S2H Winter Rifle Course Observations/lessons

[wyosam]

Mukluks are great for extreme cold. Thule only situation that gives me pause is if conditions may also include liquid water (overflow etc). Other options of similar warmth are huge- arctic rated rubber bottom boots (stuff warm by north slope oilfield workers and others outside in extreme temps for long periods) are huge. I have some Baffins that keep my feet warm, but they wouldn’t be much fun in steep country. I shoot a lot in very cold (sub zero) conditions, but most volume is generate at the range. I’ve never had an issue with Tikkas with light springs at the range or while hunting in cold/wet conditions, but that cold/wet volume is much less than a situation like this. I’ll probably go back to factory springs based on this data nonetheless. I have spent a lot of time hunting in real winter, more when I lived in Wyoming than since moving to AK. I can think of 8 late season cows I’ve killed solo below zero, and a few more close to that. Most of those were solo. Being out all day in sub zero is hard. Periods of high activity (managing sweat) and low activity (staying warm) make it harder. Processing elk way down below zero is tough to protect hands. I’ve found lots of nitrile gloves helps so you can strip them off regularly and put clean/dry hands in warm/dry gloves is huge. In the evening when really cold, it is definitely worth breaking that elk down to where it is ready to pack, then elevating it off the ground (on brush etc). Quartering/deboning frozen elk sucks, as does having quarters frozen to the ground. If you’re in an area where you need/ want to retrieve cervical
Lymph nodes for CWD, don’t leave that for when you come back in the morning unless you want to pack the head back to the truck. Form is dead on with regard to fabrics. Modern/synthetic is great in some cases. Real winter extended time is not one of those cases. Planning/practicing rewarming in a variety of situations and environments may save your life someday. Probably more likely than any tourniquet/medical intervention/bear attack situation. I’ll probably head to the slope next month for a caribou, really looking forward to a winter hunt since most AK stuff happens pretty early in the fall.


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[ztc92]

Can you state what these layers were?

I can’t say I’ve thought of my layering in terms of a rewarming drill. Some layers might do quite well, others not so well.

P.S. Great photos and writeup. Thank you for sharing.

That person was me. I had the good fortune of learning that my mid-layer, a lightly used Kuiu Pelaton 240 Full Zip, was quite water resistant and absorbed very little water despite laying down completely submerged in the creek. I did not have any other layers on outside the pelaton as I usually hike in a base layer and a mid layer to avoid overheating. @Formidilosus seemed very surprised when I got out of the creek and my midlayer was only slightly damp. I’m not aware of any water treatment to this mid layer but it sure seemed to repel water during the test.

 

[ztc92]

Copying over from general S2H page:

“I would echo all the thoughts shared above. I’m one of the fortunate few to have attended the summer course and then more recently the winter course. As mentioned, going a second time and having all the fundamentals down from my first course allowed me to really hit the ground running this time and I got a lot more out of the course that I didn’t pick up my first time through.

I grew up in MN so cold like this is nothing new to me, but even so, it was a great opportunity to try out different gear and see what worked best in frigid conditions. I was very happy to have a good wool sweater, heavy wool base layers and wool glove liners/mittens on the cold days. It was nearly impossible to shoot without gloves in the subzero temps and I froze my thumb accidentally by placing it on the rear tang while shooting. That meant at times we had to shoot with thin gloves and this provided a lot of lessons on why leather gloves allow you to grip the rifle much better than thin synthetic or wool gloves. Finally, we all learned that heavy wool is a bad choice for the rewarming drill and some students actually took their heavy wool sweaters off because they couldn’t get dry while wearing them.

I learned there is definitely a right and wrong way to put on puffy pants (bring the zipper up from the foot, not down from the waist), and this delayed me about 3 minutes in getting through the early stages of the rewarming drill where you don your puffy suit to warm up and preserve body heat. Had it been more cold/windy those 3 minutes may have been the difference between struggling and thriving after a dip in the icy river.

The new prototype for the rokstok lite and UM suppressor made for a badass little package when added to a tikka 223 with a 16” barrel. I had a chance to shoot that rifle a few times and it balanced and pointed to the target very naturally thanks to its light weight and small profile. I’m 6’ tall and thin and despite that the lite felt great. One of the smaller shooters there who stood 5’ 4” mentioned the lite was better than any other rifle they’d used and wanted to take it home with them. The UM suppressor had a deeper tone then many of the usual TI suppressors including the DD LTI and my Scythe. As mentioned, it sounds like the next few prototypes will sound even better.

All told, it was a great week and a great group of people to spend it with. I’m grateful for the opportunity and look forward to more courses in the future!“

A few things I would add after reading all the thoughts shared by @Formidilosus in the initial post:

- Angled spotters suck for spotting shots. It was obvious that those using angled spotters took 5-10x longer to find the target, often delaying their shooter who was waiting on them. It is so unnatural to point them at the target compared to a straight spotter or binos. I will never own an angled spotter after the struggles I saw at the course.

- Spotting in snowy conditions is significantly harder compared to the summer course that was mostly grassy or bare hillsides. Unless you spot the trace, see the glint of the bullet in the sun or the shooter hits the target in a way that is visible (dust from a rock), you’re likely not going to see an impact or a bullet hole in the snow. This became much worse towards twilight and by the end of shooting light many shots were not seen by the spotter at all.

 

[TheM1DoesMyTalking]

Very informative write ups, thanks for sharing the lessons learned!

Did hit rates or overall shooting/hunting effectiveness correlate with the weather conditions at all? I.e. Performance on colder days vs somewhat warmer days or compared to classes last summer?