Pittsburghunter

OK took my Encore out for the first time since last fall and was prepaired to chuck a few rounds down range from the .50cal barrel and then work on turning my .308 barrel into a light open sight alternative to my regular hunting rifle. I was going to take off the scope and mounts and shoot it open sighted for the first time. The Encore with an unscoped rifle barrel is light and easy to handle.

Well I went to shoot the .50cal m/l barrel and started to prep it by running some alchohol patches down the barrel and it felt real rough. I then looked through the breech plug and saw no sun light and knew something was wrong. Uh oh[:-]Did I screw up? Leave it loaded or forget to clean?

Well no, I broke the rifle down removed the breechplug and a moth nest fell out the breech[:@]. What is worse it (the nest contents) had scared the barrel and a half hour of scrubbing got most of the damage out but residue and/or damage did remain.


Well I got it back together and shot 3 rounds at 100yds with a new to me projectile (200g shockwave) and totally missed the paper. I moved the target up to 50yds got a 1" 3 shot group very high just above the last ring. Needless to say I was happy to see the barrel still shot well and I understand being I was shooting a much different projectile the fact it was very high.

I just tore the gun back down and the 6 shots I took fire lapped most of the bug crud out. I will hit it with a little JB tonight and count my blessings.

So just a little fair warning to anyone with moths in their gun room, check your bores often.

frontier gander

thats funny. Sucks big time but still amusing.

cayugad

Are you trying to tell us that the moth was unhappy with where he was living and looked for a more bore-ing place to live?

I have never heard of that happening to be real honest with you, but then there is always something new happening when you least expect it. Now I have removed rifles and found them with a large amount of dust in the barrels but never bugs.

I am glad to hear the rifle still shoots well. And thanks, I will check the rifles again. It would have been interesting to see what happened if you popped a primer through the rifle with that moth in there, but then I can understand.. you suspecting it might still be loaded doing what you did...

rem 700

hehehe. I'll give you an A+ for creativity, and another A+ for bad joke Sunday.

Yup, I must have heard it all now, with the addition of the moths in the bore.

Pittsburghunter

Yep been shooting forever and m/l for over 20 years and this is a first for me. I must add that we have had many moths around this year more than usual. I had the gun stored vertically for the record. When I first pulled out the plug I though it was a patch that fell to the ground then the other stuff fell out and I looked through it and found the moth/wings web and other crap. I guess me running the patch down the bore forced all the debrie into the breech face.

nchawkeye

Sounds like you need to "cover" your barrel.....

wabi

Never heard of it before, but now I'll be checking all my barrels for occupancy.

blackheel

Sounds like someone is trying to tell you to shoot some more.....Good excuse as any!

Johnmorris

I like to store my guns without the breech pug in place. When I shoot I inspect the barrel and replace breech plug.

nchawkeye

Johnny,...I do the same thing...I do store my Knight in a hard case, I also keep everything in there I need to hunt with it...6 preloaded measures, a powder flask, extra bullets, discs already primed, cleaning patches, alcohol, oil, everything I would need to service and clean the gun...I put my breech plug in a ziplock bag...

This post reminded me of a problem I ran into about 25 years ago with a John Deere 850 tractor...I was a service rep in VA and those tractors were made for us by Yanmar in Japan, they came to the dealer in a wooden case after being shipped....A dealer had called, the tractor was blowing oil out of the exhaust...He was ready to pull down the engine...I went to check it out and removed the dipstick while the engine was running, I noticed he had air blowing out of the dipstick hole, the crankcase had pressure in it, which is not normal....There was a breather hose that I removed, couldn't blow through....It had a dirt dobbler's nest built in it....I took a clothes hanger and cleaned, fixed the problem....Later that day another service rep on another territory called and had the same problem, he couldn't figure what was happening and that dealer had started to dissassemble the engine....
I told him what I found and his tractor had the same problem....

Deere sent out a service bulletin on this, several in that same shipment were found to have the same problem...They started plugging the pvc hose with a red cap for shipment to eliminate further problems...