You'll Miss with a Wet Bore! The Accuracy Killer

Maybe you can recall from your high school chemistry days that water is nearly an incompressible fluid.   That's important.  Save that piece of data.

And, you surely know that if you get gun powder WET, it becomes very difficult to light it off.  It doesn't like to go "boom" when wet.  Thus the origin of "keep your powder dry."

With today's ammo (rim fire, pistol, shotgun, rifle, what have you), this is rarely something we have to consider - keeping our powder dry.  The shell itself will keep our powder dry.  However, when you consider Muzzle Loaders, now we have something to concern ourselves with.

I have, in the past, put electrical tape over the end of my muzzle loader (dangerous end) to keep the rain / moisture out.  I do not want water to seep down the barrel and wet my powder.  An argument could be made that this has some effect on the accuracy - and it probably does, but it is so negligible as to be moot to discuss.

Electrical tape over muzzle loader barrel to keep out moisture

What I had not considered was:  What happens to my bullet when there is water in the gun barrel?  Remember that bit from above?  Water, an incompressible fluid, is in my barrel when I fire.  What happens?

This was addressed in the November 2015 Issue of Outdoor Life (page 82, author Tommy Todd).  Mr. Todd took a .308 and tested it with a DRY barrel, a DRY & TAPED barrel, and a WET barrel. 
(OK, read the article - he dipped the last 8" of the barrel in water & then shook it out.  It was not FULL of water - that'd be stupid).

Why would he do this?  Well, he missed an antelope at 150 yards after he had crawled through snow to take the shot.  He hypothesized that the snow (an incompressible fluid) entered his barrel and created the miss.  What did he discover?

THE RESULTS
A dry barrel with or without tape produced the exact same velocity and accuracy.  The Exact Same.
A wet barrel lost 47 FPS in velocity, but more importantly, changed his sight picture by 6.5"!!!

That's some pretty serious food for thought.  The point of aim was off by 6.5" @ 200 yards.

THE LESSON
Not only should I cover my muzzle loader to 'keep my powder dry', but I probably ought to consider doing the same for my shotguns during deer season if I am going to be out in inclement weather - to keep water out of my bore.

There goes one more excuse for missing...


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