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What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

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I looked down the barrel of my fowler with my Teslong scope and saw some oily rust. After a month of rain during the summer I found surface rust in most of my B/P gun barrels. I gave them all a good cleaning and oiling so finding rust in the fowler surprised me. It may be rust I scrubbed out of the barrel that mixed with oil and settled on the breech plug, I stored my fowler butt down.

fowler rusty breech.jpg


I pulled the breech plug and found some superficial rust on the face of the plug. Looking at a Teslong picture will give you nightmares. I polished the breech plug face to a slick shine, coated the plug threads with a thick coat of high temp anti-seize and reinstalled it.

I suspect the black crud on the breech plug is a mixture of anti-seize and oil. Again, I polished the breech plug to a shiny surface, the Teslong will see a hair follicle on a gnats behind a make's things look really rough. At least the rust is gone.

fowler clean breech.jpg
 
Took a plastic jug out to shoot this morning after church. Anticipating trouble seeing it against the snow, I put a few drops of red food coloring into the water. This made the target much more visible. Paced off fifty yards and placed the target. Shot it from the back porch with a T/C .54 caliber Renegade. 57 grains of mostly Triple-7 behind a patched .530 round ball. When the smoke cleared from my first shot, the target had vanished.

Never had a target just... disappear like that before. First random thought; alien abduction? Put the rifle on the kitchen table and went for a walk. Found the target in the middle of a pink splash on the snow, but the remains of it were white and pretty much invisible against the snow.

Don't think I have ever missed a target with that rifle, so I never shoot it more than once before cleaning. O' course now I have broken the charm by mentioning this fact.
 
Up till now, I've been concentrating on my stepson's .54 cal renegade who will take possession as soon as he gets his possession and acquisition license. I have his PRB dialed in for 60 meters with 80 gns of triple 7. Now I'm going to work on Alice's rifle and mine. I can understand the confusion.
I am curious, where do you live that you need a "possession and acquisition license" in order to possess a muzzleloader? Sorry, but it sure doesn't sound like you live in our part of "Free America".
 
No that’s not me above But basically :

In UK you need a police licence S1or S2. To shoot any firearm, s1 for rifles very strict and mostly range only. S2.for shotguns pigeon rabbits foxes

Deer shooting on private land the exception S1. Say a .243 if you have a farm ,

You cannot buy any reproduction guns. ML or not without S1&S2

You can buy as curiosities original ML s and obsolete cartridge guns , on the obsolete list, without a licence. Prison if you use them without S1&S2 cartridge pistols banned, just wall hangers

I just collect. And shoot deadly pcp pump
Up air guns under 12 ft lb power no licence required

Remember uk is a green and pleasant land. Heavily built up. Some wild hunting in Scotland but you need to be rich to do so . It’s mainly a shotgun country . I have hunted with ML shotguns .
 

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Cobbled together a much better functioning Kentuckyish percussion lock using Traditions and Ardesa parts.

Will be installed in a Kentuckyish pistol build.

Still have a lot of cherry wood left.
 
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just shot my fowler after installing a ventliner in the attempt to eliminate flash in the pan.
i think i have found what tickles this gun.
insert a pick in the vent all the way across the bore, left until the powder and card is rammed
load with 90g of fff, covered with a card. ball over the card and a felt wad over the ball. tried a patch and it didn't like it.
ffff in the pan.
10 shots at 30 yards. 26 degrees temp.
also loaded one charge of bismuth 0 shot. needs work on that one.
tomorrow i am going to dig out my chrono and see what the velocities are on the .600 ball. if there is a tomorrow.
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No that’s not me above But basically :

In UK you need a police licence S1or S2. To shoot any firearm, s1 for rifles very strict and mostly range only. S2.for shotguns pigeon rabbits foxes

Deer shooting on private land the exception S1. Say a .243 if you have a farm ,

You cannot buy any reproduction guns. ML or not without S1&S2

You can buy as curiosities original ML s and obsolete cartridge guns , on the obsolete list, without a licence. Prison if you use them without S1&S2 cartridge pistols banned, just wall hangers

I just collect. And shoot deadly pcp pump
Up air guns under 12 ft lb power no licence required

Remember uk is a green and pleasant land. Heavily built up. Some wild hunting in Scotland but you need to be rich to do so . It’s mainly a shotgun country . I have hunted with ML shotguns .
Y'know, I would like to visit some day (unlikely at best) but I would never want to live there. I guess my ancestors came here for a reason...
 
Some other shooters showed up at the range today while I was there. But the shooting sheds are drifted in and the sliding doors frozen shut so they just left.

There’s the simplicity of what we do. I just stood outside and shot. All my stuff is in my pouch. No bench or shed required. :)
 
I am curious, where do you live that you need a "possession and acquisition license" in order to possess a muzzleloader? Sorry, but it sure doesn't sound like you live in our part of "Free America".
I only wish I lived in your free America, this is Canada that has all the firearm restrictions. I can honestly say that I despise this country, with a passion. I served 23 years in the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps and see what's happening to this once great country, Canada is well on the way to hit rock bottom and to see this, it tears me apart! On a bright note, there are a number of provinces that are pushing back against the federal firearms ban, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Yukon territory have all told Ottawa to go pound sand. Premier Scott Moe of Saskatchewan, has created their own firearms act in direct response to the federal govt overreach (Private property falls under provincial jurisdiction, not federal).
Alberta's premier, Danielle Smith stated that Alberta will have a firearms act by spring to protect our firearms ownership here in Alberta. Also the federal police force,the vaunted Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who do the bidding of their masters in Ottawa will be replaced soon by an Alberta police force that will answer to the provincial powers, not federal as the RCMP do now.
 
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I only wish I lived in your free America, this is Canada that has all the firearm restrictions. I can honestly say that I despise this country, with a passion. I served 23 years in the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps and see what's happening to this once great country, Canada is well on the way to hit rock bottom and to see this, it tears me apart! On a bright note, there are a number of provinces that are pushing back against the federal firearms ban, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Yukon territory have all told Ottawa to go pound sand. Premier Scott Moe of Saskatchewan, has created their own firearms act in direct response to the federal govt overreach (Private property falls under provincial jurisdiction, not federal).
Alberta's premier, Danielle Smith stated that Alberta will have a firearms act by spring to protect our firearms ownership here in Alberta. Also the federal police force who do the bidding of their masters in Ottawa will be replaced soon by an Alberta police force that will answer to the provincial powers, not federal as the RCMP do now.
I fear we are not far behind you guys unless drastic changes happen soon. Off track so back to what you done muzzleloading today.
 
I only wish I lived in your free America, this is Canada that has all the firearm restrictions. I can honestly say that I despise this country, with a passion. I served 23 years in the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps and see what's happening to this once great country, Canada is well on the way to hit rock bottom and to see this, it tears me apart! On a bright note, there are a number of provinces that are pushing back against the federal firearms ban, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Yukon territory have all told Ottawa to go pound sand. Premier Scott Moe of Saskatchewan, has created their own firearms act in direct response to the federal govt overreach (Private property falls under provincial jurisdiction, not federal).
Alberta's premier, Danielle Smith stated that Alberta will have a firearms act by spring to protect our firearms ownership here in Alberta. Also the federal police force who do the bidding of their masters in Ottawa will be replaced soon by an Alberta police force that will answer to the provincial powers, not federal as the RCMP do now.
This all sounds a bit frightening... but it's coming to America as well. The map is going to look very different in another century.
 
I went to my teachers shop today. We repaired a crack in my stock. Then he helped me put a 20 degree angle, sharpen and strop four new chisels on his woodcraft sharpening system. They are surgically sharp now. Than we made some modifications to my trigger plate, and he gave me some homework to do on the double set triggers, trigger guard and butt plate to get them ready for inletting. After all of that I watched him work on carving some beaver tails.
 
I got a bright idea when i went to clean my fowler. try it on my 60 yard steel before cleaning. haven't been able to hit it, though i have tried.
loaded 90g of ff with a cardboard card over the powder. then the .600 ball with a cardboard card over it to hold it on the powder.
almost wet myself with glee when through the smoke i heard "DING'!
absolutely sure it was a fluke i repeated the above. three times showed me it was pure skill and not luck:D:D:D!
sights? we don't need no stinking sights!!
my hold was on the center of the neck portion. amazed it only dropped 6 inches at 60 yards.
 

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I was told that if I glue a very thin strip of leather in the barrel channel just behind the nose cap will stabilize the barrel on the wood fore end when using a tang site, so I followed that advise, we’ll see how that works soon. I just this evening completed this task on all three of our Hawken rifles.
D884A2E4-5028-49B0-BEE9-4DB0821028CB.jpeg
 
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Just got done pulling ball and patch and cleaned up my flinter. Gotta get back to work this coming week. So I only have limited time towards the end of the week to go hunt. Ugh.
 

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