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This thread is just for your option on DGR reliability. I thought it would be interesting to find out what other hunters definition of a rifle’s reliability is for dangerous game. So here is the situation: You just bought a new rifle for dangerous game. The rifle is the style of your choice (single shot, bolt or double) in the caliber or your choice. So now you have the new gun home and ready to test it out. How many shots do you fire before you declare the gun good to go 5, 50, 500? Do you have other procedures or tests you perform before you declare it ready? It would also be fun if you gave the reason for your answer. Remember there is no right or wrong answers I am just asking for your option. | ||
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For me, I would need to fire least a hundred rounds, better a couple hundred. Three hundred or so would be even better. And I am talking about more than just popping off shots as though you were at Camp Perry. This is rapid fire, full out slamming the action open and closed, quick reloads, from all field positions, etc. That way, you will know as well as you can if the rifle (and its scope, if applicable) will feed and function the way you will use it in the field. And you will also get in plenty of practice. Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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As mrlexma rightly points out, there is the rifle, and then there is you. I found out quite a bit when I first tried a timed, target up close (25 meters) empty-the-magazine as fast as you can practice session. First I found that I short stroked when in a hurry, it wasn't the rifles fault. Then when I solved that I found I had a misfeed, the magazine follower spring on my Model 70 was too weak. So, I diagnosed two problems I didn't know existed after owning the rifle for several years, including one South African safari under the belt. I had just never tried firing it rapidly before. _________________________________ AR, where the hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history become the nattering nabobs of negativisim. | |||
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You need to load the magazine the same way as if you were hunting. Whatever combination of softs and solids you prefer. Then cycle the action to ensure proper feeding. It is not unheard of to have feeding problems especially from those flat-nosed solids. Try a magazine full of solids to check feeding as well. Before you head out on safari, take all of your ammo (softs and solids) and run it through your rifle to ensure that it will feed and chamber properly. Don't want to face off an old cow ele and find that a couple of your solids won't chamber. Regards, Terry  Msasi haogopi mwiba [A hunter is not afraid of thorns] | |||
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Shoot it in competition- against others and against the clock. Whether it is a self defence handgun or a DGR, Murphies law dictates that they go wrong only at inconvienient times- like competition or for real! It never ceases to amise me how many times a rifle jams, safety gets accidently applied, whatever, at the Hunters association qualification shoots, or at the PH/Guides exams. And invarably the comment is- gee it's never done that before! | |||
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Hello mrlexma, How's ten rounds rapid fire, must change magazines/stripper clip of five for bolt guns, standing to sitting, 200 yards, use of sling only, no bags or bipods, shooting sticks, in 60 seconds? How's ten rounds rapid fire, must change magazines/stripper clip of five for bolt guns, standing to prone, 300 yards, in 70 seconds, use of sling only, no bags or bipods, shooting sticks this time either?? At either of these ranges and you can not cover the group of 10 shots with your palm and in the 10 ring w/ X's thrown in, you did not even come close to the top shooters. Ten rounds, slow fire, standing, 200 yards, 10 minutes, no sling or artificial support permited. You had better score in the high 90's if your are going to be competitive. Twenty rounds, slow fire, prone, 600 yards, 20 minutes, sling only, no bag or other support permitted. Master and High Master grade shooters will usually score in the high 190's in order to be on top of their game. Total possible score of 500 and to be considered excellent you will need to routinely score better than 97% or scores of 485 or better. Mind you, this is done with Service Rifles, M1 Garands, AR15/16's, M1A's and bolt guns, usually Rem. 700's in 30-06, 308, 243, 7mm/08, 260,etc.. all with micrometer/peep sights. No optics permitted. If you have not fired XC (across the course) matches, you might want to give it a try for it is indeed a real test of rifle skill from all positions as well as the worthiness and dependability of the rifle being used. The shooter must be very familiar with his rifle, developed habits controlling breathing, using skeletal support as opposed to muscle, and devoted to many hours of dry firing and live fire to master trigger control. Skill in reading the wind is a must and comes with practice and experience. There is no substitute for "rounds down range..." Many XC shooters will burn some 3000 rounds or more per year w/ matches and practice. Just a suggestion for developing skill with the rifle that will stand with you in hunting situations. | |||
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load up some rounds and go to the range for sighting in. Work the rounds from the magazine and with the magazine full. Being very careful work some slowly out of the magazine and into the chamber and some fast as you can. Feed all the ammo from the magazine until it's empty to insure all the rounds feed well. Once the rifle is sighted in you have a feeling already if there is serious feeding issues. Serious trouble will show up almost immediately. If the gun has a three position safety you can use the middle position to practice feeding the full magazine into the chamber and ejecting full rounds. This will further give you confidence in the reliability. Practice should be varied in speed. Extraction can only be practiced by firing and for that reason you should spend a hundred (or more) rounds at the range shooting from as many positions as you believe you might find yourself. You should also practice working the action without taking the rifle from your shoulder. This is not confined to DG rifles. This should be done with any big game rifle as the only difference is the cost of a rifle failure. That said it's far more likely that a human failure will happen and practice is the way to reduce this risk. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill | |||
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i generally figure it takes about 200 rds to break in most anything new. Counted in that 200 rounds might be rounds fired in figuring out what load to use, but I haven't seen to many guns that didn't function much smoother after a couple hundred rounds. | |||
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Don't we just love the wisdom of the net !  I would like to see a hunter do this with an unbraked, stock, hunting rifle in say a 416 or even better a lowly 458 ! And then most here think a Lott is the minimum or one of those really big boomers like a Nyati and prone with a big bore..... wonder who is going to take the pieces of your collar bone out of your arse when you fire one of the DG calibers prone  10 shots rapid fire...... Hmmmmmm methinks someone is going to have one hell of a sore shoulder, no enamel on the teeth and likely no counting shots on the target. I for one cannot do it with my 500 Jeffery, 3 shots and things start going astray, in fact after shot 1 accuracy goes out the door for a buffalo nose sized target...and all you are left with is a severely bruised ego and an equally bruised shoulder. The best of the best elephant control shooters can not do it with true DG calibers so why would novices in the game????? | |||
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Excuse me for saying so, but the above has nothing to do with how to find out if a DGR is reliable or not... | |||
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Folks, he's BACK.... jorge USN (ret) DRSS Verney-Carron 450NE Cogswell & Harrison 375 Fl NE Sabatti Big Five 375 FL Magnum NE DSC Life Member NRA Life Member | |||
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screwed up correction | |||
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If I remember rightly 338 diameter is the largest allowable bullet diameter in the High Power competions. Certainly the contrived sling positions, shooting mats, gloves, jackets, etc. have nothing to do with hunting. I do a lot of dry firing with dummy rounds, cycling the action and reloading after the magazine empties. This simply gets you used to cycling the rifle without moving your head, and builds the muscle memory (and even strength) that you will need. I also try to fire several hundred live rounds. Once the load development is done stay away from the bench. Offhand, sticks, sitting should all be practiced, as well as leaning against a tree or post. I watch for bullet sales, reload my own cartridges and even cast bullets to enable the practice on a reasonable budget. With good hardcast bullets I can get full power loads that are accurate enough to challenge my offhand skill level at 25 and 50 yards. I use jacketed bullets at 100 yards offhand so I have no excuse for missing. Don_G ...from Texas, by way of Mason, Ohio and Aurora, Colorado! | |||
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Three hundred forty three thousand six hundred twelve. That's as good a number as any cause there is absolutely no way you are ever going to KNOW. The NEXT round may not feed fire eject and unless you have a LOT of data and are a very good statistician you still won't have any idea. If it fires everytime I pull the trigger and will eject and feed 2 magazines RAPID cycle and groups properly at whatever distance I have chosen I'm good to go. In the military (when I was in a long while ago)they issued it to you today and your life depended on it tomorrow. You either trust it or you don't. SCI Life Member NRA Patron Life Member DRSS | |||
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Well, well, Jorge, you are lost for words it would appear. Fancy that!! Oh, by the way, not a good idea for you to even slightly hint that you can find someone's home, post photos on a web site, be able to find out the most detailed information on someone, etc. for legal types and your superiors may well be informed and not think that to be a good thing. Cats may send a note to your superiors of which I am sure you have a multitude. Whether you know it or not, civilians can bring about a world of hurt through proper chanels based on your actions clearly documented on this web location. Not sure who represents Cats in the U.S. House/Senate, but not hard to locate and I am sure they would like to see one of the Commissioned Officers behaving in such a manner to overtly threaten someone even in the most off handed manner. Not becoming at all and appears quite childish and HIGHLY suggest that you be advised to stand down. Your mental stability could be a matter of discussion based on some of your obvious hysterical responses and can't have that sort of person flying around in very expensive airplanes now, can we???? | |||
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Hmmm. I thought they only had nine lives. And now "driver" is looking after my well being. Ain't that nice folks. And I don't recall posting any pictures, but then again, I might be delusional. jorge USN (ret) DRSS Verney-Carron 450NE Cogswell & Harrison 375 Fl NE Sabatti Big Five 375 FL Magnum NE DSC Life Member NRA Life Member | |||
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Driver, You really seem to have a serious amount of personal knowledge about Cats. You also seem to have an almost unatural, protective, nuturing attitude towards poor old pussy. Are you guys domestic partners? Or just  friends.Did you have fun at your rifle course? | |||
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What is this even about?? I enjoy reading the rifle feeding posts more than this BS. Mink and Wall Tents don't go together. Especially when you are sleeping in the Wall Tent. DRSS .470 & .500 | |||
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Mtelkhunter: My preparation is problaby closer to what mrlexma proferred. I probably ran 500-6-- rounds through my 416 and had it looked over by a competent gunsmith who polished the feed ramp & rails and ensured total reliability. I also loaded some dummy rounds of both softs and solids in every combination and really slammed the bolt hard during practice feedings. Nothing is 100% reliable, but I think I went a long way in mitigating possible failure. jorge USN (ret) DRSS Verney-Carron 450NE Cogswell & Harrison 375 Fl NE Sabatti Big Five 375 FL Magnum NE DSC Life Member NRA Life Member | |||
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For a decent practice drill w/ your DGR...try using 4-one gallon plastic milk jugs filled with water. If possible, place them on a platform 3-4 ft. off the ground, but if that's not feasible, leaving them on the ground works too. Put them 10 yds. apart in a more or less straight line out from your position, starting @ 10, going out to 40. Take the first shot @ 40 whenever you wish, a friend starts the stopwatch, as you shoot each one in line...working successively closer...he( or she...)is screaming in your ear.."SHOOT AGAIN FOR GOD's SAKE SHOOT...!!!" Once you start getting pretty consistent results at this drill, and are developing confidence in your equipment and yourself, add a lap or two around the parking lot to get the old heart rate up before you start shooting. | |||
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Howdy surestrike, to be perfectly honest, have no idea who this cats fellow is, just another poster I would say that does not get along on this site. Well, what can one say about that, just the way life goes sometimes. I have to say though, it is somewhat of an indoor sport to see you all become so, shall we say, enthusiastic in attacking certain posters, insisting that your way is the only way, America should change their rules applying to foreign hunters travelling with firearms while in a state of war ( that is the origin of this "discussion," ) and how dare someone take a differing view or position. As a matter of fact did enjoy my rifle classes some 45 years ago and they have served me well whenever and wherever requried. Noticed that jorge notes my concern about his health. Nope, could care less about his health or non health. Just recognize him for what he is and have seen others like him over the years, all over the world, so inflated with their self importance that if anyone dare disagree with him he must go on the offense immediately. Well, jorge and you surestrike will I am afraid have only one option about such things- you will just have to deal with it for trust me, many, many others do not agree with you either. Shock to the system I am sure, but fact. Oh, in closing surestrike, if you took a few rifle lessons then you could probably justify your catchy handle. Do you have a competitors classification? If so, great, if not, you should not talk about things you have no knowledge about. It is not becoming for one to do that and any discussion involving marksmanship from you holds no validity of any sort. I may have not mentioned, but shooting from "sticks" does not count nor from a bench. Again, jorge should mind his comments and "hidden threats...." on a public forum for there is indeed a mountain of evidence and not favorable to jorge. It may be difficult to explain all of this hostility stemming from such a disciplined, highly trained individual. What would his commanders think about this???? How does one pronounce that name??? jhorgeee, jorgahh, jorgette, must be French?? Surestrike you seem quite focused on cats, pussy, etc. Hell, you and jorge ought to get together and discuss such things. It would appear that you have a common bond here and I am sure you would make a lovely couple. I am also quite sure jorge would share his cockpit with you if you were nice to him and then we could see photos of two "air heads" in that magnificent flying machine. That was mean of me and I take that back. (the part about lovely couple should not have been said.) Oh my, ain't life grand and me, being a good Christian fellow, to speak so harshly is not proper on my part I must admit, and do promise to make every effort to not speak harshly or think harshly of you two in the future. You might want to consider the same approach to people. Just a suggestion. | |||
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Driver Why are you defending 'cats'? He's a loser of the first rank, a moron who is too dumb to be allowed on the internet. He's a a pile of stuff you would step over in your yard. A liar and a wannabe who never will be accepted by anyone who has any actual experiance. When he said he might take his 'Fatboy' to the shoot in Penn I thought he met a Harley. He just meant himself. Him and his .22 because he was too afraid to shoot the rifles the others had brought. A Loser and a Wannabe. What a combo.  Now a laughing stock. If he really is Terry Murphy he is now infamous as well.  Why are you defending him?  | |||
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To get back on the original topic, if I may piggyback vapodog's answer, I load DUMMY rounds for all my rifles using the bullets I would be using. I use a case that has not been deprimed after firing, use sand to match the powder weight and use the bullet I will be using the most in that rifle. I can then SAFELY sit on my couch, stand in my living room, actually any position I choose and practice cycling the action for as long as I want. I also sometimes use a bit of old pencil eraser glued into the primer pocket so I can dry fire. | |||
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Hello Mickey 1, Fair and honest question on your part. As stated, absolutely do not know the person known as cats, ( I ain't him) but when I see some here go "bonkers" over someone not agreeing with a certain position and begin calling people stupid, idiots, etc., that sort of attitude needs to be confronted and challenged. The label of stupid quickly becomes attached to that one making those accusations. If one were to go back and read the original posting on my part about the issue of foreign travellers/guns, etc. in the U.S. I merely stated that it was not getting any easier in the future. and quite blandly stated that the reason was that we are at war. Others stated that we were giving a bad image to the rest of the world by these restrictions and I again reminded those that we were at war. Well, the "fat was in the fire" then and we all know the rest of the story. The Canadians chimed in and the political issues were raised, our European friends were offended, etc. etc. I responded that since we were at war, those being offended and perhaps denied hunting as freely as they once were was not a major issue in Homeland Defense. Well, friend, that was like throwing gas on the fire!! You may well be absolutely correct about this fellow cats, but based on the ridiculous, harsh, almost childlike attacks from those I have been dealing with here, I sure could not accept that they were dealing with a full deck either. I think cats only chimed in one time during my "discussions" and off handedly agreed with me on some point, and that immediately brought about claims that driver and cats were one in the same. False, ain't so, wrong! Some went on to attempt to diagram my sentences, syntax, rhythm, spelling, etc. to absolutely determine we were one in the same. I honestly believe the dislike for this cats fellow blinded some to the point that no matter what was said it would be rejected or ridiculed. That, pure and simple is wrong. I have no desire to defend cats but when attacked verbally about my feelings on the original issue, I felt quite free to defend my position and yes, go on the offense if necessary. Not my first preference. Most people's dark side is not pleasant and certainly not their best feature. Again, your question to me was an honest one and I have attempted to answer you in the same manner. I as well as others shoud bare in mind that words spoken, or written, are like bell ringing. You can not unring the bell. I am sure I have offended others and for that I am truely sorry and will keep my own council in the future. | |||
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The alternative question is "when do you stop practicing/testing". I'm heading off to Africa in a week and am of two minds as to whether to do lots of dry fire practice (with snap caps) over the next week, or perhaps, not risk wearing things out in the last few days. I fired 50 rounds of 470 last week and, after 500-1,000 rounds had my first head separation - now I'm worried my brass is too old! mike | |||
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MtElkHunter, Confidence, I suppose, is a very personal thing and some are likely to accept that “everything’s fine†with their DGR much sooner than others. I suppose that I’m starting to feel “comfy†with a DGR after something like 100-150 rounds have gone through it (exclusive of load development and sighters). The rifles I’ve carried for dangerous game got wrung out not only on the range, but in the hunting fields on this side of the pond well before heading for Africa. As well as hunting for non-dangerous local critters, running your DGR against the clock (or even better against a buddy man-on-man) will help flush any gremlins out into the open. My .416 Rigby surfaced an ejection problem this way. My idea is to TRY to get the rifle to fail…either through a mechanical problem or by operator error. Vapodog touched on an excellent point regarding working an action slowly. A friends .375 would feed like a champ when cycled briskly, but would occasionally ride over a round in the magazine when worked “quietlyâ€. You’re attempting to minimize the failure variables of a triumvirate: the rifle, the ammunition, and YOU. Driver/Cats: Please be respectful of the original topic of this post. Personal diatribes have no place here and do nothing to answer MtElkHunters’s question. I’m sure you can agree that any poster on AR has a right to ask a question and have it answered by any that care to contribute on that topic (without said topic being hijacked). Best to all, Mark DRSS "I always take care to fire into the nearest hillside and, lacking that, into darkness." - the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson | |||
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218 Bee, you are correct and I stand corrected. | |||
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by mrlexma: And I am talking about more than just popping off shots as though you were at Camp Perry. This is rapid fire, full out slamming the action open and closed, quick reloads, from all field positions, etc. Obviously you have never shot across the course at Perry! There are a couple of slow fire matches (long range) but most involve some rapid fire. If your rifle isn't reliable or you don't know what you're doing everyone will know it Back to the original question. I'd don't think there is a magic #. Handle the rifle alot, dry fire a bunch. This will help clean up any rougeness. Shoot as much as you can but it's better to shoot 20 shots 5 different time then 100 shots at one outing. Practise like you will hunt, positions, distance etc. It's also not a bad idea if you have a good gunsmith have him look over the rifle before you go. | |||
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Cats, Larry Sellers, Driver......seems like they're all from the same mold...pun intended. | |||
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AussieMike, I've had two case head seperation over the years. I've come to the following conclusion: never reload any .470NE brass more than three times for full power loads. Before going on a DGhunt get all new brass. That is the most conservative way. | |||
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Aussie: I know some here differ, but when I go hunting, I almost never go with reloaded brass. I always use new stuff when I load for hunting and on occassion, once fired, but never more than that, expecially on the type of hunting you are about to embark on. Give us a full report when you get back and the beast of luck to you. jorge USN (ret) DRSS Verney-Carron 450NE Cogswell & Harrison 375 Fl NE Sabatti Big Five 375 FL Magnum NE DSC Life Member NRA Life Member | |||
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Jorge is spot on. Try to take only fairly new brass on any major hunt. Use the old stuff on practice, pigs etc. | |||
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