What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

Going thru serious withdrawals haven't hit the range in over two months, let alone having them out. Been so busy of late. Weather was warm and sunny out so I took my muzzle loading gals out for a nice cleaning.

Ordered a copy of The Gunsmith of Grenville County. After reading many good reviews I decided that I can never stop learning new techniques and tricks of the trade!

Got ready for duck season. Put the shotgun barrel on the English sporting rifle, filled the shot snake with bismuth, filled the flask with 2F powder and got it all nestled in my shooting bag.
Saw a group of wood ducks yesterday, so that got me excited. We don’t see many of those here. I think they are the prettiest of the ducks.

Went to a silhouette shoot. Shot .50 flintlock, .62 smoothbore and lever action 44 mag. Good times!

Finally shot a 1st place pistol target at my club's monthly shoot today with my Traditions Trapper. I've placed 2nd several times since I started shooting there but I just wanted 1st one time! Today was the day. Now, my rifle target was a different story entirely...

Justin.44 said:

Finally shot a 1st place pistol target at my club's monthly shoot today with my Traditions Trapper. I've placed 2nd several times since I started shooting there but I just wanted 1st one time! Today was the day. Now, my rifle target was a different story entirely...View attachment 173420

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Hey!! Great shooting!!

Was outdoors most of the day....longjohns & wool sweater under my buckskins and warm as toast all day at 10F.

Justin.44 said:

Finally shot a 1st place pistol target at my club's monthly shoot today with my Traditions Trapper. I've placed 2nd several times since I started shooting there but I just wanted 1st one time! Today was the day. Now, my rifle target was a different story entirely...View attachment 173420

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congratulations Justin I wished I could have been there. I enjoyed the group,I will be back. Bruce

babstooge said:

congratulations Justin I wished I could have been there. I enjoyed the group,I will be back. Bruce

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Thanks! Yeah I was hoping to see you there. It is a great place!

I was at Fort de Chartres for the Winter Rendezvous and Woods Walk.

Wind gusts tore up part of my fly. I seeded the corn field with lead ball. @andy52's team did come in two places above my team.

Had a great time.

A little lead melting in the dark... 160 lbs finished ingots in the last pic.

I had a barrel rebored , it came back with a tight bore, a loose spot at the breech and another one under the rear sight. I went up and down the scale with a .526 ball, thick .022 denim patching with mink oil, 65gr of 3F up to 75 gr in increments, the group was all over the place (above 75gr everything opened way up), I tried an .018 patch and got a 4" group with an occasional flier at 50 yards. I switched to a .530 ball .018 patch and 2F and went up and down the powder scale, at 75gr of 2F I got the group down to 3" at 50 yards with no fliers, not as good as I had hoped.

A .535 ball won't load with any patch, too tight.

I had a cut burned spot at one land with the .018 ticking patching when I shot, this didn't make sense as I had re-crowned the barrel to be as smooth as baby's behind as well as polishing the bore with a red scotch bright pad, JB bore paste and later the JB bore shine.

I loaded a dry wool wad over the powder on every shot.

This past Sunday was gunday. I had my .54 Colonial out. 80 grs. of 2F works great. 3 shot group at about 40 yds.

That’s too bad @Eric Krewson. I’d have to have a conversation with whoever did that bore work.

I stretched a tanned Rattlesnake skin that I want to see as a hatband for a Christmas present.

@buckheart Man, that’s a nice looking rifle.

I had a large, what think to be sugar maple, removed from my back yard yesterday. This tree was about 3 to four feet in diameter. It appears to have a lot of curl. I had the crew cut the butt log into 6' sections. I hope to make a few stock blanks for future projects. I may need a bigger chain saw.

Fisherking said:

I stretched a tanned Rattlesnake skin that I want to see as a hatband for a Christmas present.

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Here’s mine…

It has taken a while, but I have gone through all 503 pages of the flintlock forum. I haven’t read every post by a long shot - but I have skimmed every page and read a lot of threads. There are a lot of topics that have been repeated over the years…

SciAggie said:

It has taken a while, but I have gone through all 503 pages of the flintlock forum. I haven’t read every post by a long shot - but I have skimmed every page and read a lot of threads. There are a lot of topics that have been repeated over the years…

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That’s impressive that you did that! Really good!

But I’m shocked, shocked that threads have been repeated.