RE: First blood on my Omega
After thinking about my post with that backsplash BS I realized that since this is a learning forum I should not have disseminated such a falsehood. That was disrespectful of the other members, my rifle and the hog. Therefore to increase learning and understanding I will explain as best I can the reason for blooding my rifle.
As background information: I learned a tremendous amount about hunting, fishing and the outdoors from my dad. He ran coon dogs when he was a young man and as I was growing up he told many a bedtime story about Ol’ Bull, Big Boy, Trailer and the rest of the pack. Anyway he explained to me that in order for the dogs to feel like they benefited from the hunt you should always share some of the kill with them.
Now just like a hunting dog, rifles have feelings too. Unless you want to ruin it so that it is only good as a target rifle you need to give it little taste of the kill when you are successful. I don’t advocate pouring the barrel full or any such nonsense. Just dab a few drops around the muzzle so it can have some satisfaction of a job well done. What you are trying to do is develop a hunting rifle that is as anxious to be out in the woods as you are. There is nothing more useless than a rifle that has been neglected or even worse abused by its owner. I know that I am getting on my soap box here but rifles don’t have oil glands so it is up to you to give it a good coat of quality oil from time to time. Do not over feed your rifle, if you try to double its ration you can wind up with a pot bellied barrel and have to put out to pasture. . A little bit of TLC will go a long way towards keeping your rifle happy and ready to hunt.
In summary don’t leave your rifle to languish in a closet rusting and bored. Take it out regularly, keep it well fed, oiled and share the joy of success with it and you will be amazed at how well it performs.