The Countdown Continues

My meddlesome buddy, BFF actually, (you know the type, the type that actually will get you out of jail when you call at 2 AM?) put it to me several years back that I had to kill a deer with every rifle in my safe, er, safes.

And that, in addition, I couldn't use a rifle twice until I had run through the ranks of all the others. Which has been fun so far, but also worrisome, in that, I have a few rifles I really like, I mean, really really like and would love to use again, but will not because of this wager thing.

There is only one rifle that gets to break out of dogmatic constraints set upon me by whiskey-soaked Irish gunsmiths, and that is my Remington M700ML--the ML is for Muzzle Loader. Obviously i ain't going to buy a new muzzleloader every year for as you may or may not know, they are huge pains in the ass.

The M700ML is a modernization of the timeless European killing machine. It's modeled after the well known, received, and used M700 in its fire controls and safety, but...You still have to pour a measure of powder down the tube, smoosh a patch and ball and/or a sabot and bullet, and/or a minnie ball down the barrel with a ramrod.
A ramrod!

Then, you have to flip the whole thing over and put a percussion cap on the (heh) nipple or, in an attempt by Remington (which yours truly has resisted) to make the rifle even "better" by upgrading their ignition system, a 209 shotgun shell primer in the breech hole.

Now, she's ready to go. And she stays ready even when you're done for the day and stuck with a loaded gun. The easiest way to unload it is to point it at the ground and blast away! But then you have to clean it. The quietest way to disable it is to pick the cap off the (heh) nipple and shut the bolt on an unprimed action.

The caliber is half an inch. Did I mention that? The muzzle velocity is a whopping 1400 feet per second...maybe. The bullet weight is measured in grains, and I shoot a 250 grain Hornady XTP pistol bullet which is about half an ounce! The combination of all these things is lethal and brutal, on both ends of the rifle to mention recoil.

But the one thing you should always take from the muzzleloader experience is that, like all other firearms, it takes a bit of concentration. Seemingly obvious notions and tasks can be forgotten if you let your mind wander, like when you're blabbing away with a friend...or when i'm blabbing away with a friend.

Working on a load a few years back, I had charged the rifle with a pet load while chatting affably with a chum at the range. Well, I fired the gun and was met with the most horrendous punch in the shoulder and face I had ever received. Almost unconscious, I fought back tears as my eyes rolled around in my head struggling to see, and my mind worked as best it could to figure out what I had done wrong.

But yeah, My buddy looked over and said, "What?"

I wiped the blood off my nose where my safety glasses had taken a full-on hit from a Leupold M8 fixed 4X that sat atop the rifle back then, and by then I knew what I'd done.

"I left the ramrod in the barrel!" I said.

I had just shot a 2250 (plus or minus) grain projectile...off my pretty face! And I was shocked I hadn't destroyed my gun (or face) which speaks volumes about Remington, despite any of the bullshit you've seen on anti-gun TV.

Well, like I said, the ol 700ML is the only gun that gets to go with me to Vance County opening weekend time after time. And here in the central deer season area, it gets taken all over in hopes of harvesting deer. And when it gets back in the safe with the others, I can feel their jealous eyes on her.

At some point I'm sure I'll cheat and grab last year's project Swede, or two years ago's father's day gift to myself. But I may not mention that on the web. After all, I have a wager to uphold, and what whiskey-soaked Irishman gunsmithys don't know won't hurt me.