Having tested his kit and drawn his conclusions, Will O’Meara turns his attentions to the future of shooting and how to help it
This month’s article is a bit of a mixed bag; which is similar to the variety of hunting I normally pursue at this time of year and also of the effects of Covid measures on hunting and the hunting industry.
For a start, let’s look at some of the results that Part Two of velocity testing revealed. In the last article we looked at a broad spectrum of factors that may affect muzzle velocity and in turn affect accuracy. You may recall that at the end of that testing I had a few questions that still needed an answer; Does a taped muzzle/moderator affect velocity or accuracy? Is there a difference in accuracy between moderator, brake and bare barrel? And, at what point do we see a significant jump in velocity when shooting strings larger than five shots. And what does leaving a round in a hot chamber do to performance?
THE MUZZLE GAG
First, the muzzle gag; it is fairly common practice to tape the muzzle of your rifle, and it seems that the more extreme the environment, the more common the practice. It’s par for the course in the mountains of New Zealand but nothing more than occasional across Europe. My take on all such measures is to explore their merits, minimise any adverse effects and let common sense prevail.
I have tested accuracy from a taped muzzle before and found no ill effects; I was keen now to do such testing with both moderator and muzzle brake. Another aspect of this test was the material used, electrical tape aka insulating tape is what I have seen commonly used, I was keen to try Duct tape as it would be easier to use on a moderator due to its width and it could be used to tape up a muzzle brake with a single wrap of the tape.
For this test I put a single square of duct tape on the end of my Hausken moderator and fired a shot from a cold bore. When we compare these results to other cold bore shots the results are very much in line with shots fired without tape on the mod. Result – taping your mod does not change your muzzle velocity, nor does it affect point of impact or accuracy. I think I will be sticking a square of duct tape on my moderator from now on!
I then repeated the test, firing a shot from a cold bore and taped moderator, immediately followed by a second shot. I was keen to see what the second shot showed us, being from a warmer barrel and now an un-taped muzzle ... What I saw in three iterations of this
