RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Nope, why I carry it! After the guy was killed by a cougar in Seattle two years ago, and three "dog" mauling's last winter here outside of town, I go on my walks prepared.
What Did You Shoot Today?
- Thread starter 462
- Start date
462
California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
One's been sitting in Jeff's shopping cart, I just have to buy it.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Well, shot my Browning Model 53 32/20 and my Remington #2 in 32 WCF. I drilled and tapped the 53 for a steel Redfield peep sight and it is a winner at 50 yards. Inch and a half groups with 311316 and 9.5 grains of 2400, not for the old guns. The Remington RB that is a conversion from 32 RF to 32 WCF did fine for me with 2" groups at 25 yards offhand. That is the best I can shoot with open sights, but it is great fun. A very nicely balanced rifle for offhand in my opinion.
oscarflytyer
Well-Known Member
Tomorrow! tomorrow...!
462
California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Would be nice to be able to buy powder locally.
Would be nice to have a full-service local gun store.
Ian
Notorious member
Flint fowling piece/trade gun, after a major overhaul/restraightening/honing of the barrel and a little faux French grey barrel finish job, final coats of oil on the stock, and a two-day fight with the POS L&R lock. The story on the lock is it eats flints up. Weak frizzen spring has been addressed. I noticed in around 200 strikes the frizzen face is getting quite rough so I checked it with a file and it's soft, like soft spring temper soft. Reading that soft frizzens dull the heck out of flints by ripping chips out of the flint face every strike, I put two and two together. So off with the frizzen, a cleanup, bright cherry red and swished in water, in the oven at 375 for an hour, draw back the pan cover and toe to a deep blue while the strawed frizzen is stuck into a potato, and now no sparks. Not one. Check with a file, butter soft. WTH? I was careful not to burn the steel. So again I hardened it and this time left it alone...but the frizzen cracked in about ten places this time when quenched and un-curved itself. So again to cherry red but air cool, up to full orange, re-bend the bow plus a titch more, swish in water, draw back the toe and quench to prevent any possible tempering of the frizzen face. NOW she sparks! Still won't skate a sharp file but it's harder than it was. Flint hits it at a bad angle so I bent the cock down slightly and turned the flint bevel-down and now it throws the sparks right into the pan. Everything working like it should now and in two dozen hits the flint was still working. Back together with the mess and to the range this evening without touching the flint. Got off about 25-28 shots before the first klatch and I did see one orange spark fly even then.
So the barrel shoots a little left when clean and cold but it comes right in to center or just about 2 MOA right of center when hot. Hard to tell with no rear sight and the light shining down from the target direction through the trees. Out of curiosity as to whether the "curveball" effect was still there, I took shots at 75 and then 100 yards, making hits on my gongs there. 12" round gong at 100 took three out of the first four balls I threw at it which made me a happy camper indeed.
The other thing that made me a happy camper was not having to clean the barrel once and my accuracy staying up as well as it being very easy to seat the ball on the powder with no carbon ring accumulating. I attribute this to the patch lube: This time an equal mix of PAG 100, water, and castor bean oil. I had been using castor, Ballistol, and water at 1/1/2 and liking it a lot (the castor fixes all the problems Ballistol as as a patch lube) but was still getting a little bit of hard fouling that made the ball hard to seat the last inch. After a few shots I switched to the castor/PAG mix and in 2-3 shots the hard fouling was gone and never came back. Patched ball was also easier to start and ram home (It's a tight combo) with the castor/PAG/water and cleanup when I got home was a snap. Going to try this stuff in my rifles and see how they like it.
So the barrel shoots a little left when clean and cold but it comes right in to center or just about 2 MOA right of center when hot. Hard to tell with no rear sight and the light shining down from the target direction through the trees. Out of curiosity as to whether the "curveball" effect was still there, I took shots at 75 and then 100 yards, making hits on my gongs there. 12" round gong at 100 took three out of the first four balls I threw at it which made me a happy camper indeed.
The other thing that made me a happy camper was not having to clean the barrel once and my accuracy staying up as well as it being very easy to seat the ball on the powder with no carbon ring accumulating. I attribute this to the patch lube: This time an equal mix of PAG 100, water, and castor bean oil. I had been using castor, Ballistol, and water at 1/1/2 and liking it a lot (the castor fixes all the problems Ballistol as as a patch lube) but was still getting a little bit of hard fouling that made the ball hard to seat the last inch. After a few shots I switched to the castor/PAG mix and in 2-3 shots the hard fouling was gone and never came back. Patched ball was also easier to start and ram home (It's a tight combo) with the castor/PAG/water and cleanup when I got home was a snap. Going to try this stuff in my rifles and see how they like it.
RicinYakima
High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Sorry for your lock issue. Don't know anything about "L&R" but that was an issue with frizzens when I built my rifle.
What is PAG100?
What is PAG100?
Winelover
North Central Arkansas
We have them here. However, at over $50/# for powder and over $100 for brick of primers...........someone else can have them.
Even with HazMat, still prefer mail order.........just purchase enough to spread the HazMat around.
BTW, PV sent me a email yesterday that they had CCI primers (SR & SP) in stock for $95/ brick...........not that that's a good price. Cheapest, I've seen the Argentine SPP for was for $54/ brick, with free shipping on $149 order @ Norma.
Ian
Notorious member
Automotive air conditioning compressor oil for R-134a systems. It is fully miscible with water without soap.
Snakeoil
Well-Known Member
It would appear that with spring's arrival came a few new wind gods to Wilton. I got a taste of it yesterday when I shot the new bullet in my .32-40 for the first time. After drilling the center at 500 yds, put 4 in a row about 15 inches high and right into the same spot... in the dirt. New bullet in a relatively new to me rifle made me question if it was conditions, me, rifle or bullet.
Today's match confirmed there are new wind gods at Wilton. I'm thinking that with partial leaves in the surround trees, the wind is changing a bit from the winter paths. But the real culprit is the short berms they installed for the .22 BPCR course of fire, the last two most distant berms are right in line with the 500 yard targets. Any headwind that is not dead perpendicular with the berm is going to cause an vertical up-wind with a push right or left depending on the angle of attack for the headwind. In my case today, I don't think it was so much headwind as a 9 to 3 wind that was not showing up on the wind flags. I put two into the dirt at 3:00 off the target, one a little further off than the other. We shot 3 to a bench today so I had two guys watching the conditions and both were scratching their heads.
The 3rd guy on our bench was Butch who shoots a modern Tikka in .308 with a high end Vortex scope. He's shooting powder coated bullets and pushing them just under 2000 fps. So, the wind will have less effect on his bullets than Steve's and mine, both of which are 210 gr RN bore riders. Butch shot clean at 500, but used every bit of that 26 inch gong. When we got to 400, he put one just over the target, which I never expected. So, even those faster bullets were susceptible to the twisted sense of humor of those new wind gods.
No perfect scores today. I think Butch won with a 29/30. I tied with my buddy Craig with a 38. But I think he got second since he shot clean at 500 and missed at 1 at 300 and 1 at 400. I shot clean at 300 so that got me another silver bullet for my shooting box.
Today was body-building day at Wilton. We had a double batch of homemade brownies and another member made a pineapple upside down cake with whipped cream that was about 5 inches thick! I'm trying to shed some winter weight and I managed to escape with only eating one brownie. I kept telling myself that desserts are like sex. When it's over, it's over. But then I remembered that you don't have to talk to a dessert when it's over, so I tend to think that they are better. Oh well...
Weather is supposed to suck this week. Not sure I'll be able to do any ladder testing with the new .32-40 bullet. We'll see.
Today's match confirmed there are new wind gods at Wilton. I'm thinking that with partial leaves in the surround trees, the wind is changing a bit from the winter paths. But the real culprit is the short berms they installed for the .22 BPCR course of fire, the last two most distant berms are right in line with the 500 yard targets. Any headwind that is not dead perpendicular with the berm is going to cause an vertical up-wind with a push right or left depending on the angle of attack for the headwind. In my case today, I don't think it was so much headwind as a 9 to 3 wind that was not showing up on the wind flags. I put two into the dirt at 3:00 off the target, one a little further off than the other. We shot 3 to a bench today so I had two guys watching the conditions and both were scratching their heads.
The 3rd guy on our bench was Butch who shoots a modern Tikka in .308 with a high end Vortex scope. He's shooting powder coated bullets and pushing them just under 2000 fps. So, the wind will have less effect on his bullets than Steve's and mine, both of which are 210 gr RN bore riders. Butch shot clean at 500, but used every bit of that 26 inch gong. When we got to 400, he put one just over the target, which I never expected. So, even those faster bullets were susceptible to the twisted sense of humor of those new wind gods.
No perfect scores today. I think Butch won with a 29/30. I tied with my buddy Craig with a 38. But I think he got second since he shot clean at 500 and missed at 1 at 300 and 1 at 400. I shot clean at 300 so that got me another silver bullet for my shooting box.
Today was body-building day at Wilton. We had a double batch of homemade brownies and another member made a pineapple upside down cake with whipped cream that was about 5 inches thick! I'm trying to shed some winter weight and I managed to escape with only eating one brownie. I kept telling myself that desserts are like sex. When it's over, it's over. But then I remembered that you don't have to talk to a dessert when it's over, so I tend to think that they are better. Oh well...
Weather is supposed to suck this week. Not sure I'll be able to do any ladder testing with the new .32-40 bullet. We'll see.
Ian
Notorious member
This afternoon was "Let's try birdshot paper cartridges in the flintlock fowling piece/trade gun". Spent three hours making a .590" wad punch out of a Leer landing gear hinge bolt, then rolled and filled some masking paper cartridges using .600" aluminum mandrels. I used a pair of thick cardboard wads glued together and glued around the circumference as a partition and two mandrels to roll the cartridge with the wads glued in the middle.
First experiment involved a three-dram volume of cornmeal over the partition wads tamped down with an empty .410 hull, three drams of 7-1/2 magnum shot poured on top, capped with a soda carton wad, and the paper folded/glued over the wad. Flip over, drop three drams of 3F willow black powder, fold the tail. These would be loaded tail down after the powder is poured down the bore and rammed home with a wet-patched jag.
Second experiment was essentially the same except I dropped the shot first, then cornmeal, then soda carton wad and folded/glued the end and put powder in the other end. The idea here is the tail goes up after powder is poured down the barrel and the wadded up tail soaked with moose milk before ramming down.
I patterned both loads at 27 and 40 yards, three patterns each, and the tail-down load had the edge on pattern uniformity and dispersion. I think having the tail wad and two "cushion" wads under the payload and only a card on top did the trick. Unfortunately, this is the more difficult to load of the two and most difficult to wet without ruining the powder or fooling with a wet patch on the jag. The bore never fouled much with either load but the chamber got crusty and the cartridges difficult to seat fully in short order. The "tail down" load did seem to conform a little better to the crud than the tail up load where I was cramming a hard card right down against the powder.
At 27 yards, about 95% of the shot stayed in a 30" circle. At 40, considerably less but I'd say at least 60% without too many "holes". Not bad for a 20-gauge cylinder barrel, I think it will hunt.
First experiment involved a three-dram volume of cornmeal over the partition wads tamped down with an empty .410 hull, three drams of 7-1/2 magnum shot poured on top, capped with a soda carton wad, and the paper folded/glued over the wad. Flip over, drop three drams of 3F willow black powder, fold the tail. These would be loaded tail down after the powder is poured down the bore and rammed home with a wet-patched jag.
Second experiment was essentially the same except I dropped the shot first, then cornmeal, then soda carton wad and folded/glued the end and put powder in the other end. The idea here is the tail goes up after powder is poured down the barrel and the wadded up tail soaked with moose milk before ramming down.
I patterned both loads at 27 and 40 yards, three patterns each, and the tail-down load had the edge on pattern uniformity and dispersion. I think having the tail wad and two "cushion" wads under the payload and only a card on top did the trick. Unfortunately, this is the more difficult to load of the two and most difficult to wet without ruining the powder or fooling with a wet patch on the jag. The bore never fouled much with either load but the chamber got crusty and the cartridges difficult to seat fully in short order. The "tail down" load did seem to conform a little better to the crud than the tail up load where I was cramming a hard card right down against the powder.
At 27 yards, about 95% of the shot stayed in a 30" circle. At 40, considerably less but I'd say at least 60% without too many "holes". Not bad for a 20-gauge cylinder barrel, I think it will hunt.
I havent had my 54 fowler out for years,so my memory is spotty,theres a certain size deep socket that i used,as a mandrel,i used brown paper bag,to make my shot capsules,wool wad over powder,,card wad over shot capsule.shoots nice,but i was always leery of dry fall days,cause that paper capsule would land on ground,and be smoldering.
The gun was built with a colerain half round/half octagon smooth bore,and it aint smooth!!!
The worst looking leading ive ever seen,in a bore.
Thats why i went to shot capsule.
Snakeoil
Well-Known Member
Ian
Notorious member
If loading a bare stack of components instead of a pre-made paper cartridge, the fiber wad can be soaked in a liquid lube like moose milk or wwwf before seating on top of the nitro over powder card to accomplish this. The real challenge isn't keeping the barrel clean, it's keeping the "chamber" clear enough of fouling to be able to fully seat the cartridge after a few shots.
462
California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Finalized another Uberti Cattleman accuracy load -- Lee 452-255 RF and Lyman 454190 with 7.7-grains of Unique. However, 6.0-grains of Bullseye did not shoot nearly as well with the Lyman bullet as it did with the Lee. Weird, and a re-visit is in order later in the month.
The S&W 6 1/2" Model 624's cast accuracy load has been 13.0-grains of 2400 and Lyman's 429421. I'm down to 2 1/2 pounds of 2400, so decided to test 6.5-grains of Unique of which I have over 6 pounds. Ten-yards off-hand with floaters and Saran Wrap vision that constantly loses the battles with iron sights, and a hold that's not as steady as it used to be, turned in a pretty nice 10-shot group. Not as tight as with 2400, but the powder savings more than makes up for the difference.
The S&W 6 1/2" Model 624's cast accuracy load has been 13.0-grains of 2400 and Lyman's 429421. I'm down to 2 1/2 pounds of 2400, so decided to test 6.5-grains of Unique of which I have over 6 pounds. Ten-yards off-hand with floaters and Saran Wrap vision that constantly loses the battles with iron sights, and a hold that's not as steady as it used to be, turned in a pretty nice 10-shot group. Not as tight as with 2400, but the powder savings more than makes up for the difference.