Black Powder fun for the new year

[Nobade]

In order to bring in the new year properly, I went to the range to burn some BP yesterday. First was a cartridge rifle with my ho'made powder and PP bullets, which worked well. Then I broke out the Renegade flintlock with the Bob Hoyt 58 cal. rebored barrel. Normal load has been a .570" ball and a Brownells twill patch over 100gr. powder. It shoots into about 1 inch at 50 yds. Then I tried some .562" balls with thicker denim patching. Didn't work all that great, maybe 3 inch groups. So for grins I bumped the powder charge up to 120 gr, the most my measure will throw. Holy cow, it started stacking them on top of each other! I fired a five round group into a hole barely bigger than a ball by itself. Guess it needed the extra hit, and the looser ball/patch combo loaded very easily without using a short starter though it is tight enough to clean the bore well when it goes down so no wiping needed at all the whole time.

The tree of heaven powder is working well, I used 3f size for the main charge as well as priming powder and never had a misfire or flash in the pan. And I got 10 rounds from the cartridge rifle by using a blow tube and never fouled out. Wiped the bore, and fired another 10 at another target. That seems to be very good powder and the wood is certainly easy to get!

On a amusing note, there were a bunch of other folks there shooting also. Lots of black semi auto rifles and self loading pistols. They were shooting at 25 yds, and probably fired 400 shots at their targets. Ended up with less than 10 holes in the targets, and a thick carpeting of brass on the ground. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

-Nobade

[CastingFool]

Great report! Did you stick around and pick up any brass?

[Nobade]

Great report! Did you stick around and pick up any brass?

Sadly, another guy beat me to it. I was busy shooting and he asked if he could have it before the folks left. That's OK, he needs it more than I do.

-Nobade

[Omnivore]

Well that is some good shootin'. It's good that you have a ho around who's willing to make your powder for you. I'd have to do it myself, as mine wouldn't have any part of it.


Ended up with less than 10 holes in the targets, and a thick carpeting of brass on the ground.

Well look at the positive side-- They weren't destroying a lot of perfectly good targets, and they were getting plenty of shooting done. Win, win.

[johnson1942]

reminds me of the day way back when when i qualified on the BAR. i had all my rounds in my target way out their, but those big city boys on each side of me had a lot of their rounds in my target also and none in theirs. but then again they werent born with a gun in their hands as a lot of us were.