Bought My 1st Smoker Today

[ChrisHarris]

I went to a trade/auction kinda thing this morning. It's local and happens once per year. This was my first time going since I'm a newbie. I didn't really go with intentions on buying a rifle, but I did take cash with me.... just in case.

It's a Jaeger flinter with a Pedersoli barrel. 54 caliber. There's a Dixie Gunworks stamp on the side of the barrel. It's kinda short. Barrel is 28" and overall length of the rifle is 43". One guy at the club told me these are sometimes called a carbine.

It shoots pretty good. I had a couple hang fires today, but a few of the guys in the club spent some time helping me get the flint oriented properly and napped for good spark. It's still hanging once in awhile, but overall it's a shooter. Needs a little adjustment and some polishing inside the lock, but not much work to make it real smooth.

 

[Twowithone]

Nice smokepole good luck with her. :thumbsup:

 

[RC]

looks good! fun ain't it! :thumbsup:

 

[rabjr]

Welcome to the dark side! :thumbsup:

 

[ChrisHarris]

I had so much fun today, the guys at the club said it was gonna take a 4" grinding wheel to get the smile off my face. :idunno:

I musta got a good deal on the gun. Several guys asked what I paid for it and said that was a darn good deal for the gun. Another guy told me the guys were over in the clubhouse talking about how I dang near stole the gun. :rotf: I love a good deal on a good piece of equipment. Paid $450 for it.

We dropped a bore light down the barrel and it was smooth and shiny inside. Looked to be in pretty good shape. It was windy as heck today. I shot some 50yrd shots off the bench with .530 balls, pillow ticking and 55gr of 3F, using 4F for priming. It wasn't really grouping too good. Best I could get was a 6" group out of 5 balls. I backed down to 25yrds with the same load and got a nice 2" group out of 5 balls. Overall, not bad for my first day shooting the gun.

Where's a good place to get flints online? English black flints were recommended by a few of the guys. Somebody said 'Missouri Flints' but I can't find a website.

 

[ChrisHarris]

Welcome to the dark side! :thumbsup:

:surrender:

Thank you.

I watched your videos. That thing is FAST!!

 

[RC]

rich pierce ..he's on here,,he'll take care of ya! :thumbsup:
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showuser.php?uid/1953/

 

[rabjr]

Shoot him an email telling him the flints you need. I just got an order myself Friday. :thumbsup:

[email protected]

 

[ChrisHarris]

Thank you gents. :bow:

 

[Zonie]

Your rifle looks kinda like a Pedersoli Jaeger rifle sold by Dixie.
http://www.dixiegunworks.com/produ...=3451&osCsid=8ce1cfd4f98442eac393cfac7d0da512

Based on Dixie's current asking price I'd say you got a great deal on it.

Although it has a fairly fast twist and fairly shallow rifling grooves I've read that these shoot patched roundballs very well.

Enjoy! :grin:

 

[ChrisHarris]

Your rifle looks kinda like a Pedersoli Jaeger rifle sold by Dixie.
http://www.dixiegunworks.com/produ...=3451&osCsid=8ce1cfd4f98442eac393cfac7d0da512

Based on Dixie's current asking price I'd say you got a great deal on it.

Although it has a fairly fast twist and fairly shallow rifling grooves I've read that these shoot patched roundballs very well.

Enjoy! :grin:

That is the exact gun. Thanks Zonie. :thumbsup:

Edit:
I just read all the user reviews at Dixie website. A few guys gave specifics on their loads. That was good information. I was loading only 55gr and didn't feel like it was grouping very well out to 50yds. Now I feel a lot more confident loading the rifle up to 75gr or 80gr and see how it groups at longer distances.

I'm kind of slow and conservative, so I'll work up a load over time. Might take a few hundred shots to find the sweet spot, but thats okay because it's fun to shoot.

 

[Stubert]

That has a 1-24 twist, It should really shine with a minnie or maxi.

 

[ChrisHarris]

That has a 1-24 twist, It should really shine with a minnie or maxi.

I saw that too. Kind of bummed me out for a second, because I was hoping for a much slower twist. But I decided it's not a big deal. Can always shoot conicals, as you pointed out.

 

[Mike Brooks]

I bought a new smoker last spring. Still haven't used it.... I need to get some chickens in that thing and see how it works. :wink:

 

[Trench]

Just a tip, I like to have the flint pointing to the center of the pan when it's in the down position. It should be directing most of the sparks to the pan that way. If the flint position in the picture is working, don't worry about it, however.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

One guy at the club told me these are sometimes called a carbine.

Well maybe in his experience, but you indeed have a Jaeger, not a "carbine" which is a shortened version of a longer rifle. The Jaeger was meant to be that length from the get-go. :grin:

They shoot very well patched round balls. The guys around my area with them like 70 grains of 3Fg as a load, under a patched .530 round ball. Blue stripped pillow ticking for the patching. :grin:

The Pedersoli rifles use an "improved" breech, so you may want to get a .17 caliber cleaning brush or some good pipe cleaners as there is a small chamber at the breech end of your barrel that will foul once in a while and may give you ignition problems if not cleaned.

LD

 

[ChrisHarris]

Just a tip, I like to have the flint pointing to the center of the pan when it's in the down position. It should be directing most of the sparks to the pan that way. If the flint position in the picture is working, don't worry about it, however.

Thank you.

One of the guys in the club is pretty good with flints. He did try to adjust my flint to drop down into the pan, but then it was too far away from the frisson. So we compromised and set the flint to stop just short of the top lip of the pan. It's throwing a good shower of rolling sparks down into the pan. He dry fired it several times while I watched the pan closely. Sparks are hitting the pan and rolling around in a nice circle behind the flint. I think thats about as good as we're going to get with this flint. I may be able to tune better with a different piece, but need to order some first.

 

[ChrisHarris]

One guy at the club told me these are sometimes called a carbine.

Well maybe in his experience, but you indeed have a Jaeger, not a "carbine" which is a shortened version of a longer rifle. The Jaeger was meant to be that length from the get-go. :grin:

They shoot very well patched round balls. The guys around my area with them like 70 grains of 3Fg as a load, under a patched .530 round ball. Blue stripped pillow ticking for the patching. :grin:

The Pedersoli rifles use an "improved" breech, so you may want to get a .17 caliber cleaning brush or some good pipe cleaners as there is a small chamber at the breech end of your barrel that will foul once in a while and may give you ignition problems if not cleaned.

LD

That is exactly the pillow ticking that I used yesterday. But I was only loading 55gr of 3F. I will begin increasing the powder loads next time. I'll probably start with 65 - 70gr and see how it shoots.

Thanks for the tip on the breech. I'll go buy a .17 cal brush today and run it down there with some chemicals to see if I can break any fouling residue out. :thumbsup:

 

[hanshi]

Very nice rifle; you got a h___l of a deal. The weak point in import rifles is the flint lock itself. That can be easily remedied with a little tuning. Some folks take a while getting use to the flash and this can cause less than the desired accuracy.

 

[ChrisHarris]

Thank you. :hatsoff:

There's a guy at the club who has been through training classes to learn how to work on locks. His specialty is flint locks. He said there is nothing wrong with my lock, it just needs a little polishing to make it slide easier.

He doesn't grind any material away or alter the cam profiles in any way. He said he only polishes parts that slide and move. Lots of guys in the club have paid him a small fee to polish their locks and many claim the locks feel significantly improved after he returns them.

I'm fairly mechanically inclined, so I kinda feel like I could disassemble the lock myself and use some 1200-2000 emory cloth to polish parts that rub and slide together. But it's probably better to send it to a guy who has classroom training and experience doing it. Would be nice if he'd let me watch, but then I suspect the price would double for having to deal with all my stupid questions while he worked. :rotf: