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Thread: By George...

  1. #81
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    Kurt, you whoosie A little mud on your cart tires??? That 's why there are car washes. It was good seeing you again. Sometime Mike T. and I are going to have to make one of those Baker shoots. It's too bad the summers are so short and the winters are too long. Everything is crammed together. We would have liked to have shot the 4 day Lodi match but it's too close to the Q to get back home and get cleaned up, repack and then out to the Q the next day. My daughter and her husband were heading home from Yellowstone and wanted to see what the Q was all about. I loaded some rounds for the 38-50 Hepburn and let her shoot on Friday before the rain. I got sight settings the previous day and set her up. Darned if she didn't hit the buff 4 out of 7, 3 out of 4 on the postage stamp. I think she is shooting at #4 in the picture. Every time she made a hit, she'd look at me and just giggle.

    Believe it or not, this 4X4 is stuck.

    That Quigley mud turns tires into racing slicks. We were waiting around about 10:00 to see if they were going to call the shoot and when this guy got stuck we got the hell out of there. Two of our group spent the night with friends there as they couldn't get out and back to the motel.
    Nothing like the Q and it always draws us back.
    Last edited by Old-Win; 06-28-2018 at 11:06 AM.

  2. #82
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    Attachment 222809 WHAT AND GET MY BRAND NEW TWO WEEK OLD GUN CART MUDDY ??????
    Bob it was good to see you guys and I think that little Lady has shot a rifle before After the shoot started I recredit not shooting the short match.

    Kurt

  3. #83
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    My sincere thanks to all that posted in this thread...learned a lot on what seems to work and what does not
    Sure would like to know how Leadpots bullet wound up the way it did...post #44
    Regards, Richard

  4. #84
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by flatsguide View Post
    My sincere thanks to all that posted in this thread...learned a lot on what seems to work and what does not
    Sure would like to know how Leadpots bullet wound up the way it did...post #44
    Regards, Richard
    Well Richard my curiosity looking what bullets look like and what alloy does to fired bullets started a age around 12 or 13 and I'm 78 now and it still makes me scratch my head wondering why and why this alloy is better then the other used in large and smaller calibers. A .40 with a 64 gr load of the same alloy seems to upset more then a .45 with a 83 grain load. Strange……...

    The bullet on #44 is not out of the ordinary, I see that quite often when I test soft wads, like cork and felt. The bullets like below are really a head scratcher. They ended up longer then before fired. all were the same length before I shot them. Some turn into wasp wast and nearly pulled apart.Attachment 222874Attachment 222875

  5. #85
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    You are a young fellow Leadpot. It l9oks like some of those bullets are defiing physics lol. What is the before and after diameter of some of those stretched bullets...boolits?
    Thanks Richard

  6. #86
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    No Richard I don't have that information any more I lost a lot of stuff when I left the notebook at the range and it was never turned into the lost and found.

    I'm not sure but I think that the stretching was caused from pushing a soft lead bullet to fast in a large chamber and getting swaged back down as it entered the throat. Just a guess....
    Kurt

  7. #87
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lead pot View Post
    I'm not sure but I think that the stretching was caused from pushing a soft lead bullet to fast in a large chamber and getting swaged back down as it entered the throat. Just a guess....
    Kurt
    It’s a stretch, lol, but I can see that happening, especially if the rifle had a large chamber and long throat. As the bullet was rapidly swaged down again inertia kept it going, so it winds up as a smaller diameter bullet. Of course that is just AWAG on my part. IIRC, Mann showed bullets upsetting at the muzzle in one of his experiments. It shows that even at the muzzle where pressures are low, unintuitive things happen.

  8. #88
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    Richard I just looked to see if I still have those bullets and found them. Those are .309" diameter 1.060" long unfired with the gas check on. I don't remember the powder weight but it was 3031 and the alloy I cant say what the mix was but I started around 1900 fps and worked down from there till I got to around 1600 fps or less. This photo are the before and after fired and the unfired bullet, first and fifth from the left are 1.060" long and .309" diameter. The first left ended up with out the gas check 1.1573" long .2.710 at the start of the ogive and at the lube grooves .2763" and the base .2750". Bullet 3 from the left is 1.113" long .2981" at the radius start and reduced to.2535 below it and at the lube grooves it is .271base .2712".
    I see very little evidence of gas cuts except some mouse nibbles on the base, I think the gas checks held it back and the shank walls are smooth so I think these bullets were pushed right though and the lands and stretching the bullets.

    But all of this is just a guess. But I have records of lead bullets pushed to hard that ended up longer then these and greatly reduced at center shank.

    Attachment 222921

  9. #89
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    It sure is a head scratcher

  10. #90
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    Quigley time was fast approaching when disaster occurred. I broke the lever spring on my paper-patch Sharps #3 rifle. This was not a simple drop-in replacement, as the barrel had been modified and a new spring would also need modification in order to work properly. And of course, there was no time for this.

    I did have the #1 Sharps, but it had never performed well with the paper patched loads I’d tried in it. I had a few paper patch loads left after the spring broke on the #3, so took them to the Range with the #1 to refresh my memory as to how well (or badly) they grouped. I got the following target at the Pig line (300M).

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    I decided to review the Scientific Conclusions I’d come to on such loads in general. It had seemed to me that the ideal hardness for paper patch boolits was in the BHN 8-11 range. A 16:1 lead:tin ratio (40:60 solder plus more lead) got to BHN 8 pretty consistently, and this had worked well in the #3. I had tried harder and softer alloys in that rifle: softer than 8 caused flyers around a core group while around 14 (water-quenched wheelwrights) was a disaster, scattering shots all over the place. Although the boolits in these loads were allegedly in the “right” hardness range, the target fired by the #1 resembled the patterns I used to get with the other rifle when the alloy was too soft; a cluster of shots with a few flyers. If this was a Scientific Paper, I would say, “Accordingly, I investigated a harder alloy…” and gone on from there. What actually happened was that I had been hitting the Swap Meet for junk pewter, which people here said could be used as the equivalent of pure tin. Of course, pewter isn’t pure tin, it has some minor percentages of other metals in it.

    Whatever was in the pewter I’d bought, it definitely was not tin, or its equivalent; a 16:1 lead/pewter alloy was about BHN 12, approaching the #3 rifle’s danger zone for no accuracy whatsoever. But I had taken advantage of the cool spring weather and had cast a few hundred of them, so I had plenty to try. I patched a few of them up and tried them out in the #1 with the last of my Swiss 1Fg black powder supply. To my delight they grouped well, without flyers. Unfortunately, I was now out of the “right” powder for more loads.

    A friend at the Tucson Rifle Club fortuitously had two pounds of an old, dense lot of Swiss 1-1/2 Fg powder, which I eagerly bought. The previous year, I’d been able to work up a load with 1-1/2Fg that was as good as the 1Fg load, although it shot noticeably higher, so I tried three charge weights around the old optimum of 80 grains behind these new boolits, shooting them off the bench at the Ram silhouettes at 500 meters. The 80-gr load got the most hits out of ten, so this was what I settled on. All around Robin Hood’s barn, and I’d wound up with the same load that had worked in the #3, apparently working as well in the #1, with the only detail difference being having to use a harder alloy. The bore wants what the bore wants, just like True Romances say.

    I was out of time for any more experimenting or getting sight settings. I’d put a riser under my rear telescope sight block so I could hit the 980 yard Bear at Boulder City, but that was with the grease-groove loading, so I only had a sight setting for 500m with the scope change and the new load. But there would be two days' worth of shooting before the Quigley Match, time enough to get readings on all the targets, so this wasn’t a worry, unless the performance of the abbreviated testing at Three Points was some kind of fluke. I quickly patched the rest of the boolits and loaded up all the shells I had available. The powder was almost gone by the time I’d loaded all 137 cartridges. This time, I had had enough boolits of exactly the same weight in the new alloy so I actually would be using exactly the same ammunition for the whole Quigley, a first for me. I treated the inside of the shells after powder, wad and compression, with a mixture of 1 can Imperial Graphite mixed with one jar of Midway Mica, using a Q-Tip dipped in the mixture and twirled in the case, CSI Fingerprint-Duster style. I wanted to see if this treatment would prevent the shells from lengthening, a not-uncommon phenomenon for me. Of course, if the treatment affected accuracy in any way, I was in trouble. I pressed the patched boolits home, squinched the case mouths in my home-made die, and figured I was ready as I'd ever be.

    The car was packed with all the Stuff I figured I’d need, including knee-high rubber boots in case of another rainy week, and I was off to Forsyth MT, 1500 miles away. I took a side trip to the Whittington Center at Raton, where all the big National Matches are held by the NRA. The place is fantastic; magnificent scenery, ranges for every kind of shooting, a library, museum and bookstore, like a Resort. I remember the grousing by the membership when the NRA bought the property in the 70’s, but it looks like they got the bargain of the century.

    I got into Forsyth by mid-morning Wednesday, checked into the Motel and then went out to the Range. Usually by Wednesday, there are a fair number of people already there, and many of the major Vendors on Commercial Row are set up and running. This time the crowd sighting in and practicing seemed a little thin, and relatively few vendors had showed up. The Forsyth Gun Club had put in a nice banner at the entrance, though,

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    and the weather was magnificent. A cold snap and some rain had gone through the night before and now it was clear and temperate, and no wind. None. Never saw a windless Quigley before, and this is my ninth. I met my shooting partners, who had arrived a couple days earlier and were camping on the Range, and told them I’d be back out bright and early tomorrow. I wandered up and down the beginnings of Commercial Row, finding nothing that I absolutely had to have, then drove back to town, got supplies at the local IGA Market went back to the Motel to decompress from all the driving.

    The next morning I was out bright and early. I loaded up my cart and went down to the 600-yard Octagon. I figured I could find it with my 500m sight setting, plus a couple minutes’ elevation. There was no wind whatsoever. This was uncanny; ammunition testing and mechanical zero obtaining weather. For better or worse, though, I’d done the testing and now it was time to get sight settings. I realized that I hadn’t gotten a Mechanical Zero for the scope on the #1 rifle, it had been set for the #3. I had Loctited the setting in so it wouldn’t come loose on firing, so I couldn’t change it anyway. Well, couldn’t be helped now.

    There were not many shooters at the Line for Thursday; normally, a lot of people show up the previous Sunday and usually it’s getting fairly populous by mid-week, and turns into an absolute mob scene Friday, where there are so many people practicing that it’s hard to find an interval to shoot so you don’t get several shots fired as you fire, and get to guess which dust puff or splash on the target was yours. But there were only a couple groups on the Yellow Line, and at 600 yards, I had time to watch the smoke disperse and see the puff of dust below the Octagon. A couple minutes up and the radio rewarded me with its distorted “BZZZZMMMM!!” indicating a hit. The Strobe Light ten yards to the left was blinking as well, also indicating a hit. “You’re a little low; come up a minute,” said the Spotter for the guy a few spaces down from me. I thanked him, made the correction and fired another shot. “You’re in the White now,” the Spotter said. Everybody at the Quigley is helpful; Gong Shoots seem to be like that.

    Gary and Clark showed up as I was putting everything onto the Cart, and we went over to the 805-yard Buffalo. It didn’t take long to get on it, and in quick succession we went back down the line, getting settings for the 530-yd Postage Stamp, the 405-yd Diamond, the 417-yd Rectangle and the 350-yd Bucket. This last target is shot Offhand, whereas the others are shot sitting with cross sticks. We used the cross sticks to get as close to the Bucket center as possible, but I knew, with my Offhand shooting abilities, this exactitude was more in the nature of a Placebo than any real help. I stood up and fired a few shots, hitting the Bucket once, and figured that was my typical performance.

    We got Squadded on Friday, into Yellow F this time. Al and Claudia Kajin and the Forsyth Gun Club had learned a lot about organizing large groups in the previous year; squadding was as smooth and straightforward as it was when the late, great Buz Coker was ramrodding the Match. I wasn’t asked to be a Rangemaster this year, so the pressure in that direction was off; I had the proper shooting order in my Squad so I would have Gary to spot for me and he would shoot in a later squad. Registered shooters were down this year to about 560; the norm is around 620 or so. The bad weather last year must indeed have scared a lot of people off, but although the Yellowstone River was bank-to-bank, there was no evidence of heavy rain or flooding. There was supposed to be a good chance of showers on Saturday, but sufficient the evil to the day thereof. Gary decided to opt for Scope Class. Telescopic sights, on the antique patterns required for these kind of events, are fragile and treacherous, and do nothing to enhance the looks of the antique pattern rifles, but they definitely help visibility on a shot-up, grayed-out target. And, of course, we are 19th Century all the way; if they could stand it, we can stand it.

    The sight data and practice session was a repetition of the previous day's. Except for the Buffalo, which needed 2 minutes’ more elevation, every other target was within 1/2 minute of the previous days’ settings. This was very unusual; that Coulee we shoot across has some odd weather patterns all its own, not paralleled by those on the Firing Line, and, from some of the misses I’ve seen, even the force of Gravity might change down there sometimes. Having in previous Matches seen significant changes in sight settings in both practice days, and and then even more variance going into the Match, I had no faith whatsoever that this ideal situation would hold throughout the weekend. But we had done what we could do. I flung a few shots offhand at the Bucket, getting a hit or two out of maybe 10, so I figured I was as ready as I’d ever be. The half-developed load I’d brought with me seemed to be very consistent, with no weird off-shots.

    The first Match Day, Saturday, was still unbelievably calm. We had the Shooters’ Meeting and went to our first Targets. Our starting target was the Postage Stamp. I set up in the second line in Yellow F, got my Stuff arranged and the cross sticks pounded into the ground, and sat there, calling up whatever Chakras I could summon to steady myself down. The guy shooting ahead of me on my left had a very heavy Sharps rifle, with one of those 16-lb barrels. I wondered how he was going to manage that thing offhand. Dawn, our Scorekeeper, asked if we were ready, and, getting affirmation, started us off.

    Silhouette and Long Range Target shooters look down on Gong Shoots because the distances and target sizes and shapes vary, so there is no primary standard to gauge everybody’s performance. But I like them better than the more formal games, because the element of whim in them is remarkably similar to Real Life, where the race isn’t necessarily to the swift or top scores to men (or women) of skill, although these sorts generally do well regardless. In Gong Shooting, you don’t have 12 minutes 30 seconds for unlimited sighters and your 10 shots; when Dawn says “Go ahead, Dave,” Dave shoots his one shot, regardless of conditions. A new “condition” now made itself known; the guy ahead of me with the enormous Buffalo Gun fired his shot, with the effect of dropping a Flash-Bang Grenade into my lap. I was still reverberating as I entered Gary’s windage correction, and let fly. “Miss!” Dawn sang out. “You’re low,” Gary said. "Come up two.” A slight angled breeze had started, which might have retarded my boolit’s flight. I went up two, piled several into the Postage Stamp, missed a couple more, and wound up with a 5. Not too bad, for me, but it had sure seemed a lot more certain the two previous days.

    The next target was the Diamond. At this point, I found that the Loctite had broken loose on my front scope zero adjustment, so I cranked it back to where I figured the last setting might have been, and held slightly left, for any breeze that might be more pronounced down there by the targets. The elevation seemed pretty close this time; I got 6 hits, and was very happy, since the Diamond is pretty unforgiving in both windage and elevation. I put my paraphernalia in my cart, and, still concussed from the guy to my left’s shooting, asked him what caliber he was using. “A .45-120” he said, beaming proudly. That’s a third more powder than I was lighting off per shot, so I guess I had a right to be somewhat stunned.

    The painting schedule had been further randomized from the previous year’s, so everybody had a halfway decent chance of shooting at one or more relatively clean targets. The Radios and Strobes were all working very well, so a consensus of spotters was unnecessary for target hits, but the next shot could spill off if not well centered and conditions changed. Painting time also allowed us to catch up on sleep, hydrate, or review performance on the previous target. The calm weather was beginning to tell; they were giving out a lot of Straight-8 Pins.

    Next target was the Rectangle. Following Gary’s directions I got a first shot hit on this target. This is a huge advantage, simultaneously confirming previous sight settings, engendering confidence, and indicating to the fortunate marksman that, with Due Diligence, he actually has a chance at a Straight-8 Pin. I was holding slightly left, as I quickly get to the point where I’m afraid to chase the impacts around by twiddling the screws for windage and elevation. The technique worked great, except for one shot where the wind dropped to zero between the time I touched the trigger and the gun fired. Slight miss to the left, for a total of 7. No pin, but I had to admit that I was doing pretty well, and the paper patch bullets were acquitting themselves nobly. Gary’s spotting board showed a nicely tight cluster on the target.

    Dawn said we’d be doing 3-1/2 targets today; 2-1/2 tomorrow. That meant that us early birds would finish four targets today with two left for the next. The later shooters would do three and have three to do tomorrow. So it was off to the Offhand Buckets. I’m pretty bad at Offhand, but usually get one or two Chickens out of ten in a Silhouette Match and one or two Bucket hits at a given Quigley. This time I got a big fat Zero, including a humiliating accidental discharge when I was still bringing the gun down from vertical to the target. That one probably fell into Saskatchewan somewhere. I finished the day in a pretty sour mood, cleaned up and went back to the Motel to sulk.

    We started on the Buffalo the next morning. I went high the first shot, and by gradually cranking the sight down managed to get 5 hits. Then it was to the last target, the Octagon. This has been an exasperating Quigley target for me because it’s larger than the 600-yard square I used to practice on in Ridgecrest, where it was no remarkable achievement to get 14 hits in a row, and 16-17 out of 20 in a practice session, sitting, off cross-sticks. But I hadn’t been able to pull off eight in a row in eight Quigleys. I sat down, checked and rechecked my position, and fired my first shot. I heard Donna call “Target HIT!!” and at the identical elevation all the practice shots had gone! A Sign from Heaven! I held where I figured I’d get them in the middle (the left breeze had started again) and put six more shots into a cluster in the lower left part of the white. In the middle of this string, I found to my distress that I hadn’t brought enough dry wiping patches to the Line. But, using my Harbor Freight picker-upper, I retrieved the used ones ahead of the firing line and spread them out to dry as best they could while everybody else fired, using the other side to pick up as much crud and moisture from the barrel as possible after the bore pigs were shoved through. This exigency seemed to work, but that last shot was the hardest one I’ve ever taken. That Octagon was buzzing around in the scope like an angry fly. I heard the golden words “Target HIT!!” from Dawn, and the Quigley Match 2019 was over, for me. I happily accepted my Straight-8 Octagon Pin, and Gary showed me the spotting board. That last shot was way to the right and high, in the black; I was certainly losing my nerve there, but not quite enough to ruin things. The load was working as well as the other one in the other rifle. I need to find more pewter, I guess.

    I wound up with a total of 31, as good as I’d ever done with grease groove boolits; even better if I allowed for the one or two Offhand shots that I’d thrown away. The miss on the Postage Stamp still rankled, too; perfect conditions; what’s wrong with me, etc; but that’s the Quigley for you; you just never know.

    I went back up to the campsite, cleaned the gun and put all the stuff into the car. I’d rearrange it tomorrow for the trip home. I went down to the Meeting Area for the Awards Ceremony and renewed acquaintance with people I'd met. It was nice seeing everybody again. I was getting ready to unfold my chair and sit with them when this Front came in out of nowhere and a 40mph wind was suddenly driving fat, cold drops of rain almost horizontally. In five minutes, the roads in Quigleyville began to resemble what I’d been stuck in the previous year, so I said my goodbyes to everybody, ran back to the encampment, said goodbye there, got in the car and got out of there.

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    It was raining in Forsyth, too; but it must have stopped and the sun came out back at the Lee Ranch before dark, because according to the quigley match.com site, the awards were handed out in reasonably dry conditions under a blue sky. But I was satisfied. I'd even managed to sneak into the Top Ten in Scope class; totally unexpected. I was expecting to see a lot of really high scores because of the weather, but the winner came in with 43, a good score, but not close to the 48 record. I also had another stroke of luck; managed to buy some more Swiss 1-1/2 powder, of the same lot I’d been using with success, from another shooter, so I should be good for some time into the future. Look out, world.

    When I got up the next day, everybody had already left. I had a leisurely breakfast, rearranged all the Stuff in the car, turned in my key, said goodbye, and set off down the 94 on the first leg of the trip home. Maybe next year I can hit the Bucket again. I really need to practice my Offhand, but Offhand practice resembles Work to a very distressing degree. I’d had another epic Quigley, did a lot of shooting and met and reacquainted myself with a lot of great people.

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    And, of course, I’d gotten the Souvenir I wanted the most. I owe it all to Gary, my Spotter, paper patch boolits and clean living. Clean living about six notches down in importance from the first two, of course. I measured all the empty shells, finding that none of them had grown noticeably. Whether this extra step is worthwhile depends upon how much one dislikes trimming cases. I will continue to do it, myself; I hate trimming cases.
    Last edited by Bent Ramrod; 04-25-2020 at 12:32 PM.

  11. #91
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    Sounds like a great time ,thanks for posting !Ed

  12. #92
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    great post, almost like being there, thanx for sharing! Click image for larger version. 

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  13. #93
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    Bent Ramrod, Nice write-up. My daughter and her husband shot their first match this year. She got her feet wet on their way home from Yellowstone. (see above) You might have heard her scream when she got her first 8 pin on her last target, the diamond.

  14. #94
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    Nice photo Bob!

    I hope to see you at Lodi.

  15. #95
    Boolit Master Lead pot's Avatar
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    Bob I wondered what that noise was that diamond is a tough one to see and hit if it's been splattered up.
    A good Father Daughter combo.

  16. #96
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    Thanks to all for the kind words, and congratulations to your daughter, Old-Win. That Diamond is an unforgiving target, even when there isn’t a gale blowing.

    By coincidence, on this trip I was reading Randy Wright’s book on the Golden Age Of Scheutzen shooting. Some of those matches would attract thousands of people. He pointed out that most of the participants in a big match were there just for the fun of it, and the distribution of prizes was such that those who were only “competing” with themselves would still be eligible for some sort of memento to take home that showed they had had a better than average shooting session that time.

    Of course, there would be the big prizes to attract the top shooters as well. But the presence of the Popes, Ittels, Dorrlers and such would not dissuade or intimidate the rest of the field; would add to the interest: “Hey, I shot next to that guy.”

    The Quigley has taken on some of the aspect of those old-time matches, especially the user-friendliness. Obviously, a lot of people are interested in the old rifles; enough even to expend the not-inconsiderable amount of money to buy a copy. I know some here myself, but they can’t be induced to bring them to our monthly Silhouette shoots because they’re severely allergic to the thought of “competition.” Some of our good shots will beg off or DNF if there’s a dust storm blowing during a Silhouette Match, but worse winds than those are routine occurrences at the Quigley, and yet, everyone is on the Line, shooting away and having a ball.

    I haven’t shot an AA score in Silhouette for a year now, but I go because the targets are challenging enough to be worth expending my painstakingly loaded ammunition on, and it’s fun “Quigley practice,” even though I’m generally at the bottom of the score list. If I could somehow capture the Quigley’s stress on fun shooting and convey it to the people I can’t persuade to come out to our matches, we would get some welcome new blood into our group. But I can’t seem to express the Fun Factor adequately to them; it’s either “Top Ten” or “Why bother?” as far as they’re concerned.

    Of course, the Quigley is “a Thing;” attracting shooters because it’s been attracting shooters for a long time; but I would think any other match could build on itself that way too, if that attractive force could be applied to the others.

    Wright did also mention that the shooting parks back in the day included dance halls and beer gardens, which would have their own attraction factor and maybe break down some of the non-competitors’ inhibitions. But I don’t see that happening nowadays.

    Anyway, I’ll keep going until I’m too stiff to drive. Everybody ought to go once, just to be able to say they did. Hope it stays on, as a modern-day Golden Age, way into the future.

  17. #97
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    Just have to say I am not at all into blackpowder or paper patching and this was an excellent read. Very informative and down to earth.

  18. #98
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    This year, the Quigley Match in Forsyth inaugurated a new category specifically for Paper Patch Boolits!

    At long last, another Oppressed, Exploited, Marginalized and Disenfranchised Minority gets its Just Due!

    Of course, there's Much More Work To Be Done (isn't there always?). More Paper Patch Shooters are definitely needed.

    I got a 28; not my best, but certainly not my worst, considering that I'd taken a while to fix the lever spring on the #3 Sharps and hadn't shot it in four years. (The #1 and the Montana Roughrider I'd shot in the interval both have pistol grips; the #3 is straight.) Used up the last of the old, dense Swiss 1-1/2 powder with the blue-and-red labeling. The boolits were all the leftovers from multiple casting sessions with the 0.443" Brooks mould, ranging in weight from 539 to 547 gr. The difference didn't seem to matter all that much on the practice days, but I did save out 50 541-gr boolits for the actual Match. I'd worn out my old, homemade Bore Pigs, but the 16 new ones I'd made worked perfectly; scrubbing the bore clean with no problems of sticking in the leade. Gary, my Spotter, pointed out that when I was "On," the boolits landed in nice tight clusters.

    Staying On, though; there's the rub. He described my misses on the Offhand Bucket as "horrendous," but I did get three miraculous hits, which I thought was pretty "horrendous," too. Those three were more than I'd hit altogether on the Bucket in two days of practice. My best was seven on the Diamond; once I'd missed the first one, the pressure was off, I guess. Worst sit-down was 3 on the Postage Stamp; I'm still kicking myself.

    Glorious weather; temps in the 70's; steady overcast and light breezes which were, of course deceptive, as usual. Just enough sprinkling rain to lay down some of the dust, and it didn't interfere with either shooting or getting on and off the Ranch.

    Rumor was that 602 shooters were registered. There appeared to be a lot of new blood amongst the registrants; a very encouraging sign. The Match has been going on 31 years now. Al Lee just passed his 93rd birthday. Registration, squadding and shooting went without a hitch, as far as I could see. My squad (Yellow E) had its complement of Rangemasters, so I wasn't tapped this year.

    The high Paper Patch score was 35; high overall was 41; as best I could hear at the Awards Ceremony. I'll be back next year, Lord willing. A great and memorable experience, as always. My phone battery was in its death throes, so couldn't get any pictures.

    Guess I'd better start casting more boolits and going over load development with the Olde Eynsford and the fluffy stuff that Swiss offers now. Hope I can get something to work as well as the old stuff.

  19. #99
    Boolit Master semtav's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Montana
    Posts
    844
    Quote Originally Posted by Bent Ramrod View Post
    This year, the Quigley Match in Forsyth inaugurated a new category specifically for Paper Patch Boolits!

    At long last, another Oppressed, Exploited, Marginalized and Disenfranchised Minority gets its Just Due!

    Of course, there's Much More Work To Be Done (isn't there always?). More Paper Patch Shooters are definitely needed.



    The high Paper Patch score was 35; high overall was 41.

    thanks for that update.
    that puts them somewhere between 39th and 50th.
    Still waiting for Al K. to let me know who it was.

  20. #100
    Boolit Bub
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Location
    Chubbuck, Id
    Posts
    35
    That was me -- although I'm not convinced my 35 was the highest in paper patch (actually a tie for highest - but I must have won the tiebreakers). The reason I mention this is because instead of checking a box on the sign in form (which would automatically add all paper patchers into the paper patch category), you needed to post your own score on a sheet during the match (or within 30 minutes of finish.) I would rather see them add the category on the sign up sheet so that we could see how all the paper patchers shot. However, it did work out well for me -- since it provided a little credibility to me selling my 3D printed paper patch tools in my vendor booth during the shoot.
    Last edited by flemdoug; 07-04-2023 at 11:30 AM.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check