Quiet out there...

[nomad]

Yeah! Too quiet!  

[yankee]

Four degrees yesterday and eight this morning.   I been hibernating up here in Yankee Land.  And you woke me up.  GURRRRRRRR

[nomad]

Yankee,

Before I met one of them Texas women and 'became' a Texan a few years ago (Down here they tell me I'm a REAL DamnYankee -- defined as one who came and didn't leave!) I lived in northern Maine and worked in Newfoundland, Labrador, Baffin Island and Greenland.

Wanna tell lies about winter weather?  

[Arizona Jake]

It may not be Greenland or the south pole, but surviving the long cold Wisconsin winters is not my cup of tea.  I'll take 115 deg. in the shade any day. It's colder than a penguins arse up here.  :cb2:

I can hardly wait until June and spring arrive...  On the bright side, I address the boredom of being cooped-up inside by practicing with the ol' air rifle in the basement.

Shot in a "Frozen Finger" match in Beloit last Sunday. The temperature was a balmy 8 degrees, with a NW wing of 10-15 mph. Staying warm was not that much of a problem, but this desert rat and others discovered something that was very interesting.

Most .22 lr ammo loses its accuracy in tempreatures below 10 degrees. Almost everyone observed their shots going all over the place except where aimed at. The guys who won the match were a little bit longer in the tooth and were using Lapua Biathlon ammo. I was shooting my Sako Finnfire to avoid shooting barehanded and it occurred to me, after shooting at turkeys and rams, to keep loaded magazines as warm as possible by keeping them in my shirt pocket. I noticed that when loading a "warm" magazine, the first two shots went right were I was breaking the shots, but by the third shot, the rounds had gotten cold and the spray pattern returned.  Has anyone else ever encountered this? How do you, our Canadian and Finn buddies adjust to shooting smallbore silhouette in such cold weather?

Regards, :shock:

[nomad]

A competitor in Anchorage was telling me that their match last weekend was cancelled due to temps steady in the negative teens. He says the same as you -- at just about 10F rimfire ammo goes south.
They also call matches whenever the snow depth exceeds 2 feet since they can't get the target stands sledded out onto the range.

One of the canadian guys has told me that they used to shoot in Whitehorse, Yukon, down to about minus 10F and they had to warm ammo for it to work.

Is it the lube or the priming...or something else?

Before I became a true son of the south  :wink:  I never shot rimfire outdoors in any really cold temps except for snowshoe hunting and that wasn't a game where real accuracy was required or tested for! (You can see some seriously cold mornings in northern Maine in the late rabbit season but I never remember my old M61 Winchester failing to fire...)

[Heikki in FIN]

Let the ammo and rifle cool down properly before shooting in winter.

Last year I was keeping log how temperature (from +25C (77F) to -17.5C (0.5F)) was affected to clicks. I was using Lapua Standard Club ammo. At least in my rifle, with that ammo, it was interesting found out that bullet fly was straightest at +15C (59F). When tempereture above or below that I have to click UPWARDS from my C = 0 point.

My "normal clicks" at +15C (59F) (C = 0)
C-P = 7
P-T = 9
T-R = 14

+25C (77F) clicks:
C = 5 (up from C=O)
C-P = 6
P-T = 9
T-R = 14

-17.5C (0.5F) clicks:
C = 8 (up from C=O)
C-P = 11
P-T = 10
T-R = 15

Heikki from -15C (5F) cold in Helsinki, Finland