Myself & MT Hands,want to know,Do you use a fouling shot,to season your rifle barrel,after cleanning,before the hunt?

Indirectly, no....

I always verify the sight in of the rifle just before hunting and I DO NOT clean the rifle after that sight in check prior to the hunt.

If you live where the onset of rust is immediate (I'm in bone dry Colorado) and you run an oil patch down the bore to preserve the bore, then you need to run a dry patch down the bore to remove the oil before firing and yes, in that case if you want the rifle to return right to your prior sight in a fowling shot is recommended.

Hunting "back east" or in Alaska would be a different ball game and seemingly "moisture problems" are responsible for the demand for synthetic or laminate stocks and stainless actions and barrels. I'm a wood and bluing guy myself, but it works here.

EKM

thanks for asking on mine and your behalf mounting man, on my deer rifles what i've been doing is do a complete cleaning after the season when the next season starts i'll fire my 1-3 "throw away shots", after this for the remainder of deer season i'll run rem oil down after a shot(s), and then run a dry patch down the tube but leave the copper fouling, or at least i don't use a nitro /copper solvent until after the seasons over, my deer rifles may be shot 10 times during the season at the most, if i was real lucky. like i mentioned in the other post if i start seeing erratic/errant shots on my others i'll clean till the green is gone..but i have always shot a fouling shot or three on my hunting rifles after removing heavy copper fouling, best of luck everybody and good shooting...........

Yes, I do execute two fouling shots from a clean barrel before hunting. Good luck.

I shoot my guns/barrels year around. Some are more finicky than others and require more frequent cleaning. At the range, shooting for groups I allow one fouling shot after each cleaning.

Just before deer season I'll take the gun I'm going to hunt with to the range and make sure all is good zero wise, give it a good cleaning, shoot one more group and put it away. It doesnt get cleaned again until after the deer is bagged or the season ends, which ever comes first.

I wipe my gun down after returning from the field and if it happened to be raining real hard, a good possibility here in Oregon, I'll remove the bolt and wipe it down real good, take one patch with maybe 2 small drops of oil on it and run down the bore.

Been treating my hunting rifle like this all my life, I've lived in Oregon all my life and I have never had a rusty gun or a shot go wild.

I like wood stocks and blued barrels.

I do prefer to get a coupl;e fouling shoots if at all possible. If not, I patch the bore dry with de-natured alcohol before the hunt.

Personally, I think the presence of lube in the bore is the biggest culprit in throwing that 1st shot off-line - so get it all out and shoot with confidence.

I handload and after every range session clean my barrel free of copper fouling. If I don't fire at least one fouler out of my rifle, my first shot is high and slightly left out of my 280. Out of my 257 Roberts it's high only. I had a pump 270 that would shoot to zero clean on the first shot.

Here's what I do and why. I verify my rifle before season (no yearly sighting in, it pretty much gets shot all year), clean it, then take at least 10rnds after cleaning before the hunt. I do this because my rifle is rather strange, but very consistent. The first 3shot group from my rifle CLEAN is almost guaranteed to be 6-8" at 100yrds. The second group is ALWAYS 3-5"...my third group is sometimes a wash-between 1-5", but after 10rnds or so, my groups are snowmen or ragged holes...it's ridiculous, but that's what it does.

With a given load, it's VERY regular in this pattern. I was playing at the range one day, took three groups, cleaning between each. Each group was almost identical, about 7" each, however, every shot had landed in the same place...i.e. all the first shots could be covered by a quarter, the second shots were under an inch, and the three third shots were one ragged hole...I showed the target to my fiance and she thought I had shot three groups at 3POA's, I said nope, just three groups at 3 POI's!!!!!

Now, that's just with my favorite hunting rifle...NO other gun I've ever seen has done this...but it is obvious that the fouling DOES increase my accuracy in THAT rifle.

I think the main purpose of a fouling shot, one that makes me do it in ALL of my rifles, is that disassembly for cleaning can sometimes alter your POI/POA relationship. It's not as significant in some actions as in others, but it DOES happen...Heck, one of my target rifles changes POI considerably just based on temperature change....if I don't shoot it between summer P-dogs and winter coyotes, my POI will change about 4" along a ~45degree line bottom left to upper right at 100yrds. The groups are still small, but it just shoots that far off...if I didn't shoot a fouling shot or test shot/group, I'd be missing/wounding game for no reason.

My regiment is the same even though I have rifles that shoot no different bore cleaned vs fouled. Basically while developing I start off each session with a clean bore, once I have the load and sight in completed I again clean and return to the range to fire a verifing group of 3 shots... she stays like that till the hunt is over. If wet I run my oil patch as a preventative, dry patchs and fire a spoiler to ensure it is GTG in the moment of truth.

I don't think it is really a hard rule but what more we become accustom to doing before season based on the rifles/our habits. I have read some say they haven't touched the bore's in several hunderd shot and will only do so when the rifle starts to stray...these aren't weekend warriors but guys who spend a lot of time on the range..different strokes for different folks I guess.

I have found what works best for me is, after hunting season, I thoroughly clean my bore with Hoppes benchrest, then in the spring when I start shooting again I run a few more patches of #9 just to make sure I have a fresh bore, then I use up to 10-12 shots before i consider my gun fouled to where it shoots good groups, for the rest of the season it only gets dry patches to clean the powder residue out (unless I hunt or shoot in the rain) until my post season cleaning. I have not found a reason, other than weather, to scrub, i.e. remove all fouling, from a barrel from over the course of one year unless massive amounts of rounds are fired through the barrel and accuracy has started to fade. Just my opinion.