What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

[Rock Home Isle]

Got a call…my Early Plains Rifle is done. We were just headed out the door for a wedding. Picked up the gun, and still made it on time for the wedding

This gun is beautiful…I am so happy

Home from the wedding, here’s the gun

 

[holzwurm]

Over the weekend I FINALLY managed to intimidate the butt plate onto the Hawken. I'm sort of working at a slight disadvantage here as the stock butt area blank was mostly precut and the plate wouldn't precisely fit so the heel touches the ground before the toe (as I'm told all really well made Hawkins should). However, when this piece shows up at some rendezvous in the future I doubt the booshway will run it off

 

[Gordoncourtney]

I made some comments on lack of chequering its so not easy to do and a set of tools are like £178. It’s difficult to make tools but I keep trying.
I converted a thread chaser this morning but not very good. Might just buy the cutter head £8 and make the handles that’s £14 each with postage and then they , being cheap may not be much good yrs watched utube and Midway looks easy Then you need several cutters for different chequering

 

[holzwurm]

Got a call…my Early Plains Rifle is done. We were just headed out the door for a wedding. Picked up the gun, and still made it on time for the wedding

This gun is beautiful…I am so happy

View attachment 153285
Home from the wedding, here’s the gun

Yep, that's a beautiful work of some craftsman. Museum quality

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Yep, that's a beautiful work of some craftsman. Museum quality

Very kind of you to say so, I’ll pass that compliment onto the builder. I’m sure he would be tickled to hear that…

Here’s my 2, current .54 calibre rifles. The top is my Dixie Tennessee Mountain Rifle. I had it re-barreled to a 15/16ths, .54 calibre, with a 36” barrel. The lock is a large Siler Flintlock. Gun weighs in at 8 & 1/4 lbs

The bottom rifle is my new Early Plains Rifle, L&R late English Flintlock, 15/16ths .54 calibre, with a 33” barrel. The gun weighs in at 7 lbs

 

[gunpa]

Nothing exciting here but I did get my vials filled so I've got 11 pre measured loads ready to go , tomorrow I hope!

 

[thomasgunn]

Cast some BABs (big arse balls), .875 for my six bore. That’s a .490 ball for comparison. Relaxed afterwards with a barley pop.

 

[SciAggie]

Cast some BABs (big arse balls), .875 for my six bore. That’s a .490 ball for comparison. Relaxed afterwards with a barley pop.

Nice. Show us the behemoth.

 

[thomasgunn]

Early Stoeger six bore “elephant” gun, Belgian proof marks show late ‘40’s-mid ‘50’s manufacture. Ignore the crappy stock finish, some boneheaded nitwit felt compelled to dump what appeared to be a can of varnish/shellac/polywhatever over the entire gun(including action/barrel). I disassembled and cleaned up the steel parts, tuned the action and waxed all steel with Renaissance Wax. Nice action and sparks well. The stock has some nice walnut under all the gunk, I usually do all my stock work/finishing in the fall/winter. Will post pix once stripped and refinished.

 

[SciAggie]

@thomasgunn That’s cool.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Got to looking at my new Early Plains Rifle. The pan on the L&R lock that I selected for this gun is kind of a small target for the sparks.

So with the help of my wife…I shot a 9 sec video of the lock firing. Then I went back through the video frame by frame, looking to see how the sparks are directed.

I screen shotted 2 images that really show how this lock functions.

The above image shows the shower of sparks right after the **** has fired and completed its movement. The frizzen has roller bearings. The frizzen is opening so fast, that it’s not really visible in the image. (Granted, yes I shot this with my cell phone camera)

Nice sharp flint, solid shower of sparks…indicating good hardening of the frizzen. Very happy to see…

In the above image, everything is almost done…and a solid percentage of the sparks are rattling around in the pan. I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of sparks that were directed into the pan. I should have no problems with ignition…

Cannot wait to take it to the range and start developing a load.

 

[JamesA]

Finally made it out to do some BP shooting today. Only got to 88º with a very slight breeze. Nothing to write home about but it was nice to make some smoke and noise. The shooting? .490 dia. round ball, 65 gr. Triple 7, .010 batch wet with Hoppes No.9 black powder bore cleaner, CCI #11 percussion caps. Considering I can't see anything very clearly out that far even with my glasses, I'm happy with the outcome. I put the top of the barrel sight, or tried to, on the bottom of the center circle. The whole target sheet is 24"x36". As is said, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn in the forest now and then.

 

[fox.44]

in regards to the Hawkin that dont shoot good.
I remember reading something some years ago about a run of bad barrels on the hawkin guns ,and they were being replaced if send back to factory..lol, Too late for that now.. but if it solves the probablem ,, mebby get barrel redone.
Mebby some one on here remembers seeing it too. Fox.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Getting bag ready…hitting the range tomorrow. Unseasonably cool tomorrow, projected high of 84 degrees…afternoon rain.

Shooting my .54 calibre Early Plains Rifle….very excited to see how it shoots.

Sorry guys, but I just can’t take enough pictures of this gun

 

[user 49399]

Refilled one of my horns with the last of my Goex. When these horns are empty, Scheutzen is next.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

Today was a beautiful day to go to the range. Started at 25 yrds

My 1st 3 shots are touching at 5:30 position. Then I filed about 1/8th inch of the front sight, and moved my rear sight to the middle position and the next 4 shots really opened up. I really settled in for the next 5 shots and got it all into a single hole in the 10x.

At 50 yrds, everything again seemed to open up and it looked like I was getting sub grouping in the 7 shot group above.

I burnished the bore and that really tightened things up.

Great day at the range. About the time it started getting hot, hot, hot…we were done and headed home

 

[loflyr55]

Took my brother to a muzzleloader shoot in Georgia. He got me interested in BP and built me my first rifle, a Hawken, back in 1980. We burned powder, punched targets and had a good time.

 

[Jim K]

I worked on my Kibler smr today. Finished sanding the stock, then put on iron nitrate. While that dried I filed, sanded and finished the butt plate. Took a nap then finished blushing the stock and first coat of permalyn sealer. This evening, I’ll put on another coat. I’m getting there.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I worked on my Kibler smr today. Finished sanding the stock, then put on iron nitrate. While that dried I filed, sanded and finished the butt plate. Took a nap then finished blushing the stock and first coat of permalyn sealer. This evening, I’ll put on another coat. I’m getting there.

You’re a head of me…

 

[holzwurm]

cut, shapped & installed three underlugs on my 50 caliber and started to draw file the flats. Intend to put a 300 grit finish then rust blue. Maybe not