Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB Mule Deer Magpro

How temperature sensitive or insensitive is Magpro?

I would say average. It wouldn't be my choice for hunting much below freezing, or much above 80.

I've used it quite a bit. As long as you use it in somewhat similar temps as your load work its quite good.
Most people don't hunt in minus 20 so just have realistic expectations.
I've used it in 6.5-284 and 300 Wby.

Dennis,

"Most people don't hunt in minus 20."

Yep, you're right--but quite a few people hunt down around zero. In my tests with the .270 at 70 and zero even RL-26 (which is supposed to be pretty temp-resistant, even though it wasn't designed to be) POI shifted 1.5" at 100 yards--which amounts to 6" at 400. Magpro isn't as temp-resistant.

Just curious: What are the most extreme temperatures you've hunted big game in? It didn't get very cold when you hunted up here years ago, I would guess maybe 20-25 in the mornings.

I always makenit a point to Hunt mules the two weeks before Thanksgiving. Last year we had -15 the morning I shot my buck. Not very uncommon in Eastern Montana.

I've bear hunted in 95⁰
Elk hunted in 5⁰
95% of my hunting is between 25⁰ and 45⁰

Those of you who hunt in crazy cold weather and work up loads in the summer have to follow different rules.
My fall loads are pretty much spot on with my summer loads.
This year i was hunting with Benchmark
I have a spring bear tag. I think my 340 is loaded with R17
I'm pretty sure it will be minute of brown bear in May

Dennis,

At least 2/3 of North America above Mexico often gets down to zero during fall hunting seasons. So this is NOT "crazy cold weather." I've hunted at zero (and sometimes below) in not just Montana but (in alphabetical order) Alberta, Colorado, Iowa, Manitoba, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and Wyoming, often more than once in some of those places. Oh, and even northern Arizona and northern New Mexico. Have even hunted in Africa (Namibia) where it froze one night.

Instead it might suggested that that those who've mostly hunted in warmer parts of the Southwest, and milder parts of Alaska, have hunted in crazy warm temperatures.

I actually look forward to below zero temps during hunting season. Especially if the cold isn't followed by wind, which in Montana it often is.

Yep! Game is more active when it's cold, often throughout the day.

When we moved to this area in 1990, we located a late-season "hotspot" for mule deer and elk on Forest Service land--which didn't mean it got hot there.

Instead it was a long, level ridge around 2500 feet in elevation below the highest peak on the east side of the valley--which had been logged not long before in a series of small clearcuts from around 250 to 500 yards wide, connected by a closed logging road. When it got colder and snowier in late November, deer and elk from the steep face of the mountain above would drop down to take advantage of the grass and browse on the clearcuts, and bed in the standing timber around them.

We could hike up the road in early morning or late afternoon and be pretty sure of finding game feeding in the clearcuts even in "normal" temperatures, but one year it got pretty cold as well. When we left our house in the dark an hour before dawn it was -11 on our thermometer. There was a herd of mule deer out feeding on every one of the clearcuts until late in the morning, but we'd already gotten an elk early in the 5-week rifle season, so were being pretty picky about what sort of bucks we wanted. Didn't find one quite big enough that morning, but the deer were still out feeding even when we headed back down at 11:00.