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What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

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Took my 1858 Army out to shoot for the first time this afternoon. Even taught myself how to make paper cartridges for it last night. Fun. Plate shows first 4 shots offhand at 20 yards.
 

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I put 14 shots through my new to me TC Hawken today. A whole lotta vertical stringing going on trying to get used to a full buckhorn sight at medium range (50yds). But since most of my shots were low with the various small changes I was making, I'm going to file a flat spot in my teardrop front sight and see if that makes things more crisp and helps me center it in the buckhorn easier. And raise my groups. Pretty good side to side though.

Then I cleaned the beegeesus out of the bore, which was not as nice as I thought it was when I bought the gun. Dang borescopes, lol.
It should load more shots now without swabbing. It was rougher than I thought.

Slightly slow ignition, too. I was using 3F to prime with this time, so I opened up the vent to 1/16. It was close to that already (more so than a Pedersoli), but now I should be good to go. And tomorrow's another day.

Saw this guy not one minute after shooting the last shot in a string and walking up to the target to mark them.

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Looks to be PA legal and nice thick body.
DON'T GO ANYWHERE! ;)
 
Grabbed the JB Weld and mocked up a picatinny base and scope for the .38 smooth Frankenstuffer barrel.

If it delivers good accuracy, I'll have the barrel drilled and tapped for a permanent base. With screws.

Struggling to find a true 1" radius scope base.

Maybe a letter to the folks at Weaver will produce results.
 

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Been working on the C.B. Turner combination gun a bit more lately.

The Aero Kroil came in clutch with the assist on both stuck nipples. One is .250-28 and one is .285-28.

It took a small arbor press to remove the tapered pin holding the barrels on. It was SECURE. Everything seems serviceable and solid.

Lastly, I gotta give the sear spring and shotgun mainspring a little more oomph…can’t wait to get this one out in the woods again.
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Oh dear me, not content with my 577 in Holts July main sail, I bid on a swiss 10.5 ml target rifle and won but three weeks before it’s delivered , it’s the one with set trigger. Hope bore is ok. Around 1863 Yes that’s me in photo with 577’, seems I am 80. Heavy rain
West of London
 

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Been working on the C.B. Turner combination gun a bit more lately.

The Aero Kroil came in clutch with the assist on both stuck nipples. One is .250-28 and one is .285-28.

It took a small arbor press to remove the tapered pin holding the barrels on. It was SECURE. Everything seems serviceable and solid.

Lastly, I gotta give the sear spring and shotgun mainspring a little more oomph…can’t wait to get this one out in the woods again.
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Dusty,

any chance you cud flip that Mule ear lock over?? I would enjoy seeing it's insides.

Thanks!!

Metalshaper/Jonathan
 
Just checked my email this morning and it appears the patching & front sights I ordered yesterday from Deer Creek Products have been shipped!

Great service, from a quality Supplier.

Jim has a huge inventory of CVA,Traditions and other hard too find items..
He is also the owner of a lot of the late Mr. Tip Curtis’s inventory which was huge!
 
Well not today, but yesterday.

Got in a new to me, Model 1795 Springfield 1813 on the buttplate, 1812 on the lock, Armory cone conversion to percussion. As I do with all my antique pieces when I first get them, I take them apart completely, take pictures of any markings etc. Then give them a light cleaning and a coat of renaissance wax. I also clean the bores, with a process of powder solvent, Windex and warm water/bore brush/breech scraper and if its super rusty etc I'll hit it with a scotchbrite pad to get rid of it all and polish it up. I always send the bore cam down the pipe to see how it looks and document before/after photos if necessary.

Sent the camera down and something didn't look quite right, I didn't take a picture of it at the time, but it looked like the face of the breech plug, but it really wasn't shiny. Pulled the camera and sent my brass range rod down, and it was soft. Outside we go, fill the barrel with water and no water came out of the nipple hole. Let it sit for a few minutes then sent down a worm, and low and behold pulled out an ancient looking horsehair like felt pad. Stayed outside with the tube and sent the camera down again (which is in a plastic housing and able to feed it down without having a hand over the muzzle) and sure as sh*t there was a powder charge in there!!. Flushed it again several times, got the powder out and carried on with cleaning, repeating my bore cleaning process and a ton of patches and then a final coat of oil to prevent further rusting.

Thankfully no ball, but first time receiving a loaded firearm in the mail! Reached out to the seller to see if he had a back story on who owned the piece prior to him and if they had any information on how long someone had this thing, would be genuinely curious to see how long it may have been loaded for.

The piece!
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Caked black powder blank charge
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After flushing
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After cleaning and scrubbing. Not as nice as I'd like to see it, but much improved.
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Deer Creek Supplies... another vendor to bookmark :thumb:

I put some lead downrange again using the TC Hawken.
I honestly don't know if it's me or the gun, but I get decent groups... they are just all over the place, lol. I know that my eyes are struggling with a full buckhorn. Especially one that isn't quite perfect or symmetrical. I think I'm going to widen the notch and hope that helps me index the front sight better as far as windage. What I really ought to do is swap it out, But I already altered the 3/8 dovetail in the barrel to accommodate the odd dovetail the sight came with.

The main reason I went with it, other than it was described as a Hawken sight, was because I read somewhere it was designed for three distances, but it isn't anywhere close. Not for my distances anyway. I should have known better there.

But I had fun anyway. Even if it does leave me a bit perplexed.

Lets see...
first shot right next to the bull. Then the next three to the right.
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And getting really hard to load, so I cleaned it using an alcohol patch followed by a dry patch and switch to a thinner patch.
Put number five shot in the first hole and number six??? Take your pick. There weren't any holes in that cardboard backer that weren't marked and accounted for, so it must have hit the shoot-n-c in one of those two shot groups.
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Like I said, by then I had switched from mink oil and red ticking (0.015"?) to 0.010 prelubed Ox-Yoke patches. And still needed an alcohol swab now and then.
I picked a place to aim. The shot was low right.
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Mind you I'm only 2-1/2" away from where I was aiming, but I expect better.
I noticed the darker target was easier to see the sight picture and shot another.
Low right again. And worse.
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After swabbing again my next shot was up in the group to the right of the bull.
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Then I fired a couple more at the diamond and was going to call it a day, but loaded up and fired one offhand at 25yds (all the other shooting had been 50yds)
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I'll take that offhand, but I'm certainly shooting everything to the right now. And the ball certainly drops with a dirty bore. So I drifted the rear sight a hair (maybe 0.025"), cleaned the bore again and fired one more at 50yds on a clean target.
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Looks like I'll be shooting this one again tomorrow.
I'll give it a good scrubbing tonight and widen the rear notch like I mentioned above. I would at least like to get rid of this shooting left when freshly cleaned, then shooting right thing. That's fine in a hunting gun when you are probably only going to shoot it once. And it is hunting accurate, or minute of deer as some like to say. But it still frustrates me nonetheless.
Better than yesterday anyway :)
 
I had a little time last Tuesday to take one shot at a target about 70 yds out resting off a small bag on top of a fence post. Today I took another shot at the same target between chores. I heard it hit but couldn't tell where and I was shocked at how well it did, God I love this rifle.

In case anyone doubts my good fortune I have two witnesses who will confirm my target, and yes I'll take luck over skill anyday 🤣

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