whitetails & muskies

I have been shooting quite a bit here of late getting ready for and elk/mulie hunt in early September. I' ll be honest, in that this is my first true muzzle loader hunt and love shooting them at the range. I have heard several thoughts on " the first shot" ...you know, the one that counts :-). My question is do you shoot a " blank" load to remove any oils, etc? What I mean is one individual told me that a small charge with a patch before you load up for the field? Not sure if I asked this properly, but any feedback would be appreciated.

I' m shooting 100 gr 777 2F with a 348 gr Aero tip and 209' s.

lonewolf5347

whitetails & muskies What I do would be to snap a couple of 209 ' s off and then clean barrel with a dry clean patch that it ready to load that main charge.

driftrider

Since I' ve found that the first shot of a clean bore can be a little erratic from my Knight, I wil only hunt with a fouled bore. What I do is load up a 10gr charge of Pyrodex with an empty sabot. On my way out to the field I' ll just pick a nice secluded spot to pull over, which isn' t too hard to find at 4am, and shoot out that charge. Then I reload with my hunting charge sans primer and finish the drive to the woods. Seems to work fine. A couple of caps will also burn out the oils, but doesn' t really foul the bore.

Mike

skeeter 7MM

I guess it would depend on how your ML shoots clean? Mine shots fine with a clean bore, so I just lock, load, cap up and go! I don' t use oils in the bore (except for winter storage), I just clean with hot/soapy water and dry patch her...never had a problem in 7 years with any inline I owned in practicing this cleaning ritual. I do however clean immediately upon returning home after being fired.

David/Mo

What I do in preparation of any shooting is the same- wipe bore out well with dry patch twice/both sides of patch, then pop several caps at least 4, then load a normal load and fire to foul barrel, then wipe bore with clean patch, then if hunting I pop 2 or 3 more caps, then load. This insures clean dry bore, clear fire channel and conditioned bore.
Works for me.
David/Mo

RKenSprac

You getting answers for two different things:
The first, firing a cap or two with no load is ensure that your nipple if free of oil and debri. The flame from the cap blows obstructions out of the flame path. This step is more important for traditional ML shooters, but is still a good idea for in-lines. I shoot a traditional gun, and always do this prior to loading when hunting. The patch is opitional - if there is a lot of oil in the barrel/nipple is can help absorb some of the excess oil.

The second issue, is some MLs seem to shoot differently with a clean vs. a fouled barrel. Most folks who deal with this will site there guns in with a fouled barrel, then fire a shot, to foul the barrel, before hunting. This way, any follow up shots will hit the same as the first shot. If you gun does this, you just need to know where your gun will hit when fired.

Hope this helps