As to the colder weather and hands, Taylor and I am finding freezing weather a bit hard on bare fingers this year for some odd reason. It's either an aclimatization deal or we've cut our fingers too badly over the years and circulation is a problem. I'm healing up right now from several nasty cuts and plastic bandages draws cold, as do wet 'cloth' types. I've tried both. Hoping it's the aclimatization problem. We used to be able to shoot to -10 without problem - witness our trail-walk shooting pictures from last year. Maybe it's a humidity deal - been rather moist & generally snowing the last few trail walks. Simple cold hands are one thing & not so bad but frozen stiff/numb - won't or can't move fingers to grip is another. When I typed this last sentence, I had to re-type a C in front of what 'd typed - old - maybe that's another problem I didn't consider - old fingers.
Handling tin boxes of patches and brass primers does rob heat from the fingers rapidly, along with wet patches and lead balls. Gets to the point I can't tell if I'm touching the trigger or not. Resting the triger finger on the guard while mounting the rifle robs more heat from the trigger finger. Guess I'l have to stiffenup it's pull or learn to shoot it without setting the trigger. That's a long nasty pull on this rifle but may help with practise.
