PP and BP for cowboy silhouette

[Nobade]

I have been playing with shooting PP with black powder in my Marlin 1895CB, and it looks like I hit on a good combination. Right off the bat I knew I'd need to use a duplex load, since there isn't time to wipe or even blow tube during a match. So a load of .7cc 4759 and 3.4cc FFg ended up working well. Boolit is the Pedersoli .451" mini groove one designed for their Gibbs rifle, with about 3/8" cut off the top of the mould to make a 400gr. boolit. Patched with 15# green bar paper, and sized to .460" Hand seated into unsized cases with a very light taper crimp to just barely hold the boolit in. Since the throat (such as it is) is so short on those rifles, the patch just barely protrudes from the mouth of the case. They work through the magazine just fine, no problems tearing up the patch as they feed. For lube I used a 1/8" grease cookie with a thin card wad on either side.

This load really works well in the Marlin! I can fire a whole match without any fouling problems, and accuracy is tremendous. No uncalled fliers and they always go where they're pointed. Plenty of knockdown on the targets, there's no question if you hit it or not. I know I could use smokeless to shoot these matches, but where is the fun in that? My rifle sounds so much better and is more fun this way. Plus the bore just keeps getting better looking as I continue to shoot paper patched boolits through it.

-Nobade

[Don McDowell]

I've used a 1.1 inch .444 bullet wrapped in 8lb paper, a lubed felt wad in a sharps using the 2f OE and fired 50 rounds and managed to hit every Quigley target at least 3 times with the ladder sights, but haven't ever tried running patched thru a lever gun... Might have to try that..