What Muzzleloading Stuff Did You Do Today?

[longcruise]

My daughter and family spent a week with us over Thanksgiving. Lot's of things going on but the thing my niece wanted to do most was shoot the CVA frontier that I put together for her. So, yesterday we headed off to the club to introduce her to muzzle loading. It was actually an introduction to shooting in general for her so there was much to cover and most importantly safety and range rules.

I had her shooting 495 balls with #40 drill and 45 grains of 3f. We shot with both wet patch no wipe and grease patch wiping between shots. Just to give her a feeling for different ways of doing things. She is a very bright girl who understands and retains very well (5.2 GPA).

I started off showing her how to load and explaining the importance of seating the ball firmly on the powder. She did very well with the loading procedure.

The shooting however was baffling. Her shots were consistently going over the top of the back board. After studying her through several shots I realized that while she is right handed she was sighting with her left eye. We did the dominant eye test and sure enough, left eye dominant.

Once we worked on closing the left eye and aiming with the right things improved rapidly. She was hitting the celotex! With some work on sight picture things came around to where she was on target.

It was a great day at the range. We will be continuing the lessons during the next visit around New Years.

 

[WALT53]

opened up the shop again. Wife's new hip is working pretty good and she kicked me out from under her feet.
got one barrel tab soldered onto the fowler barrel.
the warden summoned me to peel potatoes for mashing. got the pot filled and got it on the stove and poured out salt into my hand to dump into the pot. eyeballed about 180 grains of fff.
wifey came in to supervise and just shook her head when i told her i had put 180g of salt in. said it needed about 200. think i may have her broke in.
she kicked me out after making me wash some dishes.
just loaded 40g fff under a rb in the Uberti walker i got in pieces with the 1858 Remington.
I think I will keep this one. first group at 15 yards was 2.5 inches. further work is ahead.
hope to get 2 more tabs on the barrel this afternoon.

Wow your wife must be one tuff lady .glad to hear she is doing so good .

 

[snakeman]

Took the Richmond sharps out this morning with paper cartridges. Wasn't sure where the sights were hitting so shot at the bottom of an old tote. The big hole is three shots touching. That's 100 yards. I was shocked because I felt like I didn't do too well casting those bullets but I guess they worked anyway lol. Sights aren't elevation adjustable and it hits about a foot high, so I believe a new rear sight is in the works.

 

[Mad Hatter]

Took the Richmond sharps out this morning with paper cartridges. Wasn't sure where the sights were hitting so shot at the bottom of an old tote. The big hole is three shots touching. That's 100 yards. I was shocked because I felt like I didn't do too well casting those bullets but I guess they worked anyway lol. Sights aren't elevation adjustable and it hits about a foot high, so I believe a new rear sight is in the works.

That's not even standard for most with c.f. and scope!

 

[Mad Hatter]

My daughter and family spent a week with us over Thanksgiving. Lot's of things going on but the thing my niece wanted to do most was shoot the CVA frontier that I put together for her. So, yesterday we headed off to the club to introduce her to muzzle loading. It was actually an introduction to shooting in general for her so there was much to cover and most importantly safety and range rules.

I had her shooting 495 balls with #40 drill and 45 grains of 3f. We shot with both wet patch no wipe and grease patch wiping between shots. Just to give her a feeling for different ways of doing things. She is a very bright girl who understands and retains very well (5.2 GPA).

I started off showing her how to load and explaining the importance of seating the ball firmly on the powder. She did very well with the loading procedure.

The shooting however was baffling. Her shots were consistently going over the top of the back board. After studying her through several shots I realized that while she is right handed she was sighting with her left eye. We did the dominant eye test and sure enough, left eye dominant.

Once we worked on closing the left eye and aiming with the right things improved rapidly. She was hitting the celotex! With some work on sight picture things came around to where she was on target.

It was a great day at the range. We will be continuing the lessons during the next visit around New Years.

View attachment 365541View attachment 365542View attachment 365543

Wow first time out of box shooting like that, and off hand looks like, awsome job.

 

[[email protected]]

Still working on the Santa Fe .36 cal kit. I blued the tang and then as the blue on the barrel from the factory was so thin and different from the tang blue, I went ahead and blued the barrel as well for a closer match and darker color. Just using BC Perma blue in the squeeze tube.

Then today I put sights on the barrel, both took quite a bit of finagalin. Matter of needle filing the dovetail for the front, but the rear has a pin to hold the top and bottom halves of the sight together and allow it to pivot and that pin was a bit of a bear, but its in and working.

Stock is stained and one coat of tung oil on top. Stain is some Behr Bombay Mahogany. They used to make one called Victorian Mahogany but no more, so this one is new to me, its reddish and I wanted that so it looks OK to me. Brass is filed and sanded down as far as I intend to go with it, not going to polish it, I hate polishing brass! Leftover attitude from my maritime days.

I lost a thimble screw the other day so ordered a pair and await those to finish that, one is on, as well the barrel rib. Soon as I have the screws I can complete this, and will post up a few pics.

 

[Dave Dworshak]

Dropped a nice doe in the Minnesota river bottom. .45 T/C Hawken .440 rb. 70g goex 3f. I bought this rifle from a forum member a few years ago. Thanks Jim! Grandson decided to stay home tonight, but there is still a couple weekends of muzzleloader season left. He only likes morning hunting.

 

[snakeman]

That's not even standard for most with c.f. and scope!

That's not even standard for most with c.f. and scope!

I know it! I'm pretty stoked!

 

[Mzzlldrinpa]

Shot at a silhouette shoot today. Little cold and breezy, but still a great day out on the range.