Little tips that can make a big difference?

[HankBuck]

It took me probably ten years of marriage to realize this one.

I keep tampons in my truck and other adventure vehicles. Not because of any survival, stop a sucking chest wound kind of thing.

I can tell you from personal experience, if your wife or girlfriend has an unexpected visitor…

A polite and gentle solution to that situation really saves the day.

That is my tip.

@John the Electrician - OK John, that “tip” is certainly never winning any awards - this is a HUNTING FORUM and the only references to “blood” should be How-to-track-it !!

 

[Grumpy gumpy]

@John the Electrician - OK John, that “tip” is certainly never winning any awards - this is a HUNTING FORUM and the only references to “blood” should be How-to-track-it !!

I don’t know…. Nothing would ruin a hunt quicker than "we have to go NOW, and don’t ask" followed by a glare that would stop a charging lion in its tracks
Gumpy

 

[HankBuck]

I don’t know…. Nothing would ruin a hunt quicker than "we have to go NOW, and don’t ask" followed by a glare that would stop a charging lion in its tracks
Gumpy

@Grumpy gumpy - let the “lioness” leave if she has to but the LION keeps hunting

 

[BGGMKLR]

When purchasing a firearm that cannot be personally inspected, request pics of the item...with any common household item of your choice included in each pic. Anything...a banana, a fork, a remote control...
Doing so eliminates several possible concerns and ensures that:

The pics are current, and accurately reflect the real time condition of the item,

and

Pretty much guarentees that the seller actually has possession of the item he is attempting to sell.


Due diligence is your friend...and will reduce your " scam-ability" exponentially.
Best
Spike

 

[50Gunner]

Here's a few little tips that can make a difference, save a few tears, and a sh-t pile of money too.

ANY fine walnut stocked hunting rifle has to have stock mounting screw clearance, take rifle apart, get a small light and peer down the holes, you can see marring or rub lines on the wood, also visible on the middle screws on Model 70's etc, etc.

I hand drill the holes with a bit a tic larger than the factory drilled holes, get a little 55 gal drum barrel shaped sandpaper bit for your Dremel, open and deepen the middle recess in the stock for ALL rifles with three stock mounting bolts.

Take rifle to 'Smith and have him relieve the wood a touch behind the rear action tang, saw my 'Smith do that for me on an FN Belgian Mauser with some sort of end mill cutter? upright with stock leveled with a bubble level that looked like a round pole, really cool to get to see.

I took it home, used Q-tip with 100% Tung oil to treat the new exposed wood, a couple coats over a couple days does just fine, do the same when I drill out holes at home.

If your stocks screws don't drop freely to the steel threaded holes in the receiver, or you cant see a bit of clearance at the rear tang, you are asking for a heartbreak!

You do not want any steel chisels working at splitting your stock each time you fire the weapon.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Here's a few little tips that can make a difference, save a few tears, and a sh-t pile of money too.

ANY fine walnut stocked hunting rifle has to have stock mounting screw clearance, take rifle apart, get a small light and peer down the holes, you can see marring or rub lines on the wood, also visible on the middle screws on Model 70's etc, etc.

I hand drill the holes with a bit a tic larger than the factory drilled holes, get a little 55 gal drum barrel shaped sandpaper bit for your Dremel, open and deepen the middle recess in the stock for ALL rifles with three stock mounting bolts.

Take rifle to 'Smith and have him relieve the wood a touch behind the rear action tang, saw my 'Smith do that for me on an FN Belgian Mauser with some sort of end mill cutter? upright with stock leveled with a bubble level that looked like a round pole, really cool to get to see.

I took it home, used Q-tip with 100% Tung oil to treat the new exposed wood, a couple coats over a couple days does just fine, do the same when I drill out holes at home.

If your stocks screws don't drop freely to the steel threaded holes in the receiver, or you cant see a bit of clearance at the rear tang, you are asking for a heartbreak!

You do not want any steel chisels working at splitting your stock each time you fire the weapon.

Which guns have three stock mounting bolts? Wait ... ones with detachable magazine maybe?

What is the "middle recess"? The magazine well?

Both my plains game 30-06 and DGR 404J are bedded with JB Weld pretty much throughout, including around the screws. More so with the latter. Second stock for it was used and fitted for another gun. Some bubba tried to fit it for a specialty trigger using a screwdriver for a chisel so I had to bed it behind the mag box as well as front to fill in the void and strengthen the wood. Adding two crossbolts and a steel pin down through the wrist plus the extra JB Weld pretty much ensures no future "headaches". That action fits together tight! I did relieve the tangs both top and bottom. A very tiny crack had already started behind the upper tang (the stock clearly formerly housed a magnum rifle - the barrel trough was for a heavy profile and no forward sling stud in the stock = barrel mounted sling = African thumper). Best tip I can offer is don't try fitting a used wooden stock to another rifle. It turned out well and is holding up fine but required a lot of thinking outside the box plus extra work. It's a fancy stock so I guess it was worth it.

If properly bedded, the sockets for action screws will be set in bedding. Should be sockets on both the action (threaded) and floorplate (not threaded). Even if the action screws are rubbing against the stock, would there be enough movement to damage anything if the sockets holding the screws on both ends are essentially set in stone?

 

[50Gunner]

OH,

All two piece bottom metal Model 70 Winchesters have three stock mounting screws, the middle screw is for the front of the trigger guard and goes down between a recess in the stock at the rear portion that's cut out for the magazine box, the vaunted pre-64 Model 70's in the larger cartridges are known stock splitters.

You seem to have your rifles well supported, BUT, I'd most certainly let the bedding and cross-bolts do the work, and NOT rely on the stock screws to share in that work load, very easy to drill them to forever free them from any damage they 'could' cause, make those shooting irons failsafe Sir.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

OH,

All two piece bottom metal Model 70 Winchesters have three stock mounting screws, the middle screw is for the front of the trigger guard and goes down between a recess in the stock at the rear portion that's cut out for the magazine box, the vaunted pre-64 Model 70's in the larger cartridges are known stock splitters.

You seem to have your rifles well supported, BUT, I'd most certainly let the bedding and cross-bolts do the work, and NOT rely on the stock screws to share in that work load, very easy to drill them to forever free them from any damage they 'could' cause, make those shooting irons failsafe Sir.

No surprise the pre-64 Model 70 thumper guns were prone to cracked stocks. Three vertical action screws and no horizontal crossbolts. Even military Mausers in "standard" calibers had at least one crossbolt.

 

[50Gunner]

Yes Sir, your rifles are most likely just fine as is, I'm no Gunsmith or Stock builder, but, if we could take an extreme example, if I tightly wrapped a large stick of firewood machine assisted with a chain or band wrapped it with steel flat strapping, I could drive with hammer and bar or hydraulics press a splitting wedge completely through the stick of wood without it splitting, it would simply have a hole punched through it.

Much like your cross-bolts and bedding are shielding your stocks from being split by the rearward forces of the barreled actions, I would, for extra safeties sake, relieve any and all stock screws from touching anything but dead air, be it wood or epoxy resin bedding compounds of some sort.

 

[Altitude sickness]

Carry or have the trackers carry a short piece of brass round stock. Or rifle pin driver. Drop it in your pack.
In the unlikely event you have a malfunction and stuck case

Drop it down the muzzle with a little push and it will drive out a stuck case. Heavy and short is better. I left mine in Zim. I have plenty

 

[WI-2021]

Lots of great tips in this thread, particularly for a safari newbie and amateur gun plumber such as myself! Please keep them coming!

 

[baxterb]

For travel here's what I use for gun oil and cleaning solvent. Hoppies #9 bottles are VERY poorly sealed. Don't tip them over after they've been opened! The paper seal in the lid is a joke. They don't seal worth a damn and tend to fall out ... so my dogs can try to eat them!! I tried cough syrup bottle but solvent softened the plastic lid. This is a Scope mouthwash trial/travel size bottle and it seals up perfectly. You can buy them at Walmart or most drug stores. I cut the lable off Hoppies bottle and reattached so no questions what's inside. The gun oil is in a clean Visene eye med dispenser. Also seals tight and very handy for applying oil in right amount to the right places.
View attachment 655644

Not sure why I never thought of reusing my eye-drops bottles for this. Good call.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Carry or have the trackers carry a short piece of brass round stock. Or rifle pin driver. Drop it in your pack.
In the unlikely event you have a malfunction and stuck case

Drop it down the muzzle with a little push and it will drive out a stuck case. Heavy and short is better. I left mine in Zim. I have plenty View attachment 662566

Interesting ring. Must be a story there.

Good tip. When trimming my Mauser extractor to snap over on dumny 404 Jeffery cartridges, I occasionally had to push them back out of the chamber with cleaning rod. Usually I could thump the butt on the floor and shake the cartridge out, but not always. Turns out the crappy RWS brass I was loading caused most of the grief. Besides being too short (which caused me to adjust my dies incorrectly which caused the shoulder to be pushed back), RWS rim thickness are VERY inconsistent. Fortunately, I discovered the brass was defective before taking too much metal from the extractor. Switched to Hornady brass and no more issues. Hundreds of trials and no failure. When loading up in the field or at the range, I now try to avoid snap over. But it's critical to have that option in a dangerous situation. Anyway, a piece of brass rod will be handy, especially if a spent case becomes lodged in the chamber (e.g. extractor fails). I don't travel with cleaning rods. Prefer bore snake. More compact and cleans better in my opinion.

 

[Altitude sickness]

It didn’t happen to me but I’ve read where people have had their hunting day end prematurely and had to return to camp. It’s an easy insurance plan.

 

[MS 9x56]

Cheap vapor barriers--put on liner sock, carefully add thin produce bag, then put on heavy outer sock, without tearing produce bag!! The foot will stop sweating when liner sock is moist, thin plastic liner keeps outer heavy sock dry, and result is you can withstand cold temperatures WAY better.
Huge wet-wipe bathing size disposable towlettes. I get them from a relative who has a bunch of unused packages at the nursing home. (freebee)

I have found in very cold environs a lite weight merino wool sock as a liner and then a heavy weight wool sock works best for me. Warm and odor free.

 

[MS 9x56]

@roklok - same here and started doing that for rabbit hunting, got tired of retrying my boots every couple hours. After the hunt ifs over the square knot is easily untied - especially with the “fatter laces” and even if extra time is required….worth it.

I found it helpful when following beagles thru briars in addition to surgeons knots I also tucked the ears into the tops of my boots.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

@John the Electrician - OK John, that “tip” is certainly never winning any awards - this is a HUNTING FORUM and the only references to “blood” should be How-to-track-it !!

I have a bottle of Hoppes copper solvent on the shelf. I don't find it cleans any better than regular Hoppes #9.

Any residue supposedly left in the barrel by my bore snake passing through will be scrubbed out by the clean highly compressed rag in the finger loop dragged through the bore AFTER the rest of the snake has passed through. Cleaning rod method is theoretically dirtier. Once the cleaning patch has passed through the bore, it can be removed but then the "dirty" cleaning rod must still be pulled back up through the bore. Bore snake's cleaning patch is pulled through last and then bore snake is out. Snake doesn't have to be pulled back up through the bore like the rod.

One advantage of my method of using the bore snake is the cleaning patches can be highly compressed. Shoving a highly compressed rag through the bore with a cleaning rod is much more difficult than pulling it through with bore snake. Also, the cleaning rod and/or the slotted tip tend to get bent under pressure of compressed cleaning patch. Nothing to get bent with bore snake.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I have found in very cold environs a lite weight merino wool sock as a liner and then a heavy weight wool sock works best for me. Warm and odor free.

@MS 9x56
If'n it's that cold to need two pairs of socks I will keep my feet dry and warm sitting in front of a nice fire with my feet up reading the forum.
Besides that if'n I put two pairs of socks in I wouldn't get my boots on.
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

I found it helpful when following beagles thru briars in addition to surgeons knots I also tucked the ears into the tops of my boots.

@MS 9x56
Tucking the ears into the boots would make it a bit hard for the beagles to run wouldn't it.
That's only speculation tho because I have never tried to tuck my dogs ears into my boots. If'n I did the mongrel would have bit me
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Bob

 

[MS 9x56]

@MS 9x56
If'n it's that cold to need two pairs of socks I will keep my feet dry and warm sitting in front of a nice fire with my feet up reading the forum.
Besides that if'n I put two pairs of socks in I wouldn't get my boots on.
Bob

Bob I am talking -20c not +20c.