What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

[Jim K]

Went to my Competition shoot that a local club has. Needless to say Ill be joining them next month!!!

I love slo mo flintlock videos

 

[BillKilgore]

Barrel rusted with ferric oxide solution, rinsed with hot water and bathed in Birchwood Casey's Presto Mag cold blue. Then drowned in Ballistol overnight. Matches all of the existing rust nicely.

Presto mag is great stuff. Gives more of a sooty black then a blue.

Cherry stock drowned in 50/50 BLO and Mineral Spirits for twenty minutes. Then drowned again for good measure. The wiping down will take a while as the mixture continues to ooze out of the pores.

Wish I had taken my time measuring the water to lye ratio so I could pass it along.

May have this thing all put together tomorrow.

I have been following your cherry build very closely. I am working on one that is a couple weeks behind yours.

You have a beautiful rifle and I am looking forward to seeing the finished product.

 

[64Springer]

I have been following your cherry build very closely. I am working on one that is a couple weeks behind yours.

You have a beautiful rifle and I am looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Thank you, Sir.

The impatient phase has begun. Looking forward to final assembly and shooting. Having to tell myself to sloooow doooown.

Like the wise cook said: "It'll be ready when it's ready".

 

[TDM]

Went ahead and filed/sanded/polished the butt plate on my SMR.

 

[chorizo]

Did a final clean on my new carbines as well as got some extra parts off to a member. We have had some cold, cloudy weather and it is too invigorating out for my candy a** to go to the range and is supposed to stay that way for a couple more weeks. I will get a barrel off to Bobby hoyt next week for a bore/line and barrel shortening.

 

[BillKilgore]

Went ahead and filed/sanded/polished the butt plate on my SMR.

They look good. Are you going to blue them, brown them or do something else?

 

[TDM]

They look good. Are you going to blue them, brown them or do something else?

I’m planning an overall brighter finish than I normally do. I’ll be using Jax Black. The polished finish will keep the Jax from reacting too quickly and make less work drawing it back to where I want. At least that’s the plan.
I’ll do the barrel the same. Hoping for a light blue/grey finish on all.

 

[Justin.44]

Spent 3 hours in the freezing cold and wind cutting and melting my sheet lead from yesterday. Came out with 174 lbs of ingots out of 180 lbs.

 

[64Springer]

MORE SCORE!!!

 

[nick_1]

I have been ringing steel almost everyday in my new back yard. just 4 or 5 shots and then back to work . winter is here for real. 15 inches of snow Friday night.. 5" plate and 5x6" rectangle at about 30 to 40 yards depending on where i stand.

my hit ratio is way up with the nice white background making the steel easy to see.

 

[ColonialRifleSmith]

Made up some homemade bacon from a nice clean slab of pork belly. Did the dryrub method, sugar/salt/cure/pure Canadian maple syrup a week ago. Rinsed, rubed with Garlic Plus spice and Smoked yday with apple chips. Sliced today and cooked it up for breakfast. Wow!! It is awesome!
Finished cleanup after packaging in 1lb portions and vac sealed. 12 lb yield.
Walk

Who is old enough to remember bacon as it used to be. Hanging on hooks at the grocers. Didn't need to be refrigerated. Still had the skin on the outside that mom would cook into pork rinds. Mom saved the grease in a can to use for cooking and flavoring other stuffs. No chemicals or preservatives other than natural items. GEE, I miss the good ol' days.

 

[Timber Wolf]

Re-did the straps on a couple of spare horns. Like most of you I suspect, I have extra horns gathered up over the years. Last weekend I hosted a couple of new youth shooters at our monthly club shoot and only had gear (and gun) for one as the second young man was a late addition to the roster. I was less than happy with the strap on the horn I brought for them, and looking around found another horn in my stash with a similar sorry strap. One of the horns came with a horn-tip measure when I rescued it from a garage sale, and measures 50 grains. I will find another 50-55 grain measure to attach to the other horn and will be set for the next outing. I have a well used .50 Hawken and a similar condition .54 Renegade that will make fine “loaner” rifles. While a little rough they both shoot great.

The youngsters last week were not doing too well, unbeknownst to me before hand was that they had never before shot a gun of any kind. How the heck does a young man get to be 17-18 years old and never fired a gun? It is a sorry state of affairs to be sure. Anyway, they were shooting one of my favorite rifles, a very clean old CVA “USA” made .45 Mountain rifle and were probably thinking something was wrong with the gun. After the shoot I grabbed it up, loaded it, and rang a steel scuba tank hanging at a 100 yards (off hand, standing on hind legs) that everybody else had missed. It ain’t the arrow.............

 

[BoomStick]

Finally got around to making a large staple for a screw tip horn. Attached the strap, but my knots are just functional and don't look like much...

 

[nick_1]

colonial. we grew our own pigs and had that kind of bacon when zi was growing up. didn't get to shoot today. too busy working on my kitchen...

 

[deerstalkert]

today i shot my Lyman GPR .54 . 6 shots. loaded inside, stepped out the back door and fired, scooted back inside. 6* out today. patches frozen when i recovered them! couldn't hit much today.
then i braved the 26* shop long enough to relieve the fore end of my fowler. ramrod channel went to the end and i couldn't get my arthritic old fingers on the end of the rod to pull it. should have done this before i finished it, but i was twitching to shoot it. also thought i was going to pour a nose cap, but gave up that idea. anyway it now is done.

 

[TDM]

Kudos for braving such conditions @deerstalkert!

 

[deerstalkert]

Kudos for braving such conditions @deerstalkert!

thank you. have been sick and was starting to go stir crazy! i don't do inactivity well.
just finished cleaning the GPR. lucky me, wife still has no smell so i can clean the "rotten egg" stuff in the sink! all the hot water one could want!

 

[Fisherking]

Shot the smoothbore in the snow today.

I am turning a shed into a bunkhouse on a piece of property I just bought. The plan is to build two houses, one for vacation and the other to AirB&B. The bunkhouse will just be a place to hang my hat while building. The property is only one mile from the Pacific Ocean and a great tavern and, in the opposite direction, three miles to the river boat launch! This has been a percolating dream of mine for the last forty years.

So, I only shot once today after working until almost dark. I was however, very pleased with my one shot. Forty yards, .60 ball, 65 grains FFFg with a nitro card, ball and another nitro card. On this construction site, all I could find was an old plastic table for a target. I propped a stick up and tried to clip the end of it.

 

[TDM]

It's a beautiful place! Congratulations.

 

[Fisherking]

Certainly a work in process but exciting times over here.