Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Stocks shatter from Alaska cold?

I need popcorn this is better then TV

Anything is better than TV........

Thanks Dwayne, hope you are all doing well too!

Loved this: "One thing I'm dead certain of is that deep winter cold can come any time it feels like on the prairies after about the second week of October."

The coldest place I've lived and hunted was the northeastern corner of Montana, which is definitely prairie, with an hour's drive of both North Dakota and Saskatchewan. One winter day got to at least -50 F. below; the local thermometers ranged down to -58. That was damn cold--but that day was absolutely still.

The coldest day during that so-called "cold snap" was around -40--but with winds from 30-40 mph. Talk about wind chill!

Good hunting,
John

If I was to guess a BRIM FROST exercise in about 1986 would I be close?

Some rules of thumb we used to live by:
- Fun stops at about -20
- Schitt really breaks at an accelerated rate at -30
- Overflow sucks and can be a stone cold killer
- Every object you’re run into at extreme cold temperatures is hard as a rock. Doing that at just about any speed can end your life (think frozen trees/staubs in a river)

Epstein didn’t kill himself

I'll bet most people in lower 48 don't even know what overflow is.
I had never heard of it until I moved to Alaska.
And strange thing is I never hunt caribou during the fall hunt. I prefer -20-/-25 late winter on the Taylor Hwy. A person can spend a month up there and not see another person. No bugs, no heat. Just quiet.....

Completey not Army approved, but we used LPS 1 on our M-60D's when door gunning in the winter:

itwprobrands.com/product/lps-1


I actually don't remember if we had access to LAW, but we, being an Aviation unit, had tons of other lubricants available to try (obviously CLP didn't work). Coldest temp I remember shooting in was -45 (C). Specifically that temperature because that is the low temp limit for starting or shutting down an engine or APU on the UH-60. We had to search around different military airfields to find a place to legally land and get fuel. We started at Ft. Greely, but it dropped to -50 while we were out training. Ft Wainwright reported -48, and then Eilson AFB when they understood our issue, reported -44 (wink wink). We still sat idling on the ground at Eilson for almost an hour waiting for the APU to warm up enough to start. (too many failed starts, and you get a fire out the exhaust).

Akbob5:
Good evening to you sir, I hope that this last day of November treated you in an acceptable manner and that this finds you well.

You talked about overflow and like John's statement about Celsius and Fahrenheit meeting at -40° I knew I was familiar with something like it, but had to look it up before I responded.

My eldest sister for years was an RN in northern communities in the 3 western provinces, one of them being the oldest settlement in Saskatchewan, a little Metis and First Nations community called Cumberland House.

Of course if it was the oldest, it was a fur trading post and then again by extension it was on a river, in this case the Saskatchewan which is the combined North and South Saskatchewan at that point, so it's going pretty good and is quite wide. The interesting thing is that Cumberland House is on an island and everything going in or out of town has to cross the river.

As you can surmise, that's a sticky wicket for several months of the year until the ice is thick enough to run first snow machines, then pickups and finally semis across it.

Some years when the overflow was bad there were several locals that would go through, never to be seen again.

Anyways sir, thanks for twigging my memories of times spent up there long, long ago. All the best to you folks as the days get short and cold. may you stay well, warm and dry.

Dwayne

Awesome thread guys! Soaking up the knowledge here.

Coldest I've ever shot a rifle was zero degrees F. Right here in central Washington. Everything was just peachy.

But this -40 degree stuff being spoken about? Oh goodness - I'd MUCH rather be inside, tossing another log on the fire and making something warm to drink. Bless you all.

Guy

Its all realative to what you are used to. I've been used to below 0 temps for months, and when we were out riding our snowmachines, it got so hot that we stripped down to hoodies... it had gotten up to +25 and felt like summer.

Conversely, I was working day shift in Iraq one lovely summer. I switched to night shift, and I remember sitting outside smoking an Iraqi Bazaar couterfeit Marlboro at about 2 in the AM. The breeze picked up and I was sitting on my hands... kinda chilly... I looked up, and it was 98 on the thermometer.


The body gets acclimated in a few months.

Absolutely true my brother. Stay safe if you’re still serving.

Random anecdote that has nothing to do with the thread, but I've had a few after work drinks, and this is the campfire, so par for the course....

Living in Alaska, people from outside always ask "what's the coldest you've ever seen?" For years, I could accurately say "-65 in Florida". Yup, I was in the McKinley Climatic Laboratory at Eglin AFB, FL which is a refrigerated hangar for testing. Inside was an (at the time) new C-130J model. They were doing engine runs in the hangar at -65 with the new Rolls Royce motors.

Later, I was sent to the lower 48 for training. It was over 6 months, so the .gov paid for me to move down there, allowing me to take my personal pickup, and household goods. It was January, 2005. I loaded up my F-150 for a trip to Mississisppi. Wanting to take my motorcycle, I borrowed my buddy's Case 580 backhoe. I needed a new battery because of the cold. I got it started, and used the bucket to load my bike in the back of the pickup. The .gov was paying for a ferry ride from Haines to Bellingham, so I had a departure time to meet at Haines. Haines is about a 12 hour drive from where I was living, so I had to leave the house about 10PM. It was roughly -25 ish at the house, and I headed northeast in the truck.

I hit Glennallen for gas, and it was -40 according to the bank sign. At the Tok cutoff, it was -72, and I heard a clunk from under the truck. I crawled under with a flashlight and saw ATF leaking from the transfer case. Not wanting to deal with it, I put it in 2WD and kept going. Made it through the border, and at Beaver Creek, it was -68. Started to Haines Junction, and heard a flapping noise from under the hood. Popped the hood, and saw that my serpentine belt was delaminating. The serpentine belt runs EVERYTHING in a 98 F-150. I nursed it along, kept the RPMs as low as possible, and made it to Haines, AK. With 2 hours to kill, I went to the Haines auto parts store... asked for a serpentine belt for a 98 F-150 with a 4.6. He looks in his computer, has a bad look on his face, then asks "Windsor or Romeo?" (engine). I tell him it's a Romeo. He looks up on the pegboard behind the counter and pulls one of the 3 belts off to hand one to me.... "there you go, that's $97.99." Holy crap, he has it. I happily paid, and changed it in the parking lot.

I take the truck to the ferry terminal, load it, then have 3 easy days of drinking the Inside Passage.

Get to Bellingham, take the truck to the Ford Dealer (truck had an extended warranty). Guy shows me back of the transfer case, and the yoke coming off the transfer case, and the rubber seal was shattered. Guy said he'd never seen anything liike it before (LOL). Fix it with a $100 deductable, and I'm on my way. 3 days later, and I'm riding my bike while visiting my Uncle in Bulverde TX at 70 degrees.

"We used to have a name for it when the weather outside was below -40° - Damn Cold! laugh I suspect nowadays some of the younger set who've spent time in the oil patch would have even more descriptive vernacular for it."

In Barrow we called it "ala-damned-pa". Alapa being Inupiat for "it's cold". Spelling might be off.

I've gone into over-flow 3 times. Salt water. Dangerous stuff!

People in NW Aaska die every year going into overflow, or through the ice on rivers or lakes, or the ocean. A few years back a couple left Kotzebue headed for, I think Noatak, drunk, in the dark, underdressed, no sled or survival gear (would not have helped anyway), on one machine, and took a wrong turn on Kotzebue Sound (trails are marked with branches frozen upright into the ice). They went into the drink, either a lead or thin ice over a lead. The gal was found several months later in the summer, out of Pt Hope, nearly 200 miles north, up the coast. He was never found.

The coldest I've ever been out in (not for long!!!) was 53 below with a 50mph wind - Gusts a bit higher. Not estimates, measured. Pt. Hope.

About 65 below in calm conditions, Interior.

I like SC Alaska, thank you very much.

Quite the range of temps and activity a week or so!

Only difference I ever noticed was on an old 03-A3 30-06. 150 gr bullets sighted at 60-70 degrees - shot a bit lower at -20 degrees.
Using 4064 powder.

Thanks brother, I got out 7 years ago... now I work for a living lol.

Well, i have fired a rifle in 120 f and it didn't even melt

I call bullpuckey on that one. People can't survive at 120 degrees.

Good firsthand information. Thanks you. 👍

Yeah but I woulda.....

Witless in Seattle.

Jim