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Hunting Guide Reviews

Breaking the March Doldrums

Andy Moe - JHO ProStaff - Montana
May 30, 2006

The famous outdoor writer and humorist Patrick McManus once wrote that God created March in case Eternity proved to be too brief. I think he hit the nail right on the head. Around here the wind blows, the snow mixes with rain and we’re right in between hunting season and fishing season...not that any sane person would want to go out doors anyhow. For a shooter there’s not a lot to do to shake off the March doldrums.

I have always occupied my Marches by cleaning up the guns that got extra hard field use. This usually means that I do test firing (weather permitting) along with a thorough cleaning inside and out, checking all the screws for tightness along the way. This not only keeps me occupied but it lets me get reacquainted with my firearms on a more intimate basis than just a brief trip into the field can afford. Accordingly, I have very few “Weekend before Opening Day Surprises” with bad scopes, loose mounts, or mechanical difficulties. Yes, March has saved me a lot of grief.

I have some friends that haven’t been so lucky. I won’t name them specifically but there is one fellow who has never learned the lessons of March. Once hunting season is over he hangs up the deer rifle, not to be handled again until the night before deer season when he sights in by headlight. The rifle in question is a custom 7x57 build by yours truly to help get this guy away from the 30-30 he’d had since his youth hunting in Vermont. At the time he was living in South Dakota and a new and more versatile rifle was needed to round out this fellows shooting. I was a then budding gunsmith and thought it an act of kindness to bring this gent into the Age of Enlightenment. Not only did I build the rifle but I worked up sub MOA loads for the rifle before delivering it to him. I specified the brass, powder, primer, bullet, and over-all length. He was pleased and took a huge, record class whitetail at 200 + yards with that rifle and the loaded ammo I supplied.

The next season he dusted off the rifle and made up some handloads –or rather, had them made up by a friend. His accuracy wasn’t as good as he’d expected and he called me to discuss the problem. “Did you load the ammo exactly as I’d specified?” I asked.

Sure… except they didn’t have any H4831 so they substituted IMR 3031 instead. And instead of the Speer 140 grain spitzers he used Hornady 129 grain bullets because they were on sale. Oh, and he used Winchester primers instead of Remington 9 ½ ‘s. Other than those changes, the loads were exactly the same.

“Over all length? Gee… I don’t know. Does it matter?”

You get the picture. He was disappointed that his sub-MOA rifle was now 2 MOA but he’d have to live with it because deer season opened the next morning. I wished him luck and he had some, scoring a nice buck.

Another year goes by and I get another frantic call about the 7mm. Something was dreadfully wrong because it now hit 10 inches lower than where it had previously. This was serious and he couldn’t fathom what the problem was. I asked about the bedding and the scope but quickly realized that he probably hadn’t touched the rifle after the previous season. “Did you change the load?” I asked.

“Well” he says, “We didn’t have any 7mm bullets left and the season starts tomorrow so I just stopped into the Gambles Store and bought a box of ammunition. They’re 175 grain Round Nose but that should work alright, eh?”

After a long pause to reel in my frustration I told him that the old Remington 175 RN ammo was loaded way down for the 1902 Remington rolling-block rifles that were still floating around and that the low point of impact was to be expected. “Oh. What about deer season then?”

I suggested he buy the proper components, load some ammo. Check his zero and go hunting. If he couldn’t manage that? “Hold over.” (Click!)

A while later I heard that he borrowed a rifle and had minimal success scoring a small doe after missing a couple of large bucks.

For a few years I heard nothing. Then one day he called and we talked about nothing in particular until he mentioned the 7x57. He still wasn’t loading for it and had retired it because it “couldn’t be relied on” season to season. Had he ever loaded ammo to my specifications? “No.”

He offered that ammo shouldn’t make that much difference in a good rifle and besides, he lost the loading data I’d sent anyhow. That December I sent him a Lee Reloading outfit along with the loading data for the rifle, gleaned from my files. I expected it was a lost cause.

I was wrong, by Ned! This time he used it! He made up some loads and got the rifle shooting well before hunting season. Even took it prairie-dogging over the summer. Well! I was happy. That good rifle was finally getting used the way it ought to be used.

Unfortunately that didn’t spare me from a late afternoon call a couple of Novembers back. It was Him. And there was a problem with the 7x57 again. He’d just gotten back from the range and now it was shooting a foot high and 6” to the left and no amount of adjusting could get the point of impact to move. “Could it be the scope,” I asked?

“I don’t see how it could be. Looks ok and all and I haven’t changed the settings at all... Unless you think dropping the rifle out of the pickup last year might have done something? It only put a small dent in the bell but it’s still as clear as it ever was. I was going to shoot it to see if there was a problem but you know how time flies by….”

I don’t know what he thought of the silence that followed but I finally gasped out that he probably needed a new scope. “Ok. But what’ll I do until then? The season opens tomorrow.”

“Call me in March.”