For a number of years now, I have spent a good portion of my time on lakes in the eastern portion of the State of Texas helping East Texans to manage their private lakes. It is a fascinating line of work!

It requires a unified approach to manage a pond or lake, especially if you are trying to create a fishery. There are also a lot of questions that come up about individual issues like pond algae, lake weeds, lake weed killers, and water clarity. This seems like a good place to talk about some of these things.

If you have questions regarding the care and feeding of your private lake or pond, feel free to ask them here, in the comment section, and we will be happy to reply in a post.

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If you are planning on changing ammunition this year, or if you are planning on using a different rifle, you should start making those choices now, and head on out to the range for some sighting in. Every ammunition shoots to a different point, and will have a different minute of angle value. If you start finding out what that is, and getting ready now, you won’t have to rush so much when the season gets near.

If you want a little information on why the ammo reacts differently, or some tips on how to pick the best for your rifle, check out the other posts on this subject on this site.

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When a bullet exits the muzzle of a rifle, several things are happening. The gases from the ignition of the powder in the case, expand the case to form a seal against the chamber walls, and continue to expand forcing the bullet out of the case, into the throat, and rifling, which cause the bullet to spin with the rifling. It continues to spin after it exits. This stabilizes the bullet as it heads to it’s destination. The explosive force of the propellant, and the torque of the rifling, set up patterns of vibration in the barrel. When the bullet exits, it will exit at a particular point in that cycle of vibration. If the ammunition is consistent, and the operators hold is consistent, it will exit at the same point in the cycle each time it goes bang.

Good, or bad vibrations.

Different ammunition will set up different vibration patterns, and therefore produce different results. That is, the bullet will leave the muzzle at a different place. this may be only a fraction of an inch at the muzzle, but it can translate into several inches, or feet at the target end. If the barrel is vibrating upward, it will be higher, if downward, it will be lower if right or left, it will be right or left of it’s intended goal.

Try this. Take several boxes of differing ammunition for the same rifle to the range. Set up several targets, and fire five rounds each at 100 yards of each type. Some will be grouped tighter than others. If you have one that performs particularly well, you should make that one your ammunition of choice. Even if it lands low and to the left of the target, you can adjust the sights or scopes to put that group in the bullseye.

A personal experience.

I had a friend who had an old Enfield rifle that he was about ready to part with because he couldn’t keep it on the paper. He asked me to give it a try. I sat at the bench and fired five rounds of his ammo at the bullseye. None of those five rounds came within 8 inches of the bullseye, but they were all clustered in a nice little 1 inch or less cluster at the bottom right hand corner of the target. When he peered through the spotting scope at the spectacle, he changed his mind about the rifle. Damn the luck! I really wanted it for my collection!

Group size is important. Where the group lands is also important, but that is just a matter of moving the sights. A different ammunition might have put one round in the bull, and the rest in each corner. That would almost guarantee an hour of following a long blood trail through dense brush in a hunting scenario.

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Okay. If you have read up to this point, you know that any change in ammunition or weapon will change the projectiles point of impact. So, you now have both the weapon you will use, and a box of the ammunition you will use.

I know I probably stressed that point a lot earlier, but it is not just a major point, at this stage, it is the major point! If you have a box of 150 grain brand X cartridges, and you site in with them, but buy a box of 180 grain brand Y cartridges for your hunting trip, you are asking for trouble. I know it may sound silly, but I have seen it happen on many trips to the range when a guy at the bench next to me is sighting and practicing with a box of full metal jacket rounds, which you cannot, of course hunt with and when asked about that, he says that he is sighting in with this ammunition because it is cheaper than the ammo he will hunt with!

The mechanics.

You have your rifle, and the ammo you plan to hunt with. Go to the range, and set a target at the 25 yard backstop. If you are doing this on your own turf, or at a buddies makeshift range, set up the same way. This is, a bench, at 25 yards from a secure backstop, where stray rounds will only strike the dirt or an impenetrable wall.

We will assume (how I hate making assumptions) that you already have either bore sighted, or used some other method of getting a pretty good idea of where the bullet will exit the barrel, and wind up at this short distance. If you are using a scoped rifle, you should already be familiar with your scopes knob adjustments and which way you need to turn them to adjust for zero.

Insert a round into the chamber, and lock it. Fire 1 round at the bulls eye, using all the skills you have learned about such things as breathing technique, and gentle trigger work. If this puts you on the paper, great! If not, you have some work to do. We will add a supplement for just such a case. Adjust your windage and elevation knobs, and fire another round. If you are familiar with your weapon, this will probably cause the next round to be dead center in the bulls eye. If it does, you will want to set a target at 100 yards, if not, continue to do the same thing until it does.

Set a target at 100 yards. Return to the bench, and repeat the whole exercise again. If you are hunting in an open area, with more than 300 yards of opening, you can set your zero to place the bullet 3 inches high at 100 yards if you like. That should give you a clean kill at any distance within that range.

About distance:

I have seen several instances where friends came to the range with me to sight in a rifle, This is usually preceded by stories of 600 yard clean kills. When we arrive, and set up targets, they often ask why we are setting up at such long distances. “Why are we setting up at 300 yards?” “Well, we are not, we are setting up at 100 yards, that is 300 feet!” Most people miss judge distance. In my area, I have never seen a deer taken at a distance exceeding 75 yards.

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Before we get started on the mechanics of sighting in, there are a few things that need to be said:

This assumes certain things like:

• You are a *responsible hunter.

• You have a rifle of the *appropriate caliber, which is safe and in good repair.

Other things that should be kept in mind when sighting a deer hunting rifle, or any weapon, should also be said here:

• Ammunition change means a change in the bullet’s point of impact. Every change in component means a change on the target. *A different primer, powder, bullet, cartridge case, any and all of these things will send the projectile to a slightly different point downrange. A rifle should be sighted in every time ammunition is changed.

• A change in rifle should include sighting it in. A new rifle will not shoot the same ammunition to the same point of aim as your old one straight out of the box.

I know these things sound elementary, but there are those who are not as familiar with these facts as we might assume.

Next: Sighting in.

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My son had one of those deer hunting games. The game had a feature allowing for choosing your rifle, and a provision for sighting in. It was sort of nice, and a little more realistic than the arcade type games we saw after I was grown, having grown up in the day when pinball was the rage, and before “pong” was even invented.

“Dad, this game sucks” he said, “I can’t hit anything, would you try?” I was a little reluctant, not having done much “gaming” before, but I set the rifle scope up where the cross hairs were resting on the shoulder area, you know, perfect for a broadside heart and lung shot, and gave the mouse a gentle little squeeze. What happened next surprised me. The dear fell of course, but what really surprised me was the rush that I got as a result of this game. It was strangely reminiscent of the same sensations in the field! I tried it a few more times, with the same result, and got bored. I gave him back his seat, and told him to be more gentle with the mouse when he clicked it, and that solved his problem.

A transferable skill.

It was one of those skills that transfered easily from one application to another, and was uncharacteristic of the games of the day, because it bore a resemblance to reality. If you jerk the trigger on a rifle, you jerk the rifle off target. If you apply that knowledge to the mouse, you get the same result.

Being accurate with your rifle is not only of benefit to the hunter, but is also the only responsible way to hunt! We should strive for accuracy not only for our sake, but also for the sake of your prey, and the safety of everyone else. I want to offer a few helpful tips on ammunition, and sighting in a rifle as a reminder for deer hunters and others.

Sighting a rifle, some preliminaries.

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Hey, we don’t really have a cafe, but we would like to know if you have any particularly great methods or recipes for campfire chow! Let us know how you make that back strap extra special, or your venison chili knocked the socks of of the judges at the chili cook off. Oh yea, don’t forget your tips and tricks for world class fish fries!

Sign in, log in, and make a comment or suggestion. Hey, if your going to kill it, you might as well eat it!

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The Supreme Court finally realized, and acknowledged that the Second Amendment guarantees the individual the right to own fire arms! That was quite a breakthrough! I might also add that it is about time! Former courts, and many legislators through the years have tried to twist it around to refer to the militia. This stems from a lack of understanding about:

• A. The The meaning of “militia” at the time of the documents drafting.
• B. The meaning of the term “people”.
• C. The meaning of the term “state”.
• D. The meaning of the term “infringement”.

Apparently period dictionaries were not available to these folks so they were left with a very “Clintonesque” questioning of what the definition of “is,” is.

They need to do some more work on the idea of infringement. As far as I can determine, it means something along the lines of “not touching, or changing”! On that note, the court also made a little headway by acknowledging that errors were made in the Miller decision of 1939. It is interesting to note, that even in that case, the court only required proof that the weapon in question would improve the efficiency of a militia, not that the owner be a member of a militia! This showed that the court understood that the ownership of a firearm, even for militia purposes, was an individual right.

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Okay, I have to admit it, if you squeeze the trigger, and it goes bang, I like it. If it happens to be a military rifle from the first or second world war, I like it even better! If I have to scour the gun shows to find brass, and buy a new bullet mold and a sizing die or two, to be able to hand load for it, I will do that too!

Let me know what you think about hand loading, collecting, or any other gun topic that you want to cover! Leave a comment or two.

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