What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

[TDM]

Ordered more lead and lead shot from RotoMetals.

 

[Jamie Hurley]

A few weeks ago, I finished my first kit, this Kibler Colonial. I had blued all of the steel parts, and really wasn't happy. So last weekend I disassembled the rifle, stripped off the bluing, and began slowly browning the steel parts. Just got it all back together tonight, and it turned out significantly better to my eye.

 

[Jamie Hurley]

I also recently won this old fowler. It had been converted to percussion, and I believe it's been shortened. I plan to re-convert it (cosmetically) back to flintlock and do quite a bit of restoration work to it. I purchased an old Ketland lock from a member of the forum. Received the fowler today and the lock is on the way. This will be occupying the workbench for a while to come.

 

[SOLANCO]

I finished the Hawkin Rifle I am building for Christmas Present for my Son-in-Law. I don't much like him, but my daughter loves him, so I guess we're stuck with him. .54 cal., 28" 1:48 twist barrel, L&R Late English Flint Lock. M-3 curly Sugar Maple stained with an oil based Spanish Oak stain. Then finished off with 3 coats of Tung Oil. Semper Fi.

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If he is not brain dead he should come to a new appreciation of you.

 

[SOLANCO]

I ran the gehmann through it's paces today. I made a video of this rifle slapping a 3" plate at 200yds. I love this gun.View attachment 264450

Is that a sight or a surveyor's instrument? Wow!

 

[Terry Lightle]

A day late was yesterday,took my tracking dog and she found another hunters deer for him.200 yard plus track through some really nasty rough cover

 

[Terrier]

Finish my 125th rifle today. I bought this walnut stock about 25 years ago. It was a 2nd stock because it had some knots and flaws in it so I got it for 40 bucks. I finally decided to build a rifle with it. It has a 40 caliber rice barrel and a Siler lock. Going to the range today to see how it shoots

Dang... that's fannnncy... I predict it will shoot lights out! Rice barrels are awesome.

 

[Terrier]

Been wanting to build a tomahawk target for a long while and finally got the parts together yesterday. Had loads of fun re-training myself to throw a 'hawk.

Need to go cut a little larger back leg before it's considered done... I was in a hurry to get it into action so used a small one for now.

 

[TDM]

Shot the Cherry stocked .45 SMR for the first time. Has my homemade, taller rear sight on it. Used the same 45 grains of Swiss 3F as the other one, with .018 pillow ticking. After a couple of windage adjustments it did fine. It is shooting a little high, so I’ll do some filing down before the next outing. Got flyers again after 13-14 shots. After swabbing it settled down. But I wasn’t happy with the 50 yard shots, could have been the sun angle and shadows or just old eyes. Fired 20 rounds with no issues.

 

[deerstalkert]

scraping on my current stock build. shot my Walker while it was snowing , just for the fun of it. thing blows so much smoke i couldn't see the white stuff coming down.
just filed the hammer sight a little deeper as i had to aim 6 inches low and 4 right to hit the top of the target. think between flurries of that white stuff i will run another cylinder to see where the sights are.
i guess this stuff falling out of the sky means summer is over.

 

[Walkabout]

Watched an interesting Brown Bess lecture on YouTube, then took a hike in the woods with the dog and found a partial hornets nest. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do during deer season, since I don't hunt deer anymore and I don't want to disturb hunters with my shooting. Maybe make some cartridges or order some powder and supplies. Open to suggestions. Thanks

 

[Dobegrant]

Did some range shooting today with my Colt 1851 Navy and 2 .50 cal rifles, a Lyman trade rifle and the Tradions Woodsman Hawken.

 

[wiscoaster]

I first made up some paper cartridges of 30 gr. powder charge and .490 bare ball for the Queen Anne, then took her to the range to test loading from same, and also to test shooting bare balls from a smooth bore. Loading was from the paper cartridge and then patching over powder and again over ball with scraps of paper torn from the emptied cartridge. Worked just fine. Very well, as a matter of fact. There was one thing though I hadn't considered before leaving the house: you don't want to ram paper wads with a jag, because the jag will just grab the paper and pull it right back up the bore. I didn't bring along a proper ramming tip of the right caliber for my range rod, so I made do with a thread adapter fitting and that worked just fine anyway.

The real surprise of the day with the Queen was that since I'd like to try wadding with tow, but had none, I brought along a couple cotton swabs as substitute "tow". Wadding about a half a swab over powder and then over ball, ramming with usual .50 cal jag tip was no problem. The bore sealed just fine, and the real surprise was that the pistol shot even better with the cotton swab wads than with the paper wads.

Finished off the range trip by shooting my Pedersoli Frontier, still working on getting it sighted at 100 yds. It's amazing how much filing needs to be done on the front sight to offset a ball drop of eight inches. Got her most of the way there and then ran out of time.

There was a guy there shooting a modern centerline who was new to muzzle loading and had never shot a flintlock, so I let him shoot the Frontier for the experience. I think he enjoyed it.

Edit to add pic of Queen Anne paper cartridge containing bare ball, powder charge, and the cartridge paper is used to make the wads:

 

[ORBushman]

Made me a hickory ramrod for my .45 T/C. She is now complete!

 

[oldschoolhunter55]

A few weeks ago, I finished my first kit, this Kibler Colonial. I had blued all of the steel parts, and really wasn't happy. So last weekend I disassembled the rifle, stripped off the bluing, and began slowly browning the steel parts. Just got it all back together tonight, and it turned out significantly better to my eye.

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very nice

 

[Arrowhead_92]

Currently sewing a large capote as pc as possible from a northwest traders pattern that I modified and tailored better to look more like the one in the mountain man sketchbook minus the buttons. Should be ready in a week or so.

 

[Walkin Stick]

Read a bunch of forum posts, called some scrapyards looking for lead and watched a couple leatherwood outdoors videos.

What type of lead are you looking for?

 

[garypl]

Had a side of buffalo hide laying around so I started making a sheath for my .54 half stock rifle. Cut and glued the seams and tomorrow will double stitch it and turn it inside out and cut the fringe.

 

[TDM]

Looks great @garypl!

 

[garypl]

Looks great @garypl!

Thanks @TDM - always nervous when turning them inside out that I didn’t miss a seam!