Hunting Tip: How to Plot Your Cold Bore Point of Impact
Photo of Browning X-Bolt rifle courtesy Browning.
Hunting season is coming up, so it’s time to get your rifle squared away. You’ll want to zero that rifle before the hunt, and you need to know how your shots will impact with a cold barrel.
Commonly, hunters won’t have the ability to fire one or two fouling shots before heading out on a hunt. Therefore it’s important that a hunter understands how his rifle shoots with a “cold bore shot”. Both the point of impact (and possibly velocity), may be different with a cold bore than with a barrel that has been warmed and fouled with a series of shots. In this video from the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU), you’ll learn how to determine your cold bore point of impact (POI) for a rifle that just been cleaned, as well as the cold bore POI with a barrel that has already been “fouled in”.
SGT Joe Hein of the USAMU shows how to plot cold bore POI with both a clean bore and a fouled bore. Note that the “cold bore” shot from a fouled barrel was closer to the follow-up shots than the cold bore shot from a clean barrel. This is typical of many factory barrels. SGT Hein provides a simple way to understand your rifle’s cold bore performance. Hein’s advice can keep you from missing that long range shot at that big buck on opening day. A little time spent on the range before that critical first shot will help ensure you have meat in the freezer this season.
Similar Posts:
- Key Tip for Hunters — Find Your Cold Bore Point of Impact
- Hunters — Determine Your Cold Bore Point of Impact (POI)
- Efficient 4-Shot Sight-in Procedure for Hunting Rifles
- How to Sight-In Your Hunting Rifle in Four Shots
- Sight-In Your Hunting Rifle with Just Four Shots
Share the post "Hunting Tip: How to Plot Your Cold Bore Point of Impact"
Tags: Cold Bore, hunting, Hunting 101, Point of Impact, USAMU
As correctly surmised, the first shot from a clean cold barrel prints differently.
I experimented for a long while to come up with some product which I could “treat” my bore with after cleaning and oiling it, which would allow me to maintain the same/very close to the same zero as my fouled barrel.
After much experimenting, I found that PROLIX did just that. I understand that if left for a long while Prolix can cause some rust, but if it is used a little before firing, the benefit of the same zero is for all to experiment with in their rifles.
Thank You
My solution is to clean bore to metal & after a wash with alcohol, dry burnish in WS2. I store all my bores dry like this.
With cold-bore load development, and this pre-fouling, my 1st shot can be counted on as good as any further.
I use boron in alcohol to coat the bore after cleaning. The first shot is within 1/2″ of the group in my factory guns.
I have not had issues with cold bore shots after using Patch-Out.
The group on that clean gun is so poor, how can you reliably tell?
A very effective solution, as suggested in the article, is to fire one fouling shot after cleaning the bore well as usual. In my area, this can usually be done somewhere along the way to the shoot or the hunt.
fouling shot before hunt…