What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

The wife and I Picked up 470 pounds of led today

Still working on making paper cartridges for M1861 Colt Special. Goal is to make 10 cartridges with Minie bullet and 70 grains of 2F, and 10 cartridges with Minie bullet and 60 grains of 2F. So I can compare powder load shooting results. Also some cartridges twisted and tied and some cartridges glued, so I can compare ease of loading with each technique. Also a couple different papers used for outer cartridge to test robustness of cartridge transport and ease of use. Who knows? Maybe all this experimentation will result in a thread on paper cartridge construction for 1861 rifle muskets. Timeline is uncertain. Tomorrow looks to be a good range day weather-wise, but who know what other factors may affect?

Cruzatte said:

Did they beat yer socks off? I'll bet they got good, right?

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One was intermediate champ last year at state shoot, the other sr. champ at state shoot. I watch. They are a little rusty now.

did some shooting at the range

Making some Matchcord for my Tanegashima, matchlock.

First soaked in Toilet bowl cleaner - Lye
Then now soaking in Stump Killer - Potassium Nitrate

cal.43 said:

did some shooting at the range

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Ah. Big holes. I love making big holes!! Nicely done. I like that range set up - target return system? Very flash, mate!

Cheers, Pete

Finished this one today- now to take a break until tomorrow

Had a really enjoyable day shooting the Colt Special M1861 on the 50 yd range; mainly to test out the paper cartridges I mentioned previously, with various frabrication techniques and loads, and also secondarily to "finalize" my standard powder load for this rifle-musket, which turned our for me to be 60 gr of 2F. That load gave most consistent POI for POA results and also all resulting bullet holes in the paper nice and round, signifying good bullet stabilization. Not so much so with the 70 gr loads. Also, although cartridges worked well, some problems noted, and came away with some ideas for improvements in fabrication techniques and materials, which will wait for another day to make some more, and maybe a more detailed report on them sometime in the future.

Also met a couple other guys shooting muzzleloaders there, one with a .50 cal Gemmer Hawken flintlock rifle, and the other with an I-don't-know .50 cal percussion rifle. So we had fun comparing notes, and as his Hawken was equipped with one of those "fake artificial" manufactured flints producing a very poor spark, I gave him one of my nice French flints out of my muzzleloader range kit, of which I have plenty more at home, so hopefully helps him out to get a better spark.

wiscoaster said:

Had a really enjoyable day shooting the Colt Special M1861 on the 50 yd range; mainly to test out the paper cartridges I mentioned previously, with various frabrication techniques and loads, and also secondarily to "finalize" my standard powder load for this rifle-musket, which turned our for me to be 60 gr of 2F. That load gave most consistent POI for POA results and also all resulting bullet holes in the paper nice and round, signifying good bullet stabilization. Not so much so with the 70 gr loads. Also, although cartridges worked well, some problems noted, and came away with some ideas for improvements in fabrication techniques and materials, which will wait for another day to make some more, and maybe a more detailed report on them sometime in the future.

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Target photos?

Harry Marinakis said:

Target photos?

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The "top" of target is the left side of the photo. The first three shots on the right side were tweaking the windage by drifting the rear sight. The aiming point for all shots was the extreme middle bottom of the edge of the paper (ie right side of photo). So it's hitting nine inches high at 50 yds, which is to be expected with this gun, and pretty much within normal performance parameters.

You can see where I pasted over some of the 70 gr holes. (Me tying to discover elevation hold). More telling is looking at the back, where you can see the bullets didn't hit square on for some of those holes. It took three pasties to cover up some of them.

I fiddled with a project that has been waiting for a while. This is a Pecatonica TC Hawken/Renegade replacement stock. I have all the Renegade parts including three barrels but I never liked the Renegade stock. Not enough drop so it was sell off or replace the stock. This stock is plain maple although I see some possible figure in it.

Pec does a great job of matching the inletting up on these TC stocks. Today I inlet for the underlying. And the tang. Just a bit of sanding to fit the barrel.

The inlet for the underlug broke through on one edge. When I pushed the rod through it was obviously off to one side. Not a problem since there are no problems in the lock and breech area. Not pretty though. I can see now that I coulda shoulda filed the barrel lug thinner on the bottom bottom. There's at least 3/16 of meat there.

The tang went in easily and is in a good relationship to the lock inlet. There is a little work to do to make the lock drop in but I can see that it will work out fine.


I want to make room for a bit of glass bedding of the tang lug since the tang is held with screws. Any movement backwards against those screws can result in a split stock at a screw. So I took just a bit out behind the lug and...... chipped a piece out.




It's glued back but time to put it down before frustration leads to another flub up.

aussie pete said:

Ah. Big holes. I love making big holes!! Nicely done. I like that range set up - target return system? Very flash, mate!

Cheers, Pete

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Yes we have a target return system for 50 and 100 meters. ;-)

finished the work on two knifes one of springsteel the one on the right is from XS650 mainbearing.

cal.43 said:

finished the work on two knifes one of springsteel the one on the right is from XS650 mainbearing.

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Interesting sheath design.

longcruise said:

Interesting sheath design.

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I went the range today with the smoothbores today ,I upped the load in both by 5 grains .Ive never got that good of a pattern at 25 yards let alone a pattern

Range time today with my Spiller & Burr and Rogers & Spencer pistols. The R & S is a delight to shoot being accurate, having no cap jams and extremely accurate. The S &B is equally accurate.

Prepped gun and trigger guard for install.

I have arrived at nearly that point. Must remove the sprue from the middle and one lug and drill a rear screw hole..

Mina said:

I have arrived at nearly that point. Must remove the sprue from the middle and one lug and drill a rear screw hole..

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I pin mine, unless it is a Tennessee or Southern Mountain style. There may be others that use screws though. I try to stay somewhat history correct.

Ordered a couple of books from the museum of the mountain man.