This morning it was -3 at the house. The old boy must have wanted to go for a ride; he started once again, without having been plugged in.

The Dream Season, powder, bullets, sabot, and primers spent the night in the much warmer shop. They were loaded up, and we headed out to 4700'. It was snowing like the dickens up there, and it was -8, but we were there, so we set out the target, and loaded the rifle.











Oops, it couldn't shoot. After cleaning it the last time, i put the wrong breech plug in the rifle. Couldn't shoot it. So..with the powder and bullet in place the breech plug was removed, and replaced with the plug that would shoot the large rifle primers. Some powder came out with the original plug, and some powder could be felt in the threads, and between the nose of the plug, and the barrel. The plug was tightened as tight as i could using a 1/4" ratchet, and some powder grains were smushed.. Well, i knew the first shot from the cold clean barrel was compromised, but what could i do but proceed. The shots are identified in the order they were taken. No wait time was taken between shots.













Snow doesn't seem to affect the bullets much. The snow was so heavy whilst taking shots 1, 2, and 3, i could barely see them holes through the spotting scope. Then the snow let up, and the target was more easy to see. However, the tape wanted to obscure the holes made by 4, and 5, because it was curling away from the cardboard. When the trigger was pulled for shot 6, a nasty gust of wind happened right then, and the smoke blew quite strongly left, and away.

Group 2,3,4,5,7, 8 measures 3 1/4".

Group 3,4,5,7,8 measures 2 3/8".

Group 4, 5, 7, 8 measures 1 1/4".


It does seem the use of the tighter sabot did tend to keep the first shots closer to the later shots. However, the load for the first shot was different than the load for the rest, and this means more, and more shooting is required, so for to see where the very first shot from a cold clean barrel will impact.