gun Club zeroing in a new Leupold 3x9x40 scope mounted on his .30-06-caliber Model 70 Winchester rifle. He used the device and said he was pleased with the results.

"I'm 61 years old and have been hunting since I was 13," Farmer said. "It usually takes several shots to get a new scope zeroed and after a while you begin to flinch. I've found the Caldwell Lead Sled to be easy to adjust and well made. Using two 25-pound bags of shot laid across the sled, I can shoot this rifle all day. It feels like I'm shooting a .22-caliber rifle."

Taking home a big buck generally takes days, if not years for many hunters. There's no reason to blow the shot just because you didn't invest a little time in firearm maintenance.

Randy R. Mabe is an outdoorsman, N.C. master bow hunter and freelance outdoors writer who lives in Reidsville. Contact him at huntrmabe@aol.com