New deer rifle…

[Maverick]

Blowing down the barrel of a smoke pole was more for adding moisture to the fouling and helping to keep it soft. It also helped to indicate the touch hole or percussion nipple was still open for the next shot. Not a good idea at all.

There is more than enough O2 in your breath to sustain and fan burning. The CO2 isn't high enough to extinguish any embers.

Always always load from a measure and NEVER from your flask. Doing otherwise means you are loading a weapon with a hand grenade.

Never put your body parts directly over the muzzle of the weapon. Don't use your palm to tamp the rod, always grip it so the rod will slip through your grip and not through your hand. Same for a ball starter.

If you are unsure of the load status, use your ran rod. Load the weapon innitially. Drop the ramrod down the barrel, get a felt tip marker and mark the ramrod at the point it just exits the barrel. That is your load marker. If the ramrod mark goes well into the barrel on a check, it's unloaded. If you see the mark at all, it's loaded. Use a barrel or ball worm to unload the gun. Firing the load at the end of a day on a hunt will cause it to absorb moisture during the night and can keep it from firing with a fresh charge in the morning.

Always cap the gun as the last step before firing. Never never put a cap on the nipple before it's loaded and you are going to fire.

[StarOfAfrica2]

Originally posted by Maverick
Blowing down the barrel of a smoke pole was more for adding moisture to the fouling and helping to keep it soft. It also helped to indicate the touch hole or percussion nipple was still open for the next shot. Not a good idea at all.

There is more than enough O2 in your breath to sustain and fan burning. The CO2 isn't high enough to extinguish any embers.

Hrm, guess I'm getting too used to being in "devils advocate" mode and got argumentative.  I dont disagree, I was just pointing out what I had been taught to do by oldtimers, and why (now that you mention it, I remember them mentioning the moisture thing too).  I'm not quite dumb enough to think there arent better ways to do it or that I could be wrong.  All the arguments against make sense.  

One thing I've found though, is that alot of the traditional ways of doing things developed for a good reason.  Sometimes we really dont know more than the old farts, and I try to keep that in mind.

[migeater]

i have a 30-30 and a 30-06:noid

[migeater]

Originally posted by Leslie
No it's not a joke.  I've done it myself without thinking.  It serves no purpose.  I do check out the .270 by opening the bolt and looking down the barrel when I'm hunting, to make sure nothing is in the barrel to start out with.  Obsessive complusive I guess.




Les

its bein safe i respect that

[Maverick]

Originally posted by StarOfAfrica2
Hrm, guess I'm getting too used to being in "devils advocate" mode and got argumentative.  I dont disagree, I was just pointing out what I had been taught to do by oldtimers, and why (now that you mention it, I remember them mentioning the moisture thing too).  I'm not quite dumb enough to think there arent better ways to do it or that I could be wrong.  All the arguments against make sense.  

One thing I've found though, is that alot of the traditional ways of doing things developed for a good reason.  Sometimes we really dont know more than the old farts, and I try to keep that in mind.

Some times the old ways kept on just because they just didn't know any better......(JK )  In the reading I did on some of the Mountain men they gave the moisture bit for the reason but that was only when they needed a quick reload too. I never had any reason to test the theory, I just swabbed the bore at 3 shots. It got way too hard to load with the shallow rifling on my TC kit gun if I didn't.

[Widewing]

A couple of points.

Before you ever load a new black powder rifle for the first time, drop the ramrod down the bore. Mark it where it exits the muzzle. Now, de-capped, load powder and ball/bullet (I use prelubed wonder wads under the bullet). After ramming home the bullet and charge, mark the ramrod where it exits the muzzle.

Should you ever find yourself wondering if the rifle is loaded, make sure there's no cap on the nipple, and with the hammer on halfcock, drop in the ramrod, which will now tell you if it's loaded or not. Simple as simple gets.

Second point. Rifling was added to black powder rifles specifically to improve accuracy, not to provide a volume for residual fouling. The use of pre-lubed wads under the bullet will help keep the fouling soft. You need only run a bore brush in and out a few times to remove the worst of the fouling during a range session. If excessive fouling is an issue, consider the use of Pyrodex instead of black powder. It burns cleaner and can be used in any rifle that normally uses BP.

As to reloading with a powder measure or horn... Hunters should consider buying plastic speed loaders. These are plastic tubes with an internal divider. One side contains pre-measured powder, the other side a wad and bullet. Pop one cap off, pour in powder, pop the other cap and push in the wad and bullet. Fast, easy and error free. Carry about 5 or 6 speed loaders in you pocket.

A friend of mine took a buck with a Navy Arms 1853 Enfield at about 90 yards.. It's a fine rifle.

My regards,

Widewing

[joowenn]

Originally posted by storch
that's about a thirty yard gun if it's a musket and you won't be able to shoot minie ball but round shot.

round shot is good, no?

[G0ALY]

Well, The Enfield was taken to the range today and WOW! Was it interesting!

We began by using 70 grains of real black powder. At 50 yards the first volley of 6 rounds were in a 6-inch group, aprox. five inches above the bull’s-eye. Not too bad for open sights.

Then it got real weird…

We opened a brand new container of one of those black powder substitutes. We wanted to compare the pattern to good old black powder. A huge reduction in recoil was noticed, and the pattern opened up. It opened WAY UP!…

Of the next six shots fired, only two holes could be found in the 4-FOOT by 4-FOOT piece of cardboard we had our bull’s-eye centered on. The two holes we 3 foot apart, and both of the holes were misshapen. One was oblong and the other was the perfect profile of the minnie ball… Obviously the bullets tumbling as they were going down range. But what caused this? And where did the other four rounds go?

I switched back to the real black powder and the group tightened right back up. The recoil also returned too its previous level.

I had also brought my Pedersoli 12gauge side-by-side muzzle-loading shotgun to the range today, so we preformed a little test… I loaded it just as I normally do, but I used the new powder. I then fired it towards the target… Once again there was a noticeable drop in recoil, and this time we could see a burning wad fly about 10 yards down the range. I had never seen in flight, or even found on the ground, a wad that had been fired form this gun.

After much thought, here is my hypothesis: The new black powder substitute was defective. It was extremely slow burning. This would account for the reduction in recoil, and it would explain why I could see the wad after it had been left the shotgun barrel… The powder that had been packed against it, was stuck to it, and was still burning as it went down the range.

As for the 4 missing .58 caliber minnie balls… I believe that the hollow base of the bullet was filled with the defective slow-burning powder. This powder was compressed into the hollow base of the bullet when the ball was packed onto the powder by the ramrod during the loading process. When the musket was fired, the cone shaped charge of powder in the base of the bullet was still burning after it had left the end of the barrel. This gave the minnie balls the characteristics of an unguided, un-stabilized, missile. And they propelled themselves at least the two feet required to completely miss the target.

[Widewing]

Originally posted by G0ALY
We opened a brand new container of one of those black powder substitutes. We wanted to compare the pattern to good old black powder. A huge reduction in recoil was noticed, and the pattern opened up. It opened WAY UP!…

What was the BP substitute? What granulation?

I have used Pyrodex in several of my muzzle loaders and they all shot nice tight groups.. I suggest Pyrodex Select or RS.

My regards,

Widewing

[G0ALY]

It was American Pioneer Powder in FFG.

[Widewing]

Originally posted by G0ALY
It was American Pioneer Powder in FFG.

I've never used their powder. So, I checked their website.

I don't see any recommended loads for a .58 cal rifle on the American Pioneer website. Below is from the website.

Bore dia/volume or powder/weight of bullet/velocity

.45 caliber/100 grains of FFG Powder/250 Grains/1912 fps
.50 caliber/100 grains of FFG Powder/240 Grains/1823 fps
.50 caliber/120 grains of FFG Powder/240 Grains/1905 fps

If you were shooting with just 70 grains under a 350 grain bullet, you could expect erratic performance and very light recoil. I suggest you consult the user's manual that came with the rifle and see what loads are recommended. I suspect that you may be very much limited by allowable chamber pressures.

Using Pyrodex in my Hawkin rifles, I typically use 120 to 130 grain charges. But, these are heavy-walled barrels that have been proofed with 3 times that load.

You can e-mail American Pioneer through their website and quiz them about your problem.

My regards,

Widewing

[mandingo]

i sometimes imagine the deer being nazis or new york yankee unionists as i pull the trigger.

[Maverick]

I've used pyrodex in my rifles. I found that they use the same VOLUME of pyrodex for the same weight of black powder. In other words I used the same measure of pyrodex as I used for black powder. Pyro was a bit harder to ignite so I used the hottest caps I cold find which were CCI's.