finnbear270 said:
In our case, we have areas where a check shot can be taken, travelling in 4x4 / mules / argo's etc any rifle can take a shift in zero at any time, I feel confident in saying there are very few of us who have not thought, ouch! that sounded quite a heavy knock, would you on collecting your case from the knuckledraggers, not check zero after looking at a dent in the case? plus there are those of us who are addicted to load developement & have lots of stuff to choose from, some times for up to a dozen rifles, easy to have some rounds get mixed up a little.
Hmmm this made me smile:-
some times for up to a dozen rifles,
Oh come on now only a dozen
that's only two rifles for each species
one setup for each species with a back up 8) I like the thinking :!:
Now back to the subject in hand ...................... When going to a new place it has been the norm to check zero and I am very happy to do so. After many visits to stalk with my mentor/friend it sort of slipped by I always check zero a day or so before the stalk and one particular time I recall having a new to me rifle to stalk with. Sure I handloaded the ammunition and zeroed it and arrived as usual pre dawn had a cuppa after the 100+ mile drive up and we got into his pick up and went to the wood and we got onto a nice Muntjac Doe. Crawled forwards to use a plantation fence post as a support and fired and missed
The doe was about 70 yards into the plantation and it ran through a line of trees into the next line. Cliff says go on shoot it but I knew something was up so declined and we went back to the pick up where I cased the rifle after it was unloaded and put it away. Cliff persuaded me to continue and use his Shoenauer.
Later that morning over a late breakfast we discussed it. The afternoon evning stalk I used my back up rifle and took a nice yearling Buck Muntjac for the freezer. Later on a range session I discovered that I had done just what
"finbear270" was talking about I had picked up the wrong ammunition. The rifle was a Mannlicher Schoeanuer in 6.5x54MS and I had developed a handload using the 120 grain Ballistic tip. The rifle had come with a few handloads with the 140 grain ballistic tip and I had picked them up instead as they were both in RWS ammo packs
. That is when I started labeling the boxes with sticky lables and writing on the case in fine marker pen. The 140's shot about 10" high left a totally different POI so it went over her neck. I pulled them all and dumped the powder.
I have further refined this by now loading fresh ammo for a stalk and checking zero from that box and packing that box after the test ready. Unless it's more than a day or so then I put the new ammo in one particular cabinet. I am arranging my next stalk now and it's going to have to be an overnighter as the drive is going to be 3 hours+ each way and with a days stalking I don't fancy the risk of being to tired behind the wheel driving home. As it's going to be with the new stalker/guide we can check zero the afternoon evening before so everyone is happy
.