Smithy
08-26-2012, 06:04 AM
As the title suggests, I'm a newbie to this site, but not to black powder, nor firearms. Although I grew up in a firearm void household I had my share of slingshots, bb guns, and a bow and arrow set up once. As soon as I turned 18 I bought my first long arm (a Winchester model 37a), then as soon as I turned 21 I bought two handguns, a Ruger Security Six 357 and a Ruger Redhawk in 44 mag. It's been downhill ever since. I've gone through fazes with firearms and had a quite lengthy one involving black powder. I've owned a number of dragoon copies and my longarms all seemed to be 58 caliber. During this time I of course was dirt poor, I relied on picking the target area for lead to melt and cast my own. Later on I moved up to Old Armies and actually started SASS with a pair converted to 45LC and shooting black. I shot in the Frontier Cartridge class and had a blast as short a run as it was.
I got invited to this site by ClassicCannons in his poll to start a Cannon and Mortar section here. That's where my current interests lie as I don't get to shoot near as often as I'd like with 35 years of diabetes taking their toll. So I can buy and build various cannons and mortars, having fun in their creation and collection without having to shoot, but come my birthday (fourth of July), they can hear me all across the county. ClassicCannons is currently making me a Thunder Mug with a golf ball bore and Heavy Duty construction. I asked for a stainless one, but I think I'm going to end up with steel as acquiring the necessary stainless seems to present a problem.
I got a lot of firearms info tucked into this 52 year old noggin and hopefully I can be of some help here at this site. (or at least tell folks what NOT to do as I in my naive youth did). I've cast, lubed, and loaded just about anything you can think of. Even once had a gas fired 175 pound pot to manage my collection of over 2000 pounds of lead. (probably why my back is now out). That pot was a nifty idea and the manufacturer was getting a company to commit to making specific molds for it as it could be had with six nozzles so from a production point of view it would have been awesome. Nozzle's kept clogging up and he had to add additional burners to keep them open. I also use to make my own lead shot, sabot slugs (before that was even heard of) and various other semi sane things.
It's a pleasure to be here, and I hope to correspond with you all in the future. Smithy.
I got invited to this site by ClassicCannons in his poll to start a Cannon and Mortar section here. That's where my current interests lie as I don't get to shoot near as often as I'd like with 35 years of diabetes taking their toll. So I can buy and build various cannons and mortars, having fun in their creation and collection without having to shoot, but come my birthday (fourth of July), they can hear me all across the county. ClassicCannons is currently making me a Thunder Mug with a golf ball bore and Heavy Duty construction. I asked for a stainless one, but I think I'm going to end up with steel as acquiring the necessary stainless seems to present a problem.
I got a lot of firearms info tucked into this 52 year old noggin and hopefully I can be of some help here at this site. (or at least tell folks what NOT to do as I in my naive youth did). I've cast, lubed, and loaded just about anything you can think of. Even once had a gas fired 175 pound pot to manage my collection of over 2000 pounds of lead. (probably why my back is now out). That pot was a nifty idea and the manufacturer was getting a company to commit to making specific molds for it as it could be had with six nozzles so from a production point of view it would have been awesome. Nozzle's kept clogging up and he had to add additional burners to keep them open. I also use to make my own lead shot, sabot slugs (before that was even heard of) and various other semi sane things.
It's a pleasure to be here, and I hope to correspond with you all in the future. Smithy.