Anybody Shoot Black Powder?

[commie]

Strictly white powder for me.

[Wullie]

Rifle is a 40gr of 3f black powder in a Cimarrron/Uberti 1866 44/40 with a 225 gr bullet. More boom and more smoke.

Add a 100gr and triple the bullet weight for some REAL abuse. That 50 I had was a converted Sharps. It still had the remnants of the old Maynard tape primer feed. The barrel was an inch and an eighth across the flats and had a big scheutzen style stock. The rear sight was a receiver tang sight about 6 inches tall.

When you got a snuggled up and settled the sights and torched off that sight would hit my eyebrow. Five or six consecutive shots off a bench and I had to quit because my eyebrow was bleeding. Off hand was pretty tough because it weighed so much. I could shoot it with crossed sticks pretty good and LOT more comfortable.

It was really fun to shoot with 70 grains of powder. It was NOT fun to shoot with full house loads, but it was damn sure impressive.

My 45-120 was a Shiloh "Business Rifle" with a straight stock. It had a bad habit of busting my bottom lip every now and then with my middle finger because of that thin wrist on the stock. You really had to pay attention when you decided to shoot that punk. It usually bit me when I was trying to nail a goat that was hauling ass across the prairie up in WY and I'd get in a hurry. We shot 'em year round up there on the ranch for camp meat "back in the day".

I do like those Uberti's.

Mine stays pretty close.

[Buzz]

Pretty hard to do. A 44-40 case will only hold 40 gr of powder. I understand your buffalo gun, but we shooting 10 shots in about 10 seconds. A bit hard to do with your gun.

I had a Winchester .464 mag once. It knocked my hat off the first time I shot it. Not a real fun gun to shoot.

Keep in mind the average shooter i'm competing against uses 20 gr of wimpy powder in a 44-40. So my loads are way more than what's called for.

I have a new interest too. I found a club that shoots the flintlocks. Before 1840 versions. I'm looking at a Hawken 50 cal. You'll like the 100 gr loads it uses. They could care less about speed. I'll need to be accurate at 150 yds to be competitive. (open sights of course) It looks like a lot of fun. Once again they like to dress the part. I'm living like a mountain man, so I guess I can look the part and shoot like one. I might like this better than being a cowboy. We'll see.

[Daiichidoku]

as some of you may have seen before, there was a "weapons" program on (ugh) histroy channel

in one of them, an Englishman who makes muskets did a demonstration;

he loaded a plain wax candle into the musket, and from 50 (?) yards, drove that candle THROUGH (IIRC) 6 inches of solid oak

[Wullie]

Pretty hard to do. A 44-40 case will only hold 40 gr of powder. I understand your buffalo gun, but we shooting 10 shots in about 10 seconds. A bit hard to do with your gun.

I had a Winchester .464 mag once. It knocked my hat off the first time I shot it. Not a real fun gun to shoot.

Keep in mind the average shooter i'm competing against uses 20 gr of wimpy powder in a 44-40. So my loads are way more than what's called for.

I have a new interest too. I found a club that shoots the flintlocks. Before 1840 versions. I'm looking at a Hawken 50 cal. You'll like the 100 gr loads it uses. They could care less about speed. I'll need to be accurate at 150 yds to be competitive. (open sights of course) It looks like a lot of fun. Once again they like to dress the part. I'm living like a mountain man, so I guess I can look the part and shoot like one. I might like this better than being a cowboy. We'll see.

NOW you're talking!!

Mine's a .40. Built by W. L. Mowery. He won the TMLRA shoot at Brady three years running with that rifle. Siler lock and Douglas barrel. Lancaster "school". Easy to carry all day long. "Hawken" style guns don't carry so well. They were made to carried by men on horseback. The old long rifles were meant to be carried by woodsmen. Weight is about the same, just that the later Hawken guns were shorter and made to take the abuse that came with horse travel.

I won several matches with that rifle back in the late 80's. It rode in my "easy rider rifle rack" in my old Scout right above a shorty AR-15. My buddies started giving me blowback about that long barreled POS and I'd tell 'em let's shoot for some money. Offhand, 50 yards, at a beer can, use whatever ya got. I pay 5 bucks every time I miss, you pay me 5 bucks every time you miss. I took a lot of their money.

I tried that SASS stuff but burned out pretty quick. Too many yuppy crybabies to suit me. Did the pre-1840 "rendezvous/buckskinning" game for about 10 years before it got too sissified with folks that wanted to write their own rules about, well it could have been that way if they'd have had this or that bullshit.

About all I do nowadays is collect old pocketknives. I drag that flinter out once or twice a year and bust a turkey with it.

[Buzz]

I agree about CAS full of wannabe yuppies with nway too much money and no balls. I've met two guys like me who like the Frontiesman class and shoot warthog loads. We'll just smoke out the yuppies and have a good laugh about it.

I'm not sure about the Hawken yet. I have to go to some shoots and see if I can get along with the people there. I don't really hunt and if the shoots don't interest me. I don't see a reason to spend $1800 on the gun.

We'll see.


I do like the Cowboy guns though and I already dress like one.

[callmeslick]

I do like the Cowboy guns though and I already dress like one.

so the Venice Beach weightlifter look is over for you?

[Buzz]

I never had that look smartass.

[callmeslick]