Preparing For Your Hunt

Was it the gun or the gunner?

If you find that your rifle has a problem, you will not likely find an available gunsmith just before hunting season. Over the years, we have met hunters that miss moose because their rifles simply don’t shoot straight.

A second cause of missed moose are rifles that jam due to poor cleaning or because they are out of adjustment.

Thirdly, some hunters have had trouble letting off the safety of their rifle and missed a shot due to over excitement and unfamiliarity with their new or borrowed rifle.

The forth and biggest cause of missed moose is the gunner himself, not the gun. These hunters just can’t shoot straight due to lack of practice.

Overcome your flinch!

All totaled, you and your partners may invest ten or fifteen thousand dollars on your Canada moose hunt, the success of which may depend on you, and you alone. You may be the only lucky one of the party to see a moose. At the end of the day, if you miss your moose, someone in your party may gently ask you how much practice you had before the hunt. You can be sure the others will be listening intently to your answer so get some practice.

You can’t pick up a high powered, big game rifle, and expect to shoot it without a flinch that is sure to spoil your aim the first few times you shoot it. The flinch you may have from not practicing with your rifle will not be as bad as the flinch you will develop after your hunting partners ream you out for missing the moose you should have been able to shoot, and ruining the hunt, all because you were ill prepared.

Moose hunting readiness test.

You can’t do all your practicing on a bench rest. Once you have used the bench rest to sight in your rifle, shoot a dozen or more rounds at a one hundred yard target, without support, from a standing position. Your readiness test is to prove that you can hit a twelve inch target, five times out of six at 100 yards while standing!

Start practicing at least one month before your hunt. Keep practicing until you can pass the test. Ask that the other members of your hunting party do the same. Bring your best shot targets to your hunt to compare results. No cheating allowed. Looser must wash dishes first night! Its good fun and its good insurance against someone in your party missing a moose.

Sight your rifle in for 200 yards. Find a ballistics table for your caliber and memorize the inches to hold off for shots at 100 yards, 300 yards and longer distances. Many big game calibers zeroed for 200 yards, shoot about one inch high at 100 yards. Find out what your rifle is capable of. Practice shooting at 200 and 300 yards if you can.

Semi-Auto owners take care. Owners of semi- auto rifles have a bigger responsibility to their rifles and to their hunting partners. Jammed semis in cold weather are also the cause of many missed moose. Semi-auto rifles jam when dirty and they jam more often in cold weather.

Breeches that have collected powder residue, dirty actions or actions that have had too much oil applied are often the root problem. Some times it is just fine tuning that was necessary. In any case, do what you have to do to insure that the action of your semi-auto has been cleaned properly and that your breech has been scoured and the system has been properly tuned.

Preparing your semi-auto rifle for cold firing. You can purchase an aerosol, gun cleaner, degreaser that is especially useful for cleaning semi-auto actions and firing pin breach blocks, without the need to dismantle the parts. If you are not capable of dismantling your semi’s action to clean the parts properly, use the aerosol degreaser at a minimum to clean it.

Don’t apply the degreaser to a rifle on a fiber resin stock or you will ruin the finish of your stock. To use the aerosol gun cleaner degreaser on a rifle mounted on a fiber resin stock, you must remove the action and the barrel from the stock first. After cleaning the metal parts, use a fine mist spray to oil your action, barrel and metal parts. Prepare a soft clean cloth with a lightly sprayed coating of gun oil.

Use the cloth to wipe the metal parts of your rifle to remove all excess oil. Modern rifles are designed to work with an almost invisible coating of lubricant. If you can see the oil you have applied, it is likely that you have applied too much. There are modern alternatives to using a traditional, straight oil lubricant on the parts of your rifle’s action that provide superior cold weather lubrication and help prevent cold weather jamming.

Is your rifle up to the task?

A word about ballistics. We know that many moose have been killed with a 30-30 Winchester but we also know that many more have been wounded to run away and die a slow death.

To hunt moose effectively and fairly you need a high powered, big game rifle that offers more penetration and many more foot pounds of hitting power than a deer rifle can deliver at range. We recommend a .308 Winchester at a minimum. We recommend a 300 Win Mag, or any other similar caliber that can offer equal or better long range hitting performance. Please don’t hesitate to consult us on this subject.