Black Rifles And Low Temps

Glenfilthie

Glenfilthie

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Today I dressed up like Kenny off of Southpark and went out to the range with the HK SL8. When I started shooting in the morning the temp was -29C and warmed up to about -24C when I finished up.

Ballistically have any of you chaps noticed any effects of low temps on your ballistics? Any mechanical problems at all? Cracked plastic or anything?

I only shot out to 100 and at 25 today, and had no problems otherwise. This is about as cold as I want to go for range work. On the plus side at least I had the range to myself and there were no other gun slobs around to make fun of my rotten marksmanship.
:)
 
I may go to the range tommorrow with my m15 . I have it lubed with breakfree lubricant preservative . The forecast is -29 with the windchill .Will i have problems with the rifle ?
 
A small amount of graphite (pencil vs. spray). If you use it too much may clog up the bolt lugs, and there may be problems if you fire rapid and let the rifle cool (stuck closed). Just my $0.02
 
Tango said:
I may go to the range tommorrow with my m15 . I have it lubed with breakfree lubricant preservative . The forecast is -29 with the windchill .Will i have problems with the rifle ?
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it will gum up.

Another problem with very cold temperatures is optics. Electronic ones will probably take a while to turn on (Eotech). I don't run electronic optics in the winter, then again I'm not out when it's -30.
 
I used guns from AK and AR family in military exercises in extreme DRY cold
(-62C Svalbard Island, -53C Eram Mil. Base in Greenland, - 67C Ceratov Plant in Russia)
and I didn't have problems with the firearms as long as the lubes are the proper ones, as pointed in the above posts.
On the other hand, I LOVE Vancouver:dancingbanana:
 
DO NOT use any graphite-type lubricant on any firearm built out of aluminum. Graphite and aluminum are not compatible. If you want to see what happens to your favotire lube at low temperatures, put some in a test tube, and put the tube in your deep freezer (or in your case, simply take it to the range).

I've seen minor issues with a couple of AR-type guns at low temp, but these were very tight, brand-new, rifles, and they worked fine at low temp after a hundred rounds or so. There is also a theory that you shouldn't shoot certain stainless steel alloy barrels at very low temperatures, because the material becomes very brittle. I have no idea if this is junk science or not, but it might be worth researching if you are shooting with stainless. I do know with certainty that some aluminum alloys become extremely brittle at very low temperatures (-40C or so), and I have seen items break simply from being dropped, but these are not the alloys that you will generally see used for a receiver.
 
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My stag ar 15 worked 100% out of the box in -20C weather, even when coverd in frost after taking it into the shack to warm up, and going back out with ice forming everwhere. It was liberaly lubed with clp.
 
My armalite ran flawless for 300 rounds . It then began to gum up . The bolt would not push a new cartridge into the chamber . I left before it froze up completely .

I was warned it would do that :rolleyes:

I'm going to try G96 CLP next
 
So how cold will CLP work without any problems? Is there a good cut off point where you should take a rag wipe off all CLP and just run it dry"?
 
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