Reliable operation of mechanisms and accurate shots on a hunt depend on the state of the weapon. Let's take a look at the most important ingredients in hunting rifle savings.
When I go hunting, I always look at the gun. And returning, too. Even if not a single shot was fired from it. This has already become a pleasant habit - communication with a gun. Maybe that's why I'm always sure that my gun won't let me down.
Let's take a look at the most important ingredients in hunting rifle savings. Readers may ask, why only savings? The fact is that the bulk is not a “virgin” audience, which needs to be taught the “basics” of operating, cleaning, lubricating the gun and storing it.
From the experience of past years
When opening the gun, you must hold the barrels with your left hand, preventing them from falling freely. On the hunt and at the stand, some of us open the gun with a careless shaking of the barrels, and close them with a sharp toss. Such handling of the gun leads to loosening of the barrels, breakage of hammers, mainsprings, strikers, gun opening lever, cocking of hammers and ejector mechanism. It is not recommended to click on the triggers in vain before disassembling the rifle. If the gun is equipped with a smooth trigger release, then do not be too lazy with open barrels to simultaneously press both releases. If there is no smooth descent, insert the spent cartridges and release the triggers. And with the trunks disconnected, firmly press the spent cartridge case or piece of wood to the hole of the striker and release. Failure to comply with these simple requirements leads to breakdown and premature failure of the gun.
The main condition for the reliable operation of the gun and the effectiveness of shooting is well-equipped cartridges with gunpowder and shot weights selected for the given gun. The use of increased weights of gunpowder and shot contribute to accelerated wear of the gun. Owners of 76mm chambered shotguns should not get carried away with Magnum rounds. This kind of shooting almost doubles the wear of the gun. Shotguns of caliber, for example, 12/76 weighing 3, 2-3, 4 kg are not at all "magnum" shotguns. Their chambers are designed to accommodate a cartridge with steel shot in 32-36 g. The magnum cartridge develops a pressure of propellant gases up to 1200 bar, and this is already a serious test for a gun.
Owners of shotguns with 70mm chambers should also never shoot Magnum cartridges. The "magnum" cartridge, loaded into a 76 mm long sleeve and sealed with an "asterisk", freely fits into the 70 mm long chamber.
Sad examples
Somehow a familiar hunter, seeing in the store a pack with ten cartridges of 12 caliber, bought it. They turned out to be the Magnum cartridges. With these ten rounds, he rendered unusable the new TOZ-34 rifle.
When self-loading cartridges, you should strictly adhere to the instructions of the manufacturer of the gunpowder and in no case exceed the recommended weights of gunpowder and shot. It was very difficult for a friend of mine to give a plate from number 1 on a round stand, served from a high booth. He kept striving to equip such a cartridge in order to easily hit it. One day, a thunderous shot hit him against the wall of the booth. The gun jammed and he got a good slap in the face. Later he found "his own cartridge" by increasing the weight of gunpowder and dividing the shot with dense wads.
You should also be careful when shooting a bullet from a smoothbore gun. Domestic guns can be fired with bullets of all commercially available designs. The same cannot be said about some foreign-made rifles (especially old ones) and rifles for shooting on a trench stand with a muzzle restriction of more than 1.0 mm. Firing these guns can cause the barrel to swell or burst. Semi-automatic owners, when choosing bullet cartridges, must pay attention to the fact that the bullet nose does not protrude beyond the sleeve. There were cases when, when fired, a cartridge in a magazine, under the influence of recoil energy, hit the capsule in front of the cartridge located in front of its protruding bullet. An explosion occurred, traumatizing the hunter and rendering the gun unusable.
When hunting in winter, make sure that snow does not fall into the trunks. When fired, the barrel will necessarily break. Once, during a round-up hunt, my friend, jumping out of the car body, unnoticed by himself, poked the MTs21-12 barrel into the snow. As always in such cases (of course, according to the law of meanness!) An elk came out to him. Shot - and the muzzle turned into a "rose".
Some hunters, in order to protect the gun from clogging the barrel (s), plug them with rags. This is absolutely impossible to do. In the confusion, he forgot to pull it out and, when fired, the barrels would rip.
A few tips
I would like to warn hunters who have the habit of finishing off a hare or a fox with the butt of a loaded gun. You can break the butt, but the trigger can come off, and then tragedy cannot be avoided.
In some hunting farms, duck hunting is carried out on large reservoirs from boats. Once, at the Kiev reservoir, a huntsman on a motorboat was towing a dozen boats to hunting grounds. For some reason, one of the boats capsized. The boat did not stop immediately. The hunters were pulled out, and the guns still lie at the bottom to this day. Since then, when I sent out the hunters, I required them to tie their guns to the boat seats.
As a boy, on a late autumn duck hunt, I got caught in the rain and snow. I spent the night in the woods. Frost hit. Raindrops trapped in the trunk of the IZH-5 froze. The first shot - and the barrel was "decorated" with pea-shaped bulges. Of course I got it. From that day on, it became a habit to look into the barrels before loading a gun. If snow gets into the barrel, do not try to blow it out. It will freeze from breath and cannot be removed without a ramrod. My father showed me his pocket ramrod, hidden in an old metal sleeve. Subsequently, I improved it. And now it looks like this: two felt wads are "strung" on a nylon thread (it is 10 cm longer than the trunk), and fixed on it; at the other end there is a round bullet (Polev's bullet is good). "Tackle" is packed in a spent "Magnum" cartridge case. First a bullet, then a thread, a piece of a clean cloth soaked in oil or petroleum jelly - everything is plugged up with a "low" wad. I place the ramrod in the slot on the far right of the cartridge belt. Nothing less than one cartridge in the bandolier. But he is always at hand. The ramrod is multipurpose: you can clean the barrel, knock out the sleeve stuck in the barrel with a load, and, if necessary, use the bullet for its intended purpose.
In conclusion, I would like to advise hunters - love and take care of your gun, take care of it and it will answer you with reliable operation of mechanisms and well-aimed shots on the hunt.
