Our smoke poles

[Trooper]

12 minutes ago

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• #24

We both just purchased our TC Hawken muzzle loaders last month. As I said in my intro, I used to be involved in the shoots held up here at the Sherwood Park katchamoot creek range. Due to a divorce, things had to change temporarily. Now that I have my life back on track, I've returned to my BP hobby and with my new missus, we will jump back into this sport. My wife is totally new to Black powder shooting and so far, she seems to handle her .50 TC Hawken ok. She has only been out once with her rifle. It's either too cold for her or too windy. She'll have plenty of opportunity to shoot when the weather warms up. Anyway, she started with 40 gns of FFG and may work up her load, depending how she can handle the recoil. I shot my .54 and started with 80 gns of FFG. When I bought this rifle, It had some kind of plastic front and rear sights with fiber optics..... They are horrible! My groups were all over the paper, then I had a close look at the rear site and I could move that thing just with slight pressure from my index finger and It couldn't be tightened down.. Plastic manure...Thankfully, Alice's smoke pole has it's original sites as sold by TC back in the day. I found someone on E bay that had the original TC Hawken sites up for sale, I'm just waiting to see them delivered to our post office. We have REAL bullet molds for .54 and one for .50 as well as a .495 RB mold for Alice. I'm casting our own using soft roofer's lead. What I really need is a RB mold .530 or preferably, a .535! Why is every company that deals with BP and muzzle loading out of stock? Anyone have a .530 or 535 RB mold that they want to sell?

 

[mooman76]

Everything guns these days is hard to come by. With all that is going on there has been a mad rush to buy everything plus production has fallen behind because of the covid thing on top of everything else. It's slowly starting to come back. Keep searching and you will find what you need.

 

[deermanok]

Check out the gun works. They usually have molds in stock.

 

[Trooper]

Thank you Deermanct! The gun works had exactly what I needed!

 

[ord sgt]

I use a 50 grain FFFg load in my .50 calibre rifles. In my .45 T/C with a .440 roundball, I use 45 grains FFFg. Easy shooting loads in both rifles. I have had women shoot the T/C load during my R/P club Women Only day, no problems. Most want to shoot more than one. But that depends on the crowd size. But they do come back for more. The smile on their faces shows that they enjoy BP.

 

[Dillon W.]

That ain’t no lie trooper. Folks jus went nuts I reckon. But I’m glad to hear you have a lady willing to shoot bp with you. My wife likes her other guns and likes shooting them but she is in no way shape or form interested in muzzleloaders. Couldn’t say why. She jus don’t.

 

[ord sgt]

My wife likes her other guns and likes shooting them but she is in no way shape or form interested in muzzleloaders. Couldn’t say why. She jus don’t.

Quietly mention how much fun you have shooting black powder. Let her inhale some smoke. Let her curiosity build until she asks to try your rifle. She might surprise you, in a good way. But it has to be her decision to try.

 

[Dillon W.]

That’s an idea right there. I suppose a subtle approach never hurt anybody. In that case there just may be some hope. If she likes it I’ll have her one built

 

[Walkingeagle]

Trooper, you still in the Edmonton area?
Walk

 

[Trooper]

Trooper, you still in the Edmonton area?
Walk

Yep. out in Bruderheim. How about you?

 

[Walkingeagle]

Yep. out in Bruderheim. How about you?

In Edmonton itself now.
Anyhow, I have a Lee .530 single cavity mold (brand new) bought years ago but haven’t ran out of my Hornady balls yet, so remains unused. You may borrow it to run a bunch of balls if you like and return once you’re done (within reasonable amount of time). Will tide you over until you find one of your own. PM me if interested for the address. I’m on the North side, a bit West of center.
Walk

 

[Trooper]

In Edmonton itself now.
Anyhow, I have a Lee .530 single cavity mold (brand new) bought years ago but haven’t ran out of my Hornady balls yet, so remains unused. You may borrow it to run a bunch of balls if you like and return once you’re done (within reasonable amount of time). Will tide you over until you find one of your own. PM me if interested for the address. I’m on the North side, a bit West of center.
Walk

Thank you brother, I found two. a .530 and a .535 from the gun works, thanks again to deermanct for pointing me in the right direction. I ordered both as well as a quality rear and front set of TC Hawken sights from them as well. My Hawken had a horrible set of plastic sights that weren't original to the rifle.

 

[Col. Batguano]

ML'ing is a small sort of niche market. For argument's sake let's say it's 5% of the overall firearms market. The bigger demand is in cartridge guns, and when that stuff is out of stock, the demand shifts to what they CAN get. When 50% of the shooters can't get ammo and 1/4 of them move to ML'ers to at least get SOMETHING, that's a quintupling of the "normal" demand. Add in the hoarding, panic, and other factors that are increasing demand (The US arms industry produced 12B rounds in 2019), and, absent major upsizing of the production facilities, they just can't keep up.