Cold Weather Firearm Tips
Feb 25th, 2010 | By Mike | Category: Self Defense | Print This Article
Carrying a firearm in cold weather requires some preparation; in addition to safety challenges, failing to access your weapon quickly can be the difference between a successful hunting trip and returning empty handed, or a successful defense against an assailant and serious injury. With a few additional steps, it is possible to carry and use a firearm while remaining warm.
When your hands get cold, they get numb, reducing your sensory feedback, and if you put gloves on, you also lose a sense of feel, which can leave you clumsy or ineffective when handling your firearm. Nothing is more important than being able to access and use your weapon quickly, whether you’re in a self-defense situation or hunting, so let’s review a few solutions learned from years of carrying firearms in cold weather.
- I have used the old woodsman’s trick; cutting a thin slit lengthwise in my glove for my trigger finger to sneak through. One drawback you should be aware of; grabbing a snowy branch, or braking a fall may give you a glove full of snow or ice, which I can promise is not fun.
- It’s not pretty, but using skateboard tape on your weapons will give you a non-slip, durable surface. Even with thick gloves on you’ll find the firearm easy to hold on to.
- If you have several firearms, you should consider designating one of them as your ‘cold weather’ weapon, and modify the trigger pull to be much heavier. This will compensate for the lack of feel you’ll experience when wearing gloves.
- Currently I wear thin poly “wicker” gloves under warm mittens allowing me to slide/fling the mittens as needed still providing some hand protection. Make sure the mitten, or outer layer of glove, can be easily ‘flung’ off your hand.
- Another method is Nomex flying gloves inside of a shooting mitten (mitten with a velcroed opening in the palm) allowing you to free your fingers when required.
There are other challenges when carrying a weapon in cold weather beyond simply keeping your hands warm and maintaining a sure grip. If you fall and get snow or ice in the muzzle, your accuracy will be severely degrade and your weapon could even malfunction. A few old tricks to keeping the barrel clean include:
1. Placing a little masking tape over the end of the barrel
2. A condom with a rubber band
3. A band aid placed over the muzzle
When hunting with handguns carry your gun under your coat, protecting it from the elements. Cross draw holsters work well with long coats, allowing quick access. If you prefer shoulder holsters, fasten your outer coat to just below the pectoral muscles. The upper portion will stay open allowing you immediate access to your weapon. Keeping your weapon inside an outer coat like this will protect the firearm in the event you take a tumble, which happens if you’re wandering around in snow and ice.
You can modify your coat with pass-through slits providing instant access to your gun. In really bad weather I prefer carrying “beaters” – true rough duty guns, not “safe queen” guns – allowing me to worry more about the deer in the thicket or the gang-banger lingering in the dark corner rather than my gun rusting.
Lubricants will thicken in extremely cold temperatures, which could lead to a misfire, and believe me, if you’ve pulled the gun and attempted to fire, the worst that can happen is not to get the shot off. To prevent this you can use graphite, thin watch oil, or a synthetic lubricant as these do not freeze or attract dust. I prefer the synthetic lubricants myself.
If you are carrying additional magazines, keep these inside your pockets to prevent misfires; magazines kept on the outside of your clothing will naturally attract more debris.
Once you have decided which methods you will use in cold weather, practice! Don’t just go to the gun range when it’s sunny and warm; go when it’s cold and nasty. See which clothes work for you and how your setup works. I suggest you try with empty firearms first, and after you’ve gotten your holstering and ‘draw’ perfected in your cold weather gear, then add your ammo.
Finally, add your gloves to the process and see how things work (or don’t work, as it might be). If the gloves are a problem, get rid of them! Gloves are cheap compared to your firearm-or your life-so go shopping for two layers that will work for you, the thin, inner layer that you can use in mild weather, and the thicker, outer layer of gloves that you can discard quickly when the time arrives.
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Sound advice.
Excellent info.
It is my understanding (not from personal experience) that if you bring your rifle indoors after being out in freezing weather, condensation can occur. Aside from corrosion issues, when you take your rifle back out with you the next day, the moisture can freeze and cause malfunctions.
To prevent this, you leave your rifle outside or in an unheated room to keep it “acclimated” to the cold.
Anyone have any experience with this issue?
Yes, during cold weather exercises in Canada, we were required to keep rifles outside the tents or you would have problems with condensation or rust. Nothing like a frozen up 5.56 jammed round to frustrate your day. This was a good article.
I should have added that in our training, if a rifle is to be brought indoors then it should stay indoors. Give it a light oiling and cleaning within the first 4-12 hours, then do it all again at the 24-36 hr mark. This should give you a healthy rifle in the end.
Liberty,
You stole the words right out of my post! Excellent point. I have experienced this with hunting up in MN. We kept our files in a locked shed outside of our cabin. I would also recommend a syntheic lubricant.
This stuff is the best. Cold or hot weather. The troops use it in country in Iraq and Afghanistan. Plus, you can make a donation there. It’s expensive stuff, but I have neve used a better lubricant. And you don’t need a lot of it.
http://www.militec1.com/
I’ll have to agree with you guys…
Here in Minnesota our hunting & shooting can prove interesting during the winter.
I also recommend taking a Winter Tactical Carbine course for local training. I’ve done lots of training with a MN Company called Defensive Edge / SLR-15 (www.slr15.com) and it really opened my eyes to firearm issues in the winter! Lots of topics were covered such as clothing, gloves/mittens, hats, keeping yourself and your firearm dry, and also how to most effectively use tactics in the winter, etc.
In my experience taking these classes, one of which was in -5 degree F weather with a heck of a good January wind-chill, is that Mittens Rule. For prolonged time spent outdoors, there’s just not enough insulation in multi-layered gloves to keep your fingers from getting frost-bite when you’re outside in such low temperatures & wind for several hours. Good, multi-layer mittens are the best.
Similar to what was mentioned in this article, one set of tight-fitting poly-pro type gloves, with a wool/synthetic or fleece mid-insulation layer MITTEN, and then arctic thinsulate gore-tex or waterproof outer shell MITTEN. The heat generated between your fingers by wiggling them in the mittens will help immensely in the frost-bite problem.
Then, I recommend instead of threatening your digits with frost-bite, that you use a firearm that is capable of being fired with Mittens!
The AR-15, the M14, and the M1-Garand are all capable of being fired with mittens. The factory-issued trigger guard on the AR-15 has a small detent in it. Using the tip of a bullet, you can press in the detent, and rotate the trigger guard downward, and that allows you to slide the upper part of your mittens up into the trigger guard, and you can then pull the trigger with mittens on – just like you would with your bare hands. That is by far the best option available.
During WWII and Korea, the M1 Garand was used in winter warfare, and the US Military developed an ‘adapter-lever’ of sorts that screwed into the wooden pistol-grip/stock of your rifle. These can still be found online for pretty low cost. They allowed hands with mittens to simply squeeze this ‘lever’ which actuated the trigger. However, this ‘lever’ is not covered or shielded at all by a trigger guard or anything – thus making it infinitely more dangerous as merely dropping the gun or bumping the lever could cause it to discharge! The AR-15′s factory trigger guard is a much better option all around, but it is unwise to use an ‘aftermarket’ lightened “Match” style trigger – the standard Military trigger is heavy enough to be used effectively with gloves/mittens.
I’ve also found that the older, rubber-style Magpul accessory when stuck onto the bottom of your magazines makes it infinitely easier to pull them out of your pouches, and the taller ‘loop’ allows hands with gloves/mittens to more easily grab them than the new Magpul base-plate products. Either that, or a loop of paracord looped around the magazine baseplate with a 1/2″ wooden ‘bead’ strung through it helps get a grip on magazines (in pouches) with gloves/mittens.
You’d be surprised how fast you can get doing Mag changes with heavy insulated mittens on!
Also, I agree – Militec1 is some of the best synthetic lubricant ever – and it’s the only gun lube I’ll use.