What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

[Tannehill]

Spent time pouring round balls for my 50s. Use a lee mold, stainless steel sauce pan on a camp stove.

 

[Davey Boy]

Made a blade to fit antler horn to use as a skinning knife.

One slip with the die grinder and I have a chowdered out hole in my thumb.

Put the iodine to it and wrapped it up, gave me the queasies.

Finished the blade to antler fit and said enough for today.

Next is to design and make the blade guard.

 

[Are. M.]

Busted 3 tree bears with my Crockett .32.

 

[deerstalkert]

aqua fortis'ed my project and stained it with LM brown nut.
tomorrow i will start putting the metal on. still have to polish the frizzen and cock, then brown those and the barrel.
realized i have a huge hole in my operation. i have no .32 balls, so shooting it will have to wait.
next is a 3/4 length Hawken stock of curly maple from a nice plank i have.
this is my first attempt at a muzzleloader.

 

[FishnRod]

Looking for blacktails

 

[RobWheeler]

I ordered some cerrosafe to cast my bores to help determine the correct molds to order.

rob

 

[ppb]

View attachment 106112
Looking for blacktails

Good looking rifle. Nice grain contrast in the stock.
I know there are some Blacktails over there on that Coast Range - and some Roosevelts too... Best of luck to you.
Used to make a trip to Bandon on the average of once a month when we lived in Roseburg. Tony's Crab Shack and the Wheelhouse were a couple of our favorite stops.

 

[William Lincoln]

50/50 Olive oil-beeswax or for a stiffer hot weather lube: 50/50 beef or lamb tallow-beeswax.
Crisco in a tight or Crisco 3 parts with one part candle wax heated melted together. Pour
into small wide jars or tins. I like to put a very small few drops of Hoppes No 9 into the
melted mix before cooling , adds to mystery and smells like "gun stuff" Try it.

 

[FishnRod]

Good looking rifle. Nice grain contrast in the stock.
I know there are some Blacktails over there on that Coast Range - and some Roosevelts too... Best of luck to you.
Used to make a trip to Bandon on the average of once a month when we lived in Roseburg. Tony's Crab Shack and the Wheelhouse were a couple of our favorite stops.

Spending a couple days out of Myrtle Point. Lots of does yesterday but not a single buck tagging along. Maybe today. Thanks for the rifle compliments. Love that GPR in 54 cal

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I prepped for the opening day of deer season, which is Saturday!

LD

 

[toot]

Busted 3 tree bears with my Crockett .32.

a rely nice group of tree rats!!

 

[toot]

View attachment 106112
Looking for blacktails

WOW!! that picture belongs on a calendar!!

 

[APG]

Made and loaded some paper cartridges for my Pedersoli 1861 Springfield. Using a 510 gr. Minieball backed by 60 gr. of Schuetzen 2Fg powder.

 

[toot]

rely nice.

 

[Davey Boy]

Put up wrought iron brackets and hung up two rifles.

 

[deerstalkert]

dug around in my casting molds until i found a mold for a .32 acp, and cast some to feed my just almost finished SMR.
cast some and the cast at .316 with pure lead. lubed them and used a .007 cotton patch just for giggles.
only thing i have to do to finish the rifle is put sights on it. couldn't wait so shot a couple of those little conicals.
from 15 yards i hit the gong!
ignition was instant. actually so fast it startled me. i think i will like this gun.

 

[MAPMFF]

Got some flints in and a knapping hammer. Before when a flint went "bad" I would just take it out and throw it away. I am sure I have thrown tons away over the years that were salvageable by knapping, now just need to learn how to do it.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

Put a mule hide wrap on my frontier rifle. Took it off the horn of an old saddle. Cut a strip off, soaked, dried til damp and pulled it tight. Feels quite good while sighting. Like the old timey look. Little personal touch.

 

[Eric Krewson]

Still fooling with my Haines build

I found I had to go down to a .012 patch to get my new gun to load easily, before it was a bugger to start a ball. I started with an 018 then tried a .014 and finally used a .012 and could get the ball started with one smack. I am down to about ten .530 balls so so I am going to have to crank up the lead pot tomorrow.

I thought I had it on but realized the white spot on the front blade was disappearing with the sun to my back, I blacked out the white spot and hit 3" low consistently I filed the front sight some but didn't take enough off, my knee was getting really sore (bad slip a couple of weeks ago) so I opted to quit.

I ended up putting a huge 3" orange stick on bullseye on the 50 yard target then holding my glasses up so I was looking through the mid range trifocal which cleared up both front and rear sights. The huge bull was fuzzy but I could see it well enough to get a good 6 o'clock hold sight picture , this is when I started shooting low because I could see the top of the front sight well.

On my last shooting session my lock appeared slow, I checked and found one of the bridle screws was too tight and backed it off. Next I tried a minimal prime in the pan instead of my usual almost full pan. My lock went from producing an almost hang fire to be blazingly fast.

 

[Griz44Mag]

Still fooling with my Haines build

I found I had to go down to a .012 patch to get my new gun to load easily, before it was a bugger to start a ball. I started with an 018 then tried a .014 and finally used a .012 and could get the ball started with one smack. I am down to about ten .530 balls so so I am going to have to crank up the lead pot tomorrow.

I thought I had it on but realized the white spot on the front blade was disappearing with the sun to my back, I blacked out the white spot and hit 3" low consistently I filed the front sight some but didn't take enough off, my knee was getting really sore (bad slip a couple of weeks ago) so I opted to quit.

View attachment 106767

I ended up putting a huge 3" orange stick on bullseye on the 50 yard target then holding my glasses up so I was looking through the mid range trifocal which cleared up both front and rear sights. The huge bull was fuzzy but I could see it well enough to get a good 6 o'clock hold sight picture , this is when I started shooting low because I could see the top of the front sight well.

On my last shooting session my lock appeared slow, I checked and found one of the bridle screws was too tight and backed it off. Next I tried a minimal prime in the pan instead of my usual almost full pan. My lock went from producing an almost hang fire to be blazingly fast.

Old eyes need extra care. I have a pair of glasses I had made just for shootin'
They are not any good for just about anything else, but I can see the sights and a fuzzy target is OK - I can still see the round shapes and colors!