Gentlemen, this is the rifle I started my black powder shooting with when I was about 11 or twelve years old. When I took it first to the range I was lucky to get 50% of the bullets on target at 50 m and would get the odd bullet stuck half way down. My late mate John Humberstone told me about how to lap the bore, so at the age of 15 I pulled the breech plug and lapped it with a minnie bullet covered in fine valve grind past. I slightly damaged the nipple bolster and could no longer get the nipple in when I had removed the breech plug. The rifle was retired. some years later I got it to a gunsmith who sorted the thread out but in the meantime I had bought a PH Navy rifle and was busy with that. So I have never loaded this rifle after having sorted out the roughness in the bore. 43 years later I took it to the range yesterday, shot a few .568 pritchetts which as usual did not work, just some old cartridges I had on hand. The rifle did not foul at all. I then loaded up using 50 grains of FFg and my old PH shorter Minnie bullet, after a couple of ranging shots got into the black and shot a score of 87, best 10 out of 13 at 50 m off the bench. I then proceeded to shot an 81 at 100m off the bench also, best 10 out of 13 , I only wiped the rifle out between the 13 shot groups and the last shots pretty much loaded as well as the first. so as you can see the old girl shoots ver well and will now get a bit more range time. In due course I will try some .55 pritchetts in her. At 100 m I have to use a fine sight at 200y setting a bit below the black, so there is some sighting error. Top photo is 50m off the bench, lower photo is 100m off the bench.
P1300056 by Gordon Hazel, on Flickr
P1300055 by Gordon Hazel, on Flickr