Cold Weather Defensive Frearms Performance

[ST911]

This is a great thread. Having the ability to comfortably and capably function when everyone else has gone inside and hunkered down is a huge multiplier. And a more interesting and fun life.

Practice adversity.
Work your gear.
Find solutions.
Acclimation is a thing.

Another friend of mine doesn't normally wear gloves during hunting season. He uses one of those around the waist hand muffs with a couple hand warmers in them. They keep his hands nice and toasty but when it's time to shoot he is not impeded by gloves. I thought that was a good idea.

Great idea. If not gloveless, helps you get by with a lighter more tactile glove than would otherwise be viable. Still have the weight glove you need in the pack or pocket or though.

I have lived in FL for a few years now. I went to NY in November and did some deer hunting. In a few light layers and a hoody I was completely fine hunting for hours with temps mid 20* and snow on the ground. Dressed in the same fashion, doing the same type of hunting, in 40* in FL I struggled with numbing fingers.

There is definitely something to this…. Humidity levels and elevation may be playing some roll my little brain doesn’t understand.

Very real, and underestimated.

Aside from that, all I can say is that I tend to keep internal furnace going by eating higher fat content food when I am going to be in very cold environments. I eat a lot more peperoni sticks, jerky, cheese, nuts, and things like that when I am outside in very cold weather. That and more peanut butter than a normally would. There are no shortage of ways to meet a persons needs, but the point is that in below freezing temps your body consumes more calories. Plus you need more water. If your body has warm food and liquid inside during cold weather, you will perform better, and be willing to go further, no matter what your objective is. At least that has been my experience.

This. Cold weather dehydration is a thing.

I feel like a lot of people don't truly grasp layering techniques for cold weather. While layering might make access a problem (in addition to degraded shooting) proper layering can make you far more capable than someone who put on a heavy coat and skipped decent baselayers and mid layers.

Many people make the mistake of not sizing their layers properly. If they are wearing a Medium base layer, the next layer (a hoodie?) should be a Large, then the next layer (fleece jacket?) should be an Extra Large, they next layer (Gore Tex?) should be a XXL.

Of course, some clothing takes this into consideration,<rest of post snipped>

Buy the best gear you can afford. Thicker/bulkier/puffier is not better. Often best and easiest to stay within a system where the manufacturer has sized layers to work together. Brands can be combined but check fit tables. Packability matters if you need to layer up and down through a day.

[03RN]

Ken and I were just talking about this a few days ago.


It was about 5? years ago we did a cold weather shoot and it warmed up to about 17 below zero. I remember it was in the mid -20s when I left the hotel in Salmon. I chose to stay in a nice warm(ish) hotel and not at my cabin as I wanted a hot shower and not have to mess with stoking my wood stove during the night.

I keep a fair bit of supplies in my old Land Cruiser during that time of year and it was a good thing as I needed to run my backpacker stove on the inside to defrost the windows in a timely manner since the Toyota straight 6 was just not cutting it.



A few takeaways besides human performance slowing down, which was significant with everyone, was that while rifle powders seem to do fine in the cold, many of the pistol powders were not performing well. We did not have a chronograph, but you could tell that the pistol ammo was not up to par and most the 9mm ammo felt like shooting a 380. I was running a Gen 3 G34 and while it ran fine due to the fact I was running 0w20 motor oil, for lube, the actual ammo was quite weak.

Lot of guys had significant problems getting their ARs to run until they removed the lubricants from them as much of it was gumming up. Lighter weight lube sparingly applied helped.

Aside from that, all I can say is that I tend to keep internal furnace going by eating higher fat content food when I am going to be in very cold environments. I eat a lot more peperoni sticks, jerky, cheese, nuts, and things like that when I am outside in very cold weather. That and more peanut butter than a normally would. There are no shortage of ways to meet a persons needs, but the point is that in below freezing temps your body consumes more calories. Plus you need more water.

If your body has warm food and liquid inside during cold weather, you will perform better, and be willing to go further, no matter what your objective is. At least that has been my experience.

There were a couple years when I was fishing that my bodyfat was in the single digits. I went through a lot of egg nog then. I was eating close to 5k clean calories a day due to my lifting regimen and I really couldn't eat anymore so I just added egg nog.

You burn a lot of calories in the cold just shivering.