By George...

[Bent Ramrod]

I think I've got it!
119712

Out with my Shiloh #3 in 45-70. Glorious day, no wind at all for starters. First five shots I thought did pretty good at 600 yards. So I decided to push things for a 10-shot group, even though the wind was starting up. I got kind of "concerned" when the shot to the right made its appearance.
119713

I decided to "anticipate" the wind on the last shot and it missed the target completely. Ah well, that sort of move is kind of my "trademark" anyway. Now that "salesmen" are "marketers," I guess I should say it's my "branding element."

119714

Steve Brooks 550-gr Original Postell, 0.440" nominal diameter, cast at 8-9 BHN, wrapped dry with 0.0015" erasable bond paper. Federal GMM large pistol primer, punched over primer wad, 80 gr Swiss 1Fg, 0.030" cork wad, 0.250" compression, Lyman taper crimp. And a ridiculous amount of cleaning (8 passes) between shots with NAPA oil/water and Ballistol/water patches with one dry patch at the end. Not ready for Prime Time yet, but the concept has been proofed. Need to get the cleaning time down for the other competitors' sake. The 9 shots went into 11-5/8" vertical x 18" horizontal; I'm pretty happy when I can get the grease groove boolits shooting under 2 MOA. I was trying to eliminate another shot drifting to the right on the last shot. Wish I could call that one back and do it over!:mrgreen:

But when I started, I couldn't hit the 400-yard target more than three times in ten shots, so I guess progress has been made.

[**oneshot**]

Nice shootin!!

[oldracer]

Were you shooting at the Pala range? Wind comes up like it does at our range in Dulzura between 11 and noon generally and then dies off about 3:00 or so. Have you tried a blow tube only for 5 shots or blowing and then wiping with a wet Balistol patch and double side a dry on.

Southern CA is similar to AZ, NV and NM in that the air is very dry and the fouling can get dry and hard very fast! When I was starting out 5 or 6 years ago Doug Knoell said a good healthy puff of moist breath (5 or 6) is good for every 5 shots or each relay. At some matches there is not enough time to wipe that much. I wipe my muzzle loader each shot since I can't get a blow tube in the breech.

[Lumpy grits]

Your shoot'n at Ridgecrest-'rite'??
LG

[Bent Ramrod]

Yes, this is Ridgecrest, "where the wind never stops." Especially when the word "shooting" comes up in conversation. We've been lucky this fall with several stretches of calm mornings. They are almost as rare as rain.

I was at 300 yards wiping two wet patches and one dry. Worked fine for maybe 15 shots and then things started going wild. I cleaned the rifle good before going to 600 and then figured rather than waste any shots, I'd clean the barrel between each shot like I was going to put the gun away (except for the last one being dry), and everything kind of fell into place. I imagine there is some golden mean where I could go for 5 or 8 shots with a lick and a promise before having to do something drastic, but I haven't worked it out yet.

A guy at the Quigley this year was doing really well with paper patch bullets. He said he used Arsenal patches with 10% NAPA water soluble oil, two wet patches and a dry one, between shots. He showed me a wet patch; it was barely damp, just enough to feel cool in the breeze. I bought a bunch of Arsenal patches up there and made some up with the NAPA/water emulsion that were perhaps a little damper than his, but very short of dripping wet. After ten or fifteen shots, it seemed the fouling built up beyond the ability of the patches to handle it. The first patch had what looked like black splinters of fouling. then later patches would be black, then charcoal gray. The barrel felt smooth as the last patches were pushed through, and looked shiny afterwards, as far as I could see. But the last 5 shots at 300 yards only registered 2 on the paper, over a foot apart. A patch almost dripping wet with Ballistol/water got a lot more gunk out of the "cleaned" barrel, and, after drying, things settled back down. The Arsenal patches I got were the Large Size; too big, so I cut them in half, fold the halves over and use all four surfaces. They're tight in the barrel without being too tight. Two of those halves, eight surfaces, then a dry patch, seems to work. I'm going to wet them down good next time.

My .32 muzzle loader seems to shoot well with just a damp patch down the bore between shots, as Dutch Schoultze recommended. Not cleaning, just fouling control, keeping it down to a given level. This cartridge rifle seems to prefer operating-room cleanliness. Ned Roberts used to describe patched bullet shooting as "a lot of work for a little shooting," and I think he had a point.

But now that I can see what is possible, I should be able to find out where I can economize on the cleaning.

[Lumpy grits]

Been to the "Q"-Mr Lee sure puts on a fine event!
Even better if you have an RV to camp at the range.
Foul'n control from the "Q", to our desert, is apples to oranges.
What's your load and alloy? You using a grease-cookie.
Because of arthritis in my right hand. I had to go back to GG bullets.
Run a PJ #45001 C'moor at 30:1 in my Shiloh #1, .45-90 w/30" hvy bbl.
Run 80gns of 3F Goex in annealed Starline cases.
That 600yd plate at RC can be tricky with it stuck back in that corner.
I shoot with the cowboy club there.
LG

[Don McDowell]

Couple of suggestions that may help your accuracy quest.
1. dump the ballistol it does nothing that the NAPA oil and water isn't already doing.
2. leave the arsenal patches for something better to do, try some 2 1/2 inch cotton patches run thru the bore on a nylon brush
3. scrap the crimp on the cases, and be sure to chamfer the inside of the case mouths.
4. Get the bullet weight down closer to 500 grs, the 45-70 works much better with bullets from 480-520 grs than it does with heavier bullets.
5. Keep on having fun.

[Bent Ramrod]

Yes, LG, the 600-yd square looks deceptive early in the morning when the shadow casts off it. The misses aren't visible if they go to the right around the berm corner, or into the brush 30 yards in front of the target, or over the berm into the target pit hollow behind. But if I have no spotter, and I miss in the right area, the distance allows time to follow through on the shot and still get to the spotting scope to see the bullet impact. On the 500 yard, I'd need the reflexes of a cat to do that.

One of the really satisfactory things that are occurring after all this time is that I have reasonable expectation of actually hitting these targets the first shot. All that note taking seems to have paid off. Shooting these rifles makes one the methodical rifleman that all the instructors wanted us to be, because of the time and effort needed to load the cartridges. With smokeless, it was always just as easy to lob a few down there to get a sight setting, but with black powder, I have to do the record keeping to keep from wasting those cartridges I've sweated over.

If you come up here regularly, you might check out the blackpowder cartridge shoot the Bakersfield Muzzle Loaders have at Kelso Valley once a month. The targets go from 350 out to 670 yards, and can be quite challenging at times. Even humiliating.

I don't have an "alloy" as in lead-to-tin. I mix whatever alloy I have to a BHN of 8-10. Softer gives flyers around a core group (although it's great for grease groove boolits) and harder (the same mixture water-quenched) is a disaster. It's one area where having a lead hardness tester really helps. When I get things squared away better, I'll dip into my hoard of lead/tin solder and make up some standard mixtures and see if they improve things. I use the PJ Creedmoor for my grease groove loads too; there's certainly nothing better that I've found.

Don,

I do the crimp so the boolit doesn't fall out of the shell, or out of the patch as it stays in the shell. I've tried using unsized shells and thumb seating but haven't seen any advantage. But now that things are working, I'll revisit all the old processes. I also have a 505-gr Hoch mould and a RRR mould that at present is set at 520 gr and they are still being run through the process. The Brooks boolit was just the first to break the ice, I hope. I'll go on with the NAPA oil mix, just using more of it to get the goo out of the barrel. I had to special order it through NAPA because this State is Concerned about it for some reason. so it won't go to waste.

No problem with having fun. The cleaning is work, but the results are a blast!:mrgreen:

[Lumpy grits]

Are you annealing the case mouths? What brass are you using?
Settle down to a known alloy. The target will tell you. I have had very good and consistent results with 30:1 alloy from Rotometals. I use DGL lube also.
Long drive for me-I'm in Palmdale near hwy 14 and PMD Plvd. on the west side.
I shoot at Desert Marksman in Acton. It's 15 minutes from my house.
LG

[Don McDowell]

Size the cases, but don't crimp them, what usually happens with a crimp is the back half of the patch gets cut on the case mouth when the bullet bumps up. I have a Lyman 45-70 size die that sizes the cases down just right to be a good fit with bullets patched to just under 450 diameter.
If the bullets fall out of the paper, then you need to get them wrapped a touch tighter.

[Don McDowell]

I mix the Napa oil 7 water to 1 oil.

[Bent Ramrod]

This target was shot with Starline cases, I've also used Winchester cases. The Starlines were just annealed, and the next batch of ammo is in freshly annealed Winchester cases. I full length size them and made a M die insert that slides into the case and just bells the mouth slightly. I have a Lyman neck size die but it doesn't size the case down enough to hold the boolits. The Lyman taper crimp just barely sizes enough; about 1/3 of the boolits are still loose in the shell.

I'm trying thicker paper, but so far at 300 yards, the thin stuff has a slight edge, even though the boolit is an easy fit in the rifling, and a loose fit in the shells. When I push the round into the chamber, it slides in easily and I feel a sort of "click" as it seats home. The thicker paper seats with a harder push fit at the beginning but sometimes I need the seating lever after a few rounds have been fired.

Right now, I'm trying to see if I can manage with a consistent hardness. If the products of later casting sessions don't work, I'll go to consistent alloy.

We have people that come from Visalia sometimes, but it is a long drive. It's 50 miles from my house.

[Lumpy grits]

RT to RC and back is 190 miles for me.
LG

[Bent Ramrod]

They aren't all like this, but misses at 600 yards off the bench are getting uncommon. Nice, overcast day, mostly windless but what breeze there was came from 12:30.

The first one is the same load as the first post, in W-W brass, with the Hoch 500-gr boolit, patched with K&E graph paper, about 0.0015".
121530 The diagram is 10-3/4" vertical x 15" horizontal, for five shots.

The next one had the Steve Brooks 550-gr over the same load in the same brass, with 0.0015" erasable bond paper; five shots.

218280

This one is 5-3/4" vertical by 14" horizontal. Any time I'm under two MOA for verticals, I'm doing as good as my groups with grease groove/blow tubing.

Still having to clean with 4 wet patches and two drys. If I skimped on the cleaning a little, the core group would be there with a wide one or two. Anything more than the lightest gray color on the last wet patch starts to raise the odds of an "out." But, even with the groups with wide ones, all of them were on target with nothing in the dirt, so I'm happy, happy, happy.

[Bent Ramrod]

Glorious weather today; little or no wind. Decided to neglect some necessary tasks around the house and go to the range for important experiments with the Sharps. First target is the Control load of the first posting, 600 yards:

124031

I'll risk shocking my legion of fans by saying that I think I lost control on the fourth shot. The other four are in a 5 inch group. The vertical for all five is 9 inches.

Second was the boolit from the Red River Rick adjustable mould. Adjusted to the same length as the Brooks 550 gr, it weights 525 gr, with its hollow base. Wrapped with 0.002" paper, it was necessary to seat the cartridge with my Buffalo Arms cartridge lever:

124032

This group ran 12-1/2" for vertical, a little worse than I can get with grease groove boolits, but not seriously beyond experimental error. The paper shreds were bigger with the thicker paper, and the shreddies were farther from the bench than those of the thinner papers. Maybe the patch is taking longer to come off with the thicker paper; probably not a good thing. Kenny Wasserberger, who used to post here, said thick paper wasn't as accurate as thin; that the best way to make up windage was with larger diameter boolits and thin paper. I think Dan Theodore was of the same opinion. I'm kind of stuck with what diameters the moulds I have produce, so was kind of chary about wrapping them so they slid easily down the bore just to be able to use thin paper, but see below:

Finally, the RRR boolit with 0.0015" graph paper. The cartridge went into the chamber with no noticeable resistance at all. I would have thought, with both this boolit and the Brooks one above, that the windage was a little excessive. Both patched boolits push through the barrel with little resistance.

124033

This was 5-1/2" vertical by 5-1/4" horizontal. I don't think I've done this well with grease groove boolits at 500 yards. I used the same sight setting for the thin paper Brooks and RRR moulds. The extra 25 gr of lead in the Brooks boolit definitely makes a difference in elevation, if the paper thickness is similar. I can't say there is any serious accuracy difference between the boolits; you pays your money and you sets your sights. Should have set the windage to zero, but every time I've done that in the past, it shot to the left. Here I started 1/4 turn right and it stayed to the right.

I used a nylon brush on the end of the cleaning rod as Don recommended and got the cleaning down to three wet patches and one dry. Still too slow for competition, but getting there. Looks like thin paper is the way to go. I'll load up a bunch more with this loading and try to figure out how to get five shots with a lick and a promise, cleaning-wise, without accuracy going entirely to pot. Hopefully I have some leeway here now :mrgreen:.

I called MVA about ordering another set of scope blocks for this rifle, but haven't gotten past their answering machine yet.

[Lumpy grits]

Looks like your last load was the best for this lot of powder.
LG

[Gunlaker]

That's looking really good.

I also think thin paper is best. It's surprising how well a slightly undersized bullet can shoot. Recently I've been fireforming some brass for my new .45-90 using a .444" 500gr Creedmoor nosed bullet with 8 lb Seth Cole paper. Their diameter is about 0.001" less than a snug fit, and they shoot surprisingly well. In the end I'll be going to a .445" bullet with the same paper though, as I think that some resistance upon chambering is best.

Up until last year I used cotton patches. Last summer I bought 5000 Arsenal patches and have gone through most of them. I think they are the bees knees for greasers, but am not yet sold on them for PP bullets as I seem to get a cleaner bore with fewer patches using cotton. Kenny once posted that you can't get the bore too clean or too dry. I don't have the experience that he does, but my results from the last few years tend to agree.

Chris.

[Don McDowell]

There will likely be little accuracy difference between the thicker and the thinner paper, but what does happen with the 9 lb bullet and a larger diameter bullet is the occasional unexplained flier, usually low.
Go to a flannel patch and the bore will clean up quicker.
Also I'm curious as to your statement about not having enough time to wipe 3 and 1? Many shooters wipe that many and more in the bptr matches, you have 25 minutes to fire 4 sighters and 10 for score in midrange, and 35 minutes for unlimited sighters and 10 for score in long range. You don't have time to doddle, but you do have time to do an adequate job of wiping if your equipment is layed out properly before the relay begins.
Gong matches are another matter, and finding a load that will shoot dirty for those is the best route to take. Plus you don't have the smokeless shooters whining at you about being sure to pick up your patches...

[Bent Ramrod]

I've so far only gone to Gong and a few Silhouette shoots. My name seems to get called every 15 seconds in the former (especially at the Quigley; like you said, Pyrodex and smokeless shooters make those relays go fast) and I haven't got a comfortable routine down in the latter yet, even with a blow tube. I haven't tried patching while prone with the rifle on cross sticks, although I've seen people do it very methodically and unhurriedly. For me, it goes slow enough off the bench and sandbags right now. Guess I just need to practice doing it. I have some flannel around here, and will try it next time.

Rick's mould casts about 0.441" and Brooks' does 0.440". The Hoch 505 gr I have casts about 0.444" and is definitely a tighter fit even with thin paper. Haven't got that one dialed in yet.

[Gunlaker]

You'll probably be able to make big improvements in your wiping speed with just a little practice. Just look at what you are doing and see where you can make speed ups. For me the biggest thing was patches sticking together. You can separate them ahead of time or use something like the patch popper. The one advantage of the Arsenal patches is that they seem to be less likely to stick together than cotton, which is why I like them for wiping with greasers in silhouette.

Also, don't try spearing the patch on the jag if you use one. Just lay the patch against the chamber end and push it in with the rod. I find that works best prone. Steve Rhoades makes some nice wiping rods and delrin jags that are quite handy too.

Chris.

[Don McDowell]

I would think that with a bit of fiddling around that Brooks bullet a load could be found that would be capable of gong match accuracy with just a blow tube. And possibly even sillouette's given that you would have a bit of time between the strings of 5 to wipe the barrel clean.

[BrentD]

BR,
I have not been to Quigley so i cannot comment on that format, but I do shoot Silhouette and Long Range exclusively with paper patches. I have done this quite a bit and tried many things. Where I have a little more time, wiping with 2 damp and 1 dry arsenal patch will be quick enough and will give you the best accuracy. Some use a brush on a Delrin rod for this, but I find that a simple delrin jag is much better because the patch falls off easier and more reliably. You do not want a patch to come off half way back down the bore. You will do much better if you go with straight water rather than a mix of water and soluble oil or antifreeze or MOS, etc etc.

For faster shooting, you need something else. No one has ever done well with paper patches at silhouette using only patches. It is too slow. You need your bore adequately clean in one pass of the rod through the bore. What works well in this game may work well at the Q, but I've never been there so that's just a guess on my part.

So, what's faster? Well, one damp patch or one dry patch has been tried by many. And both have failed. Two passes with different patches takes too long and it too fails. The solution is to use some sort of bore "critter". These could be Bore Pigs, Bore Weasels, Bore Dogs, and a host of others that are spin-offs of the original Fisher brush from the 19th century. I prefer the first and you can buy them right here: http://shootingbums.org/TexasBorePigs/ they come in bronze bristles or nylon bristles (the latter will last much longer) and pistol length or the longer rifle length (again I prefer the latter). I have used these for many many years. I now make my own, slightly modified from what is shown on the website. They are not cheap, but they are worth double what you pay for them.

Anyway, the routine for faster shooting using these is the following:
Keep the bore critters in a tupperware container with just plain tap water. when it comes time to use them, take out a handful and flick the water off of them and lay them on the top of the container next to you. Have a bag of patches, or better, a Paul Huard Patch Poppers (a patch dispenser for arsenal patches that cannot be beat) right next to the pile of bore critters.

Immediately after the shot, shuck the empty brass and insert a bore gritter into the chamber with one's thumb, pushing it in as far as easily possible. Grab a single dry patch from the patch dispenser, and stick it behind the bore critter also pushing it forward into the beginnings of the chamber. Then push the dry patch and pig through the barrel with a delrin rod tipped with a delrin jag (not a brush!). Let both the critter and the patch fall to a blanket below the rifle's muzzle and retract the rod.

The rifle is now ready to load and fire. If patches, critters, cartridges, and rod are laid out carefully before the relay begins, this method will be as fast or faster than any blow tuber. Fast is not better in and of itself of course, but having time to spend on an extra sighter or three, or to sit on the wind for a moment or two, is always nice in silhouette. After doing this for one match, you will not feel rushed at all.

I could use bore critters + dry patch at long range was well, where normally I wipe. Extra time in long range is an advantage there as well, but after quite a bit of testing, I have found the wiping method to be just slightly more accurate than the bore pigs + dry patch, and at long range, that extra 1/2 minute or so of accuracy is worth the extra minute I lose on the clock over a 10 shot string for score, so I wipe at long range while I use the bore pigs as silhouette.

These methods can win any match against any grease groove bullet and fouling management system. They are the only consistently successful methods in use now. That's not to say someone won't invent something better, but it hasn't happened yet.

You do not need or want oils or anything but water in the wiping/bore critter solution, and never use lube in the the cartridges (for target shooting) or on the paper patches. These will only cause problems, not fix them.

Since you live in Southern California, maybe you got to see Al Sledge doing exactly this last weekend. If not, look him up and he can show you how it is done.

[Lumpy grits]

Hi Brent-Look'n at the pictures in your link.
Is that Scotchbrite used on back end of those brushes??
LG

[LeRoy.Beans]

yes it is. Far more important, however, is the rubber gasket/washer.

[Bent Ramrod]

Thanks, Brent, for the detailed advice. I read your web page back when you and Orville Loomer were about the only people working with these boolits and I appreciate your efforts. All you guys working in this area probably saved me 10 or 15 lbs powder with your careful experiments and documentation.

I have the Az Sharpshooter Delrin rod, but did drill the end for a holder for a brush or swab. I'd been using it as-is with the patches sized to fit fairly tightly. Pushing the patch through slowly seems to moisten more gunk and loosen it quicker, but eventually the time lost is better saved by another patch. The nylon brush on the end does allow a longer patch to be used without jamming in the barrel, which seems to take up more fouling per patch.

The drying does seem critical as well. One dry patch (I use squares of old cotton gym socks) seems to dry the bore enough for the next shot, but I do notice my brass seems to lengthen faster with PP shooting than with GG boolits. I've found firing a shot with any water left in the chamber will yank the case in half. That paper seems to grip the case mouth hard as it is driven out by the powder gas.

I was wondering about the Texas Bore Pigs--trying to figure if the extra moisture they would hold would just squeeze out into the action as the thing was pushed into the chamber or whether it would squeeze out in the bore where it is needed when pushed through. That seems to be the tradeoff with wet patches as well--with a fat enough cleaning rod to push the patch against the bore tightly enough to for scrubbing action, much of the liquid comes out into the action as the patch is inserted. I'll check the site out and see if I can afford a handful.

Maybe a built up stack of rubber washers and felt discs, spring loaded so it takes a healthy push to squeeze the liquid out, (i.e., once the thing is safely in the barrel) would work. I looked through my references for the Fisher Brush and found many mentions, but I could swear I saw a woodcut illustration of one somewhere. Couldn't find it when I needed it though.

I guess if everything is consistent, a programmed cleaning method would work, but so far, if I see that the last wet patch is more than slightly gray, especially if it has a serious black ring around the front, it's time to vary the routine and clean some more. Mostly, though, it's three wets and one dry at present.

I guess the differences in procedure that some of you have are things that work for you and your individual rifles. Maybe it's like Kipling said: "There are four-and-twenty ways to indict tribal lays, and each and every one of them is right."

I hope some of the stuff I'm learning with this rifle will translate to the next one I try to get to work with these boolits. I have a Pedersoli Long Range that's been pooched out to .45-2.6" that is crying out for a PP load.

[Lumpy grits]

yes it is. Far more important, however, is the rubber gasket/washer.

Really not sure, that I'd want to be push'n Scotchbrite down my bore after each shot.
LG

[BrentD]

Lumpy, you worry too much. I've done it more times than probably anyone out there. My rifles are shooting better this year than they ever have.

BR, drying is critical. And that is why the washer on the end of a bore pig is the most important part. Your wiping rod will work just fine. Mine is the same except that I screw on a Glenn Fewless jag that has a reverse taper. This is not rocket science so don't over think this just a good, flexible rod with a normal jag and a 2" arsenal patch is what you need. Nothing special. If you want to try making your own bore critters have at it. But I will say that I've seen a lot of contraptions and not one of them has workedworth a hoot. Some of them have been mighty carefully engineered too. So, you might come up with one, but you might not. Odds are the latter.

I think you will find a woodcut of the Fisher brush in Ned Robert's 1st book, but I'm not sure. I know I've seen it somewhere too. But the true Fisher brush isn't necessarily the answer either. Those guys had lots of time to wipe and dry, and their games were different in other respects too. So, personally, I would recommend starting with what is known to work. This isn't individual rifle specific either. Everyone that has adopted these methods have met with success. They will work on your rifles.

As for water in the action. I'm going to say don't worry about that. Check out my rifles that have been doing this for umpteen years and you won't find any corrosion or problems with them. They are custom rifles and I spent boatloads of money building them. So, I am not going to do anything that harms them in the slightest. Every year, I pull them apart and clean the block and sometimes the trigger groups, and every year, they are just as good as new and we continue on. I know that this might sound pretty odd to you, but try it. You will find it works just exactly as advertised.

Again, your being in S. California puts you within range of Al Sledge. You would do well to find him and see what he is doing - albeit he just started this past weekend.


Paper patch in a 2.6 is an interesting beast. I have done that along with the 2.4 for many years before I smartened up and built my two custom 2.1s. That 2.6 will take 107 grs of powder to hold up the bullet properly. You don't need to spend 107 grs with every shot. The 2.6 is relegated to hunting only, and not often at that. Just no need for that much powder.

[semtav]

The drying does seem critical as well.





BR, drying is critical.

Is it critical for accuracy or just for the chamber area to reduce possibility of case stretching.

My current regime in a BPCR 45-90 shooting patched to groove bullets is two damp patches followed by a pistol length rod with a nylon brush and a dry patch to dry the chamber area only. Had been using 10-1 cutting oil mixture but started experimenting with windshield washer fluid for the winter shoot and didn't see any difference in accuracy.

[Bent Ramrod]

Semtav, with me it's keeping absolute consistency of conditions in the barrel as well as having the dry chamber to keep from tearing up cases. The heat we have out here would keep a bore from having any consistent level of moisture from shot to shot, or from end to end, for that matter. I don't have boolits of such diameter to allow groove diameter paper patching, so I've never tried them and can't comment on how moisture would affect accuracy there.

Brent, a friend up here used to shoot with Al Sledge at Pala, and is trying to get us connected.

[BrentD]

semtav, it is for accuracy. Case stretching simply does not become an issue with either wiping regime.

I have shot groove diameter long ago, and just yesterday, I ordered a new custom mould for a groove diameter bullet that will be shot dirty. The issue of dryness is the same for either. Before the bullet leaves the case, it IS groove diameter regardless of what diameter it started at.

BR, if you get a chance to meet up with Al, check out the bore pigs I just made for him. He has a couple dozen of them.

[Keith Andersen]

Been to the "Q"-Mr Lee sure puts on a fine event!
Even better if you have an RV to camp at the range.
Foul'n control from the "Q", to our desert, is apples to oranges.
What's your load and alloy? You using a grease-cookie.
Because of arthritis in my right hand. I had to go back to GG bullets.
Run a PJ #45001 C'moor at 30:1 in my Shiloh #1, .45-90 w/30" hvy bbl.
Run 80gns of 3F Goex in annealed Starline cases.
That 600yd plate at RC can be tricky with it stuck back in that corner.
I shoot with the cowboy club there.
LG

[smilie=l: I like these little yellow bouncing balls [smilie=l:
LG If I had one of these new fangled digital cameras I would take a picture of my old Swedish arthritis bent fingers :) That is not a good excuse :bigsmyl2: I shoot patched boolits

[montana_charlie]

two damp patches followed by a pistol length rod with a nylon brush and a dry patch to dry the chamber area only.
Me, too.
And, I also shoot a 45/90 with patched to groove bullets.

My cases are stretched to actual chamber depth, and they never grow.
Perhaps that's because the head of the case is against the breech face when the round fires.

CM

[Bent Ramrod]

I tried varying the patch thickness on the Hoch 500 gr .444 boolit yesterday. The cartridges seated easily but couldn't stay on to the 600 yard target. Went to 300 yards on a paper target and only hit it three times, at random. A little leading showed on the cleaning patches, and a vertical line of 3 hits on paper, with a couple more who knows where was the result. A recovered boolit showed only faint rifling marks. Maybe it needs to be slightly softer than the longer boolits with the more tapered noses.

The Hoch boolit continues to be "the child left behind."

Took the last 13 cartridges home, pulled the Hoch boolits and inserted the Brooks 550 grainers, patched as before with erasable bond paper. Today I taped up yesterday's holes in the target, set it back up at 300 and fired this group.

124900

That one in the white on the lower left may have been from an insufficiently dry bore. Also, I was still seeing a tiny splinter of lead now and again from yesterday's efforts. That gradually cleared to nothing in the course of these shots. Some of the patches had crinkled a little when I inserted the new boolits into the shells. I straightened the paper out as best I could; I don't think it was torn.

It was not as easy centering the red 200 yard Shuetzen target in my aperture at 300 yards on an overcast day as it is a black square on a buff background in brighter light, but given the reconstituted ammo and the gloomy day, I'm pretty pleased. The group is 6-1/4" vertical by 8-1/2" horizontal. Without the one in the white, the group would be 5-3/4' vertical, 7" horizontal.

Even with the off shots, one can see what chance a herd of buffalo would have against someone armed with one of these outfits.

[BrentD]

The Hoch boolit continues to be "the child left behind."
.

For some reason, i have never heard of anyone doing well with Hoch bullets and generally, quite the opposite. I have one for a .38-55 that does not shoot well either. It looks fine though.

Have you gathered up your patches and looked at them closely? Your post makes me wonder if you have some gas cutting that might be burning through the patches in the grooves. That would produce leading.

Not sure what your wad is, but a stiff, thick wad is generally a good thing with bore diameter bullets. You should not need to be softer than 16:1.

Keep at it, you are zeroing in.

[Bent Ramrod]

BrentD,

The Hoch slug is on the left, with the Brooks and KAL proceeding to the right. It casts at about 500 grains, quite a bit lighter than the other two.

124989

Maybe it would do better in the 22-inch rifling twists that the old guns had. The mould is dated 1972, IIRC. That was well before the first BPCR Silhouette Match and the advanced developments that followed.

The patch fragments I could find were shredded fairly well. A few larger "inside" pieces were there, but not many. The same hardness boolit at least hit the target at 600 yards last time, when it was patched with the K&E graph paper, which seems to be brittle enough to shred to confetti. Boolits I found in the berm had at least their rear sections well rifled. This might be as good as it gets with that mould, although I haven't tried finer grain powders or other wad combinations. Fortunately, the other two seem to be doing much better. I'll concentrate on those for a while.

I use a 0.030" cork wad. It's pretty soft. I could try harder materials and see what happens.

Yes, the path of scientific progress doesn't always follow that y=mx+b straight line. And I do have my "on" and "off" days as a shooter, no doubt.

[BrentD]

It's just a guess on my part, but that Hoch is way too blunt. That puts too much pressure on the nose and the base tries to pass it by. Paper patch bullets are pretty sensitive to this, having no groove drag to straighten them out. If you shot that bullet at 1000 yds target half of them wouldn't make it within 200 yds of the target, dropping low in the dirt.

I would rate all of those bullets too blunt, but the Hoch is over the top so.

When I look for patch material it is always shredded to some degree. What I want to see specifically is whether the edges of the paper are sliced by the rifling or if they look rough and more like the paper was torn than cut. If it looks like the former, then i would be suspicious of gas cutting. This is somewhat tricky to find because, if you are the edge of having a good seal, it won't happen all the time. shooting over snow, albeit the same color as the paper, sometimes makes it easier to find the darn things.

Brent

[Bent Ramrod]

BrentD,

The shreds are typically longitudinal, and about the width of a groove and land combination. Sometimes I see more or less of a circle of the part folded over the base, and it looks cleanly snipped off the rest of the patch. Thicker patches, or patches made of less brittle paper, give the thin shreds off the outside wrap, with the inside wrap more or less whole, though imprinted with the rifling marks. In that case, the part folded over the base is still attached to the inside wrap. I don't see soot or smoke damage or tears that would indicate some kind of blow by. I've seen such in muzzleloader cloth patches, but that might not be the same. I haven't seen the little circle of paper left in the chamber for quite a while.

Can't rely on a snowstorm around this place. It's happened, but rarely, and even more rarely stays on the ground. No grass or anything either to show things up, just a litter of gravel, busted clay pigeons and steel case shells.

I'm trading E-mails with Al Sledge on our various trials, tribulations and experiments. Thanks for for putting me on to him. He's obviously be working with them for quite a while.

Hope your holidays are happy, and thanks for your help.

[BrentD]

Whether they be in strips or larger piece of the inner wrap, this is what you DO NOT want to see.
125035

strips need to be neatly cut.

finding the base, fold-over is very common. That seems to be the easiest part to find for some reason.


Al is somewhat new to paper patches. He took a stab at it a few years ago with his own bullet design that did not work out well at all. I finally persuaded him to try again with a barrel I found for him and a bullet mould I had lying about. He is liking this second attempt much better, but he is new to it except for putting up with me at Raton and Phoenix for years.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Brent

[Lead pot]

It's just a guess on my part, but that Hoch is way too blunt. That puts too much pressure on the nose and the base tries to pass it by. Paper patch bullets are pretty sensitive to this, having no groove drag to straighten them out. If you shot that bullet at 1000 yds target half of them wouldn't make it within 200 yds of the target, dropping low in the dirt.

I would rate all of those bullets too blunt, but the Hoch is over the top so.

When I look for patch material it is always shredded to some degree. What I want to see specifically is whether the edges of the paper are sliced by the rifling or if they look rough and more like the paper was torn than cut. If it looks like the former, then i would be suspicious of gas cutting. This is somewhat tricky to find because, if you are the edge of having a good seal, it won't happen all the time. shooting over snow, albeit the same color as the paper, sometimes makes it easier to find the darn things.

Brent

Brent,
It's pretty much the opposite :) the nose gets setback more then the base gets pushed forward.

[BrentD]

The opposite of what? I'm not disagreeing that obduration happens. But that Hoch is too blunt to work out of an 18 twist at long and even intermediate range. It might be fine on pigs and chickens, but no more than that.

And nothing is pushing the nose backwards. It's all about the base coming forward faster than the nose wants to accomodate.

[Lead pot]

Acceleration is setting it back. You can see it more with bullets patched less then bore diameter.
I will bring some samples to Lodi next spring so you can examine them yourself.
Some call them the wasp waist effect :)

[BrentD]

There is only one force working in that barrel, and it is coming from the rear. Inertia retards the nose, but nothing sets the nose backwards.

Anyway, I'm not sure what this has to do with nose shape so far as that bullet is concerned. I shot bullets like that for far, far too long before I figured this out on my own. Paper patching benefits hugely from more slender noses.

[Chill Wills]

It's just a guess on my part, but that Hoch is way too blunt. That puts too much pressure on the nose and the base tries to pass it by. Paper patch bullets are pretty sensitive to this, having no groove drag to straighten them out. If you shot that bullet at 1000 yds target half of them wouldn't make it within 200 yds of the target, dropping low in the dirt.
Brent,
It's pretty much the opposite :) the nose gets setback more then the base gets pushed forward.

Leadpot, I can't speak for Brent but I think his underline quote refers to the instability of exterior bullet flight at long range - not nose set back in the rifle at the time of firing.

That would be my first thought when looking at those very short nosed - blunt bullets. Nose form IS (almost) everything in LR when choosing a bullet.

Case in point, Many years ago Mike Lewis played a joke on me. I asked him to make me a bullet mold the next time he was making a batch. I described that I wanted a two cavity mould to be cut for one 38 cal mould and one 40 cal mould with this and that design in it. We drove to matches together and had a lot of time to talk. Mike never writes things down. Ya-ya, I'll do it he said. A month or two later I get a call, he's making moulds but I was not there and missed it. He called so I could remind him what he was going to make. Well, he cut the 40cal cavity correctly from memory and the 38 cavity.......... well???? he just cut a cylinder nose on the 38 and put a hemisphere on the front. A hemisphere like the front half of a round ball !
I shot some of those and they grouped well at 200y! By the time those bullets were at the pig line they would only hold the berm and at turkeys they were headed for the moon! Blunt bullets go unstable at range.

Later, when I told him how they went unstable in a big way he just laughed and laughed!

[Lead pot]

Michael I was just commenting on Brents statement "That puts too much pressure on the nose and the base tries to pass it by"

I'm not going to get to deep into this because these kind of threads seem to start arguments and I don't like getting into P***** matches with anyone. So this will be my last on this.
I have looked at to many bullets no matter what the ogive designs are hat show little signs that there is more getting pushed aft then forward. Here is a recovered bullet I patched purposely to find out what moves more, base or nose. I had this one in the bucket and I can get more out of my backup files where the base is just 1/8" engraved then a space that has no land cuts then the a greater area on the shank below the ogive with deep land cuts. (Wasp waist) It does not make to much difference if it is a elliptical or a postel. type nose but the postell by average sets back more

http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww43/Kurtalt/8232f1f8-cbc3-4610-b9f9-b1a0ce12f61e_zps97d2eac4.jpg (http://s704.photobucket.com/user/Kurtalt/media/8232f1f8-cbc3-4610-b9f9-b1a0ce12f61e_zps97d2eac4.jpg.html)

[dave roelle]

I'm still mystified by the looks of some of these elongated bullets, i can understand Brent's statement, i'm an M.E. and have understanding of the base physics involved.

Some difference in forces has to be acting on front and back of the bullet to cause this "stretching" but i'm still puzzled how an explosive event at the base can accomplish this force differential. Gas leaking around the base pushing the nose forward ?????????????? hard to comprehend for me--------------i hope a bit more discussion will help me understand.

Dave

[BrentD]

Kurt, there is no form of energy acting on the nose of the bullet to set it back. So, I don't know what caused the strange rifling marks in your picture, but it wasn't from something pushing the nose breechward.

In all occasions where I have recovered bullets in sawdust or when I have picked up patches from bullets that were fired with light loads, it is obvious that the rifling marks cut deeper on the back end of the bullet and sometimes fail to cut all the way through the paper up near the ogive. I have seen this many many times.

But to stick to the OP's original issue, those bullets are too blunt for long range work.

[Lead pot]

Dave.

My curiosity of what happens to a bullet started when I was a kid and I have spent a bunch of time working with alloys and what ever it takes to hold the integrity of a cast bullet shot with black powder.
It makes no difference what the ogive of a bullet is they all come out of the muzzle different then they started before the powder drove then down the bore. (To a point.) Just a year and halve ago I melted down a whole five gallon bucket full of recovered bullets that I shot into snow banks in less then ten years because I am also mystified with what happens with bullets of different alloys and the way they are shot.
I don't have any Phd's or Doctors certificates hanging on the wall or much of an understanding about physics but I do see what goes with the bullets I shot and recovered.

In the years the ODG's shot the Creedmoor matches bullets where the "blunt" designs unlike what is mostly used these days an they did quite well back then using them as what now days shooters are using now.
I did quite well a couple years ago at Lodi shooting the original cartridge with an original copy of a blunt nosed bullet used back then and I was in first place at the end of that first day and lost out the second day when the clouds dropped down with a misty fog and lost the target.

Well I have my rifle packed and I have to head out to shoot. It quit raining :)
Y'all have a Merry Christmas.

Kurt

[BrentD]

Kurt, I fully agree that bullet noses will change shape upon ignition. How much depends on lots of things. But all the force on the bullet to make that change has to come from the back. There is no other source of energy available.

As you know, I shot ODG bullets for a long time before I got smart and tried something different, and better. The exact replica of the Sharps Long Range bullet, swaged out of 16:1 was just okay and, thus, I did okay with them. Sometimes even pretty well. But I could not count on them. And so the quest for a better bullet began. I found what works well for me and everyone else that tries it. Bullets that start out blunt, get more blunt and less aerodynamic, less stable, and less accurate. So starting with something that has a sharper nose will result in a more aerodynamic bullet leaving the muzzle. And that's probably not a bad thing.

I don't believe the ODG had all the answers back then. I don't believe we have all the answers now either. But we are closer to optimal now than they were.

I hope everyone has a great holiday and new year better than the last one. Perhaps we will find the "ultimate" target bullet in 2015. If not, the search for it will be just as fun as it was in 2014.

[Lead pot]

:) Someone once said "for every action there is an opposite reaction" :) When my truck got rear ended I think my head came back on the head rest as fast as the truck went forward :)
Well the ODG's had a shorter learning curb then the shooters of now days. I shoot a bullet like you use and it shoots quite well, no denying that! in fact I had Brooks make a mould like it for the .44-100 and it shoots better then the .45 does so I wont say these bullets used now days don't shoot as well.

Brent have a great Christmas.

Kurt

[dirtman45]

This has been a very interesting post.Just picked up a .50 cal front loader for round balls and would also like to pick up an old Sharps or Remington. Have not researched enough of the pros cons of which caliber.I had read they also use paper to play with the patching thickness to gain accuracy.The article I had read was using paper to roll cigarettes between ball and cloth patch.I also read paper 101 here on the site about the various papers and their characteristics and wear potential.Great info. Thanks for all the comments.

[dave roelle]

Hi Kurt:

I have seen some of your posts on some the oddities that happen to bullets when we launch them---------they have been a valued insight !!!!!!! :bigsmyl2:

I haven't the experience nor have i done the bullet research that you have -----i have found that "pointier" bullets perform better for me than "blunt" ones of common designs----i have an order with Brooks now for a "pointier" Paper Patch bullet that i hope to shoot at silhouettes, so far my Paper Patch experience has been limited to the "Creedmore" design 45 caliber 520 grains" and it has performed pretty well hopefully the new bullet will improve my efforts.

It still mystifies me to see a "stretched" bullet :veryconfu

Hope you have a nice trip to the range !!!!!!!!!

Keep well and stay safe

Dave

[BrentD]

Kurt, it wasn't your head coming back to hit the headrest, but the head rest rushing forward to hit your head.

Watch this video and focus on the dummy's head relative to the background. Or put your cursor on the dummy's ear before the impact. You will see what I mean. The same applies to bullets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItfdObXoIcs

[bigted]

ill be danged! thanks for the link on the crash. I had it wrong as well. the head of the test dummy did not move a fraction till the seat stopped moving backwards in relationship to the cars mass and THEN shoved the test dummy forward from reaction to the rear of the force shoving it forward.

very interesting stuff.

[Bent Ramrod]

Went out to sight in my new MVA scope with the RRR 524/K&E paper/80 Swiss 1FG load. I made a bore pig out of a nylon bore brush, a stack of discs out of that fibrous spongy stuff you clean Teflon ware with, and a plug of Nylon rod. Got this group (4-1/2" vertical, 5-1/2" horizontal) at 300 yards after adjusting sights from the shot to the upper right.

127467

Then I moved to 600 yards. Adjusted the sights from the one on the upper left and got four hits in the lower right, 5-3/4" vertical x 9" horizontal.

127468

After 4 shots the homemade bore pig started sticking in the chamber. I tried to go on by cleaning in the old way, but either my rhythm was thrown off, the water soluble oil on the wiping patches changed the impact, or I had come to the end of my good shooting mode for the day. I got two low misses and quit. I think some reworking of the bore pig should cure the sticking. Thanks, Brent, for the idea; one pass through and the bore is clean like unfired. The washer keeps the goo from coming back into the action.

I have ten more of this load to try on the next good day I can make it out. Then I'll try some more easily accessible paper and make sure I can maintain the accuracy. This gun and loads look like they're really trying to shoot, despite my randomly variable shooting abilities on any given day.

I checked the patch paper shreds on the ground. Some are small strips, a few are larger inside pieces. The parts that are cut by the rifling are even. I didn't see any of that triangular burning effect along the cuts.

[Bent Ramrod]

Still getting indications that when paper patching is just right, it has an edge on grease groove boolits. Kind of like all that finicky stuff the benchrest people do to get that last tenth of an inch shaved off the grouping. I mounted a MVA scope on the Sharps and I think getting used to it has resulted in some retrograde progress in my shooting. When the end of the scope is cranked up for extreme elevations, it seems like my cheek pressure on the stock starts varying. It should be the same with iron sights, but I guess I was used to iron sights.

Here was the best I've done recently with the Red River Rick mould. I'm using a tracing paper from Hobby Lobby, which is 1.5 thousandths thick. The patched boolit is a loose fit when I slide the cartridge home; I can't feel any resistance at all. Got a "publishable" group at 300 yards, but the 600 yard target had a few off shots while I was getting the sight setting right, and another guy put a couple on it with his rifle, just to confuse things. But the 300 yard looked really promising:

135139

A little breezy, which accounts (maybe) for the 5" horizontal spread. But I'll take the 3/4" vertical any time.:mrgreen:

The Steve Brooks mould with an erasible bond paper called NU Ultra, at 2.5 thousandths thickness, is a sliding fit in the chamber. Didn't get a really photogenic group at 300, but this one at 600 isn't bad. Vertical was 13-1/2" and horizontal 18-1/2" in a variable breeze, which got pretty stiff at times. I was using my home made bore pigs and it looked like after 5 shots I needed an extra wipe with a wet patch. I noticed that after those verticals in the white seemed to associate with a heavier carbon smear on the dry patch. Once I'd wetted everything down and got all the carbon out again, the last shots dropped back into the original group. Or maybe I just got my game back on the holding. Discounting the highest one, the 9 shots went into 8-1/2" vertical.

135140

The paper patch boolits are kind of like the little girl with the curl in the center of her forehead. When they're good, they would do credit to a modern rifle, and when they are bad, they are a ring-tailed wowser to sort out. But they sure are addictive!

Both boolits were in the 8-10 BHN range by my SAECO and LBT Testers. I used a cork wad of about 1/16" thickness, which seems to work better than harder card type wads. The sheet cork stock is also available at Hobby Lobby.

I can only view the rear end of the boolits that go through the paper into the sand bank, but they seem to take the rifling very well. No snow to shoot into here in sunny Southern California, so an undamaged boolit is not possible. The paper comes off in small shreds from the rifling layer, and two larger pieces from the wrap closest to the boolit.

[Bent Ramrod]

I decided to take the Paper Patch loads to the Quigley this year, to see how they did in a formal shooting setting. I figured a low score wouldn't ruin anything; how can you "ruin" the Quigley, anyway? The Quigley isn't so much a shooting match as it is Woodstock for elderly wannabe Buffalo Hunters, with enough prime specimens and youngsters there as well to offer hope that the future won't be all video games, social media and government dependence.

I fired 110 shots total while I was there. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were sight setting and practice, and Saturday and Sunday were the 48 shots of the Match. My home range now is on the Metric System, so I only had a set of WAG interpolations based on 300 and 500 meter zeros, plus the old Ridgecrest 600 yard setting. I was delighted to find there was only a minute of angle difference in one of my informed guesses all the way out to 805 yards. The load was 80 gr Swiss 1F with the 520 gr or thereabouts RRR boolit, patched with Strathmore Tracing paper, 0.0015" thick, and it seemed to knife through the wind gusts and maintain elevations very well.

I used Brent's suggested technique of the wet-with-water bore pig followed by a dry patch. Plain water worked as far as cleaning, but the technique did require wiping some "drool" off the bottom of the barrel at the muzzle, and if I couldn't do that in a timely manner after the relay, it dried out into a crust, and on one occasion formed some rather alarming colored stains on the crown. These cleaned off with the Ballistol/water mixture, but it might be that soluble oil would eliminate them entirely. I may have used the pigs wetter than Brent does, as I wanted all the crud out of the barrel for the next shot.

The first day of the match proper was a disaster score wise, but I was breaking in as a Rangemaster and may have been a little distracted. The next day was quite breezy with strong gusts, but I had apparently gotten some of my mojo back, and the Range duties were now a matter of routine, so I shot as well as could be expected, since I fired at the wrong target at least once. The paper patch load was again performing like on the practice days, with the misses all being windage mistakes, generally over corrections; elevations very consistent. The cleaning routine did not hold the rest of the line up, so I think I will continue with this load and see how I do in the next Silhouette match at home.

The Quigley was huge this time; almost 700 shooters registered. I was impressed with how efficiently the shooting was organized and carried out, given the numbers. Being a Rangemaster was kind of fun after I'd learned the ropes; I got to observe up-close a lot of elegant rifles and study the positions and techniques of the shooters, good and not-so-good. Lots of things to cogitate upon until the next one.

I asked the man and the lady at the GOEX booth on Vendor's Row why they didn't make Olde Eynsford in 1F granulation, and got the impression that it had never occurred to GOEX that it might be salable. Mostly, they were after the Swiss 1-1/2 market. The lady said 16 people had asked that same question, and she would pass it up the corporate ladder. I'd love to try some OE 1F in this loading.

[semtav]

Glad it all worked out for you BR

[Lead pot]

BR.

What squad did you shoot? I was on red F.

:) the Q conditions are always interesting. LOL. The only thing I have not seen at the Q is a driving snow storm since 05 that I have shot it.

It sure has been a education. :)

Kurt

[Bent Ramrod]

Lead Pot,

I was on Yellow C. We started on the Buffalo and proceeded to the Buckets, reaching them as the winds got strong the second day. We had to take down the scorekeepers' tents before they could blow down.

This was my sixth Quigley. Even without the unpredictable weather, weird things happen shooting across that coulee. I wouldn't be surprised if the force of gravity changes down there, as well as the air movements.

I'm especially impressed by the way the wind dies down after the horn blows for repainting the targets, and picks back up when the range is cleared for firing. Can't figure out how they do that. :mrgreen:

[Lead pot]

The Buff was my last target Sunday and missed the last shot. I knew I was in trouble when I broke the shot as a wind gust pushed me and I saw my sight just in front of the hump over the neck when it went off. The bucket killed me with only two hits. I just could not keep up with the timing with the gusts pushing me all over the place. A lot of right and left misses LOL.

Still finding dust under the wood :) Next year it will be better :)
Kurt

[Bent Ramrod]

It's quiet around here. Too quiet. So:

Well, here it is next year, and it was "better," at the Quigley, I have to agree.

Rangemaster duties were pretty much down pat, and the Scorekeepers do all the heavy lifting, anyway. I got squadded perfectly with my shooting partner, so could concentrate better on the shooting. It was a Paper Patch Extravaganza; I fired 150 shots this year. The Paper Patch Bullet shooters are still a minority, noticed and whispered about by the other shooters.

The wind was pretty bad the first day; almost like the wind conditions of the legendary Quigley of Ought-Twelve. The dust wasn't quite as visible, but it got all over everything anyway. The second day started out relatively calm, but the wind picked up again pretty quickly. My shooting partner had to fire one of his relays in the rain; one cloud's worth came by at just the "right" time.

I got a 21, not my best, but equivalent to a couple previous scores with grease groove boolits, and I'm proud to say that I tied with the Third Place Small Fry shooter. :razz: However, I did manage to exceed the Match "average" of 19, and I've never despised a C+ in school if the subject was difficult enough. Best I did was 5 on any one target and the worst was 2. The wind was really getting to everybody (almost). Lots of "Nice Tries!" at the end of the relays from the Scorekeeper. They said at the Awards Ceremony that they saved a lot of money on Straight-8 Pins this year. But some people got them. One of the guys in a relay I was Rangemastering got two Pins on two successive targets. Even with the gale conditions, you had to be well up into the 30's to get much of anything in the award line. Dave Gullo won overall with an incredible 43, five shots above the second place winner, IIRC.

I had three slightly different boolits loaded over the same 80-gr Swiss 1Fg powder charge. All from Brooks moulds, this year: a 0.440", a 0.441+" and boolits from the 0.441+" that I had lapped out to 0.443". Weights went from 543 to 547 gr. In practice and sight-in Thursday and Friday, all diameters and weights seemed to shoot to the same elevation, except for the Buffalo, which required a minute or so difference between the heaviest and lightest. I also had a few experimental loads of 80 gr 1-1/2Fg Swiss over the same boolits. They seemed to shoot as well as the 1F loads, except that for every target I tried them on, they shot about the height of that target high. Looks like I found another load that works, anyway.

The bore-pig and dry patch cleaning routine suggested by Brent went without a hitch, and was easy to accomplish in the time I had between shots. There were occasional slight smears of fouling in the rifling ahead of the chamber after one of these wipes, but there didn't seem to be any elevation change or accuracy difference between these and a mirror bore, at least on these targets. I would, of course, run a second pig&patch if there was time, but if I had to adjust the sight setting, or consult with my spotter, sometimes I just had to take the shot when it came up. It went where it was called, anyway.

My homemade mouth reducing die let the shell hold the boolit securely without appearing to damage the accuracy. I think they're in there good enough so I can put them in my uber Cool C. Sharps cartridge belt and parade around with them next year. The only mystery to me is why I could take any one of these loads, and morning and afternoon, on two practice days, hit the Octagon with monotonous regularity, and yet get only two hits when the chips were really down. I also sighted in during the pre-Match practice session on the Diamond, two hours before I was to shoot for real, and got twelve hits out of fourteen, but no pin when the nitty got gritty. Well, that's one reason I keep coming back, I guess.

The people at the Goex table now have added 1Fg to their list of Olde Eynsford granulations, as a result of the comments from users at last year's Quigley. I got 5 lb of the stuff for paper patch and grease groove trials. It's nice that these people respond to customer wishes. I think I can make this stuff work; it seems the barricades are gradually crumbling. More and more, the criticality of variations in boolit diameter, design; even weight (within reason); patch thickness and bore wiping seem to be getting lost in the "noise," where before, everything seemed to make a huge difference. Maybe it wasn't all that critical in the first place, although at the time it certainly seemed so. Kind of like swimming, or driving, or playing the piano. After a while, you just "do it."

I've done one Silhouette match with Paper Patch and didn't get much of a score, but I think I'll concentrate on using them now and see if the scores get better. I'll probably stick with the 0.443" diameter, just for consistency.

[country gent]

Sounds like a productive and informative shoot for you. Keep working on it keep good records of everything done so whatw orks can be repeated and what doesn't isn't repeated. I'm doing better with the 40 cal and paper patched than the 45s. I may lapp my mould out .001-.002 in dia as its dropping 442 dia with 20-1. Brooks mould and is adjustable for length or weight. It does okay but not as good as the 40 does, yet. I haven't purchased a mould yet for the 38-55 to try them in it. Bit it sounds like a great time was had and you had some good results and worked out well. Great job

[rfd]

Bent Ramrod, thanx for the fine post and comments on the 2017 quigley. i'm sure hoping to attend in 2018 in the white buffalo class. i've got a .45-70 shiloh #1 sporter due in january to suss out, it'll sport a custom ppb chamber to boot.

my current gun is a pedi roller in .45-70 that has a big greaser chamber. the load is 80.5 grains of swiss 1-1/2f under a .025" milk carton wad compressed .030", under a BACO jm443530 slick wrapped in papermill 9# onion that drops @ 528 grains with 1:20 alloy. the ppb sits about 1/8"+ in the case. the ppb/starline brass gets a very slight tapering from a lyman die to keep it from falling out, but it easily twists around in the case and can be pulled out. i don't like neck tension. i don't anneal brass. brass is loaded fire formed and chamber oriented.

i'm using the BACO bore wipers, w/straight water wet twin felts. a few flip shakes of the wiper to get off excess water, pushed down past the chamber with steve's delrin rod, then an arsenal patch to dry the chamber and meet the wiper and push the wiper out into a pan of water and the patch onto the ground. the bore appears shiny clean between shots. after shooting for the day, i also get that crusty drool under the muzzle from the wipers, but it cleans up pronto with most any water/oil solution like LVL or MM or even break-free.

anyhoo, there are *LOTS* of combination of loads and fouling control processes to address. i'm still a pilgrim to the PPW ("paper patch way", as brent labels it), but i'm sure hooked on it, it's the only way i load and shoot these dayze. life's still good.

[Bent Ramrod]

rfd, sounds like you are doing well. The 80 gr of 1-1/2Fg Swiss seemed to shoot as closely as the 1Fg for me, although the shots consistently went higher. I'm going to reload a couple Silhouette matches' worth of that load and really wring it out.

My #3 Paper Patch gun is a Shiloh that was rebarreled with a barrel taken off another Shiloh, and of course it had to be run in slightly and the chamber recut. I have no idea how the rechambering job compares to an original Shiloh; my loads were simply developed in it to work in it. It appears from what I read that a true Paper Patch chamber, or even one of those 7-degree chambers, would make load development more of a mechanically logical operation, without the ordinary chamber's individual idiosyncrasies.

My first trial with 1Fg Olde Eynsford didn't go so well, but some of that was me. I got impatient and commenced operations at the Pig line. Should have started out closer, as I never seemed to be able to settle on a sight setting. (I did get a fairly promising group on the lower part of the target frame, smashing it up good, but I don't know which load it was.) My shooting abilities seem to vary from session to session also.

The OE is less dense than Swiss, so it is rather a heroic effort to get 80 gr 1F in the case, if it's full-length sized. If it's anything like OE 1-1/2, it will need a few more grains than the equivalent Swiss charge, with a fair amount of compression, but at the same time will need the boolit barely in the case mouth, as you describe. I'm thinking on a compression die that can hold extra powder above the case mouth, with a plunger that will compress it down into the case. (I'd rather use more powder than a complicated stack of wads, if I can.) One of Swiss' excellent qualities is that it doesn't necessarily need compression, but will stand it if you need to do it. OE seems to need some "finagling" to get up there with Swiss, although after that, it seems to perform well. At least, that was the story with 1-1/2 Fg and Grease Grooves.

I bought some of those felt Bore Wipers from Buffalo Arms' tent at the Quigley this year, but my homemade ones worked well enough that I didn't use the felt ones. I notice the majority of Grease Groove shooters at Silhouette matches wipe out their bores between shots any more, so it isn't really extra work with Paper Patch. I'm one of the few holdouts still blow tubing with the Grease Grooves.

More paper patch shooters are showing up at the Quigley now, although we are still a distinct minority, noticed and talked about in awed whispers by the other shooters. After a particularly good practice session (not, unfortunately, duplicated during the Match:-?) another Paper Patch shooter remarked on how well they were doing, and asked for loading and cleaning data. Wow. Seems like only yesterday I couldn't hit my hat with the things if I hung it over the barrel, and now I'm a Grey Eminence, dispensing wisdom. Is this a great Country, or what? :mrgreen:

[Bent Ramrod]

I used the aforementioned Steve Brooks 548 gr boolit with 1.5 thousandths Strathmore Tracing paper over a 1/16" cork wad and 80 gr Swiss 1-1/2 Fg today at the local BPCR Silhouette match. Fired my third AA Score, and I got moved into the AA Class. Nowhere to go but up, now! :mrgreen:

This is the load that was shooting well, but high, at the Quigley. It recoils noticeably more than the 80 gr 1Fg Swiss load, but the hits came just as often, and, more to the point, the little thumbtacks on the animals on the cork board were almost always right where the crosshairs had wobbled on the actual animal (or its environs) when the gun went off. The few that were a little wider than my calls were still within the general parameters of the directive to "know thyself." No dirt diggers or weird misses.

Rediscovering lost technology is certifiably Cool, like finding lost cities or other lost treasures. I'll still shoot grease grooves in matches with my other rifle now and again, but, for some reason, this PP business is a lot more Fun.

Strathmore Tracing has unaccountably disappeared from the shelves of the local Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby, replaced by some other brand. But it's beginning to look like anything 1.4 or 1.5 thousandths thick that is reasonably hard and crinkly will work. It took a lot of sweat and skullduggery to get the paper patching to work right, but loading that way now it just seems to be a standard routine.

[Don McDowell]

Good deal

[rfd]

... but, for some reason, this PP business is a lot more Fun.

my sentiments, exactly! :drinks:

[Bent Ramrod]

I took the Paper patch loads and the No. 3 to the Boulder City “Bragging Rights” Gong Shoot the other weekend. To say I did not do well is an understatement; I tied with the second-lowest score, but he got more centers.

No fault of the rifle and loads that I could see—I just couldn’t get it together. Sitting or Prone, the rifle kept twisting in my hands, throwing wide ones. I’m still doing a good impression of a beached walrus wiping between shots prone, so more practice there is definitely needed. But, leave us face it, I’m not a serious competitor, I just like to play around with guns and loads and am glad to have a place to shoot these rifles at targets and distances worthy of them. “Better next time,” I hope.

The Boulder Rifle And Pistol Club has a fantastic range, with the Bear out at 950 yards and the Offhand Square at 150, but it seems to be built on one of those Mystery Spots they used to have in the vacation maps. Everybody on my end of the Line was having trouble; three minutes’ Windage would give six minutes’ Elevation, or vice versa. The Walking Buffalo was supposed to be 200 yards or so from the Standing Bear, but it looked more like twenty paces ahead. The white centers were the fattest parts of both targets, but the black edges had the most hits. There were breezes, but also a lot of zero-windage calm, which often didn't seem to help much. Weird. The “No Whining” rule was honored more in the breach than in the practice. Everybody had a ball!

But the interesting thing was that the per capita of Paper Patch Boolit shooters was the highest I’d ever seen in a match. There was a satisfying drift of paper shreds all along the edge of the firing line when the match was over. Although Pat Taylor won overall with Nekkid Boolits, Al Sledge was right behind him with Paper Patched, getting High Master. Several Paper Patch shooters got trophies. Many used grease cookies, whether patching or bore-pigging. Everybody wiped between shots; I didn’t see a single blow tube.

I was told the Boulder Shoot was “good Quigley practice” and it is all of that and more. “Conditions” can get even crazier than in Montana. Kudos to Bruce Kuveke for reserving the range, organizing and running the event, and providing lunch both days. I don’t know how he found time to shoot. A mighty effort, and well done.

I’ll be back next year, if I’m still mobile.

[BrentD]

But the interesting thing was that the per capita of Paper Patch Boolit shooters was the highest I’d ever seen in a match. There was a satisfying drift of paper shreds all along the edge of the firing line when the match was over. Although Pat Taylor won overall with Nekkid Boolits, Al Sledge was right behind him with Paper Patched, getting High Master. Several Paper Patch shooters got trophies. Many used grease cookies, whether patching or bore-pigging. Everybody wiped between shots; I didn’t see a single blow tube.


Way to go Al!!!

[BrentD]

It's great to hear that paper patching is spreading. It will not be that long before it becomes as common as grease grooves. The tide is finally beginning to turn.

[Bent Ramrod]

Oops, memory failed (again). Bruce sent the score list out.

Dick Savage first master, Al Sledge second. But Al got a 72, Dick a 76 and Pat an 80, so the good shots were very close together. Possible was 96; most of the rest of us were in the 40 to 60 range.

No overall load details, like the Quigley, but I’d say the Paper Patch shooters were a solid third of the group anyway. Total was 25 shooters. The only unCool part was when the wind switched to 12:00, and the shreds and smoke came back in the shooters’ faces. They’re OK with the smell of the smoke, but the confetti shower takes getting used to.

[Don McDowell]

Jeff F, said he shot well there on Saturday but fell plumb apart on Sunday, and he's still trying to figure out what happened, but he's suspecting something unseen in the conditions.
Was Dick running his 110 with paper patch? He's done right well with that and his hiwall shooting patched for several years now, hoping he's at Alliance this next weekend.

[Lead pot]

Yes Dick said he used the 110 with the BACO MB .444 patched to .450 with 9# onion skin from Paper Mill
Powder was 105 grs of KIK 1.5 F
he also did well at the 16 and 17 Q using it.


Dick has been scrounging all the 2F KIK he can still find.

[Don McDowell]

If you talk to him again, tell him if he's going to Alliance let me know. We can make a deal on some KIK 2 and 1 1/2

[Lead pot]

Don the last time I talked to him he said he going. But I will tell him you have some.

[Don McDowell]

I lost his cell number when my phone crashed, and his email. I know the last time I was in contact with him about maybe shooting at Phoenix he said he was planning on Alliance, but I hadn't heard from him since then.

[ragnar]

BR, check your PM’s

[Bent Ramrod]

Well, they announced a bunch of winners at the Quigley this year and promised to post them on the Web site when they got their Computer squared away, but I would say that the big winner this year was a guy named Jupiter Pluvius.

Here was the firing line on Thursday. A glorious day for practice.

222782

And here it was Saturday, the first day of the Match. A good day for ducks.

222783

It rained Friday afternoon, most of the day Saturday, and was threatening to do so Sunday evening. Accordingly the Match was reduced to one day, four shots per target, and all targets fired upon. The weather cleared enough to paint the targets, but spotting misses was tough because a mud splash is much harder to see than a dust puff. Rangemaster duties were a little hectic, even though a lot of people didn't show up to shoot. Some of them were reportedly in their campers at Quigleyville and simply elected to stay there. I can't imagine driving 1000 miles and more to a match and then not going the 1000 extra yards, even in the wet grass and mud.

You could see why those Western towns had board sidewalks and stepping stones across the streets. Also why the carts, wagons and ordinary bicycles had shoulder-high wheels. You need that circumference to move on the old-time excuses for roads. A couple hours' rain turns the dusty grassland to mud. Two people walking in line turn the mud to glue. Two vehicles driving in line turn it to grease. However, when the rain stops and the wind blows and a little sunlight shows, the whole process might reverse to dust again in a few hours.

My car was stuck out there overnight Saturday and wound up being stuck Sunday in one of the few remaining wet spots in Quigleyville. The Anti-Skid device on the modern automobile is a marvelous thing to prevent one from getting out of a mudhole. But for the kindness of a nice couple who gave me a push to firmer ground, it would probably still be stuck out there.

The best people in the world go to the Quigley. After a year of toxic news stories, a trip to Forsyth MT will restore your faith in Humanity.

I used the #3 Shiloh again with the 80gr Swiss 1Fg load and the Brooks 543-gr 0.443" boolit patched dry with Strathmore Tracing paper, 0.0015" thickness. I had a new shooting partner, and we managed to sight in and practice on all the targets Thursday and get to all but the 530 yd Rectangle again on Friday before it started raining. Good thing, as Thursday was bright, Friday was overcast and Sunday alternated between the two. Most elevations, except for the Buffalo, were close to the sight-in/practice averages; the Buffalo needed three more minutes, for some reason.

I started poorly, with one hit on the offhand Bucket (my usual performance, one or two for eight) and a first miss on the Buffalo that my spotter couldn't find. The second was to the right of him, then I got a hit, and then I flinched. I got on the Octagon and got all four hits, then three on the 530 yard Rectangle, four on the Diamond and three on the Postage Stamp. I finished the match mud-encrusted, but stoked!

My new shooting partner was very good at picking up the Scientific Consensus of Windage settings from the other shooters, then adding his own judgement as the breeze switched around, waxed and waned. My first-shot hits are all his doing. Flinching and raising my head off the stock prematurely were my contributions to much of the score. If Shiloh had an aftermarket dead-man switch and timer inletted into the cheekpiece, with a shock collar for the shooter, I might be broken of that bad habit after a while. On the other hand, High-Tech stuff on the Firing Line is not countenanced by the Quigley range staff.

If the Match had gone on two days, and I had kept up the averages I would have got one point over my Personal Best with grease-groove boolits. I've been in a slump at BPCR Silhouette most of this year, and as a result was bothered overmuch by minor changes in ammunition. Even though I was using the same boolit, my latest lot of Swiss 1F is ever so slightly less dense than the previous lot, which meant that an 80-grain charge, even drop-tubed, would overflow a full-length resized case. I made a powder funnel/holder/ram device so I could overfill the case and press the powder and a wad down 1/16" below the case mouth, but a few granules would escape nevertheless. A neck-sized only case would just hold the 80 grains, so now I had a mixture of FLS and NS cases at the Match. My homemade mouth reducer was used, and worked well, although I worried about varying neck tension, since I use the thing in a loading press with the lever. I did anneal all the cases. Two or three boolits came out of the cases, but they were easily re-inserted and then I could worry about the others being too tightly held. My recent scores at Silhouette and the Boulder Shoot might have indicated that something indeed had gone off the rails in the loading.

I fired 98 shots total this time, of each type, and none of these nuances seemed to make any difference, either in practice or the Match. If I hit the Diamond four times in a row, that is prima facie ipso facto proof that any problems reside with the shooter, not with the gun and load. I need more practice, and better follow-through on my shots.

I'm now sitting back home in our 103 degree weather, wondering if it was ever possible that I walked through slippery mud in soaking wet grass with soggy leather boots, wet socks and frozen feet. Must have been nice, if I did :mrgreen: I'll be back again next year, if I'm still mobile, and will bring along the Cement Worker knee-high rubber boots that sat uselessly in my closet at home.

[BrentD]

Bent Ramrod, thanks for the heroic description of an epic event!

[Lead pot]

I was one of those that wimped out. I did not feel like dragging my new cart through the mud. I have a hard enough time just walking the long shooting line during dry conditions. :)

Between the Q and the two weeks shooting the fine shoots at the Big Hill at Baker Mt. I did empty 1000 + rounds not counting the .22 rimfire silhouette matches at Big Hill. I was gone for over a month and enjoyed every moment.

[Old-Win]

Kurt, you whoosie;-) A little mud on your cart tires??? That 's why there are car washes.:kidding: 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.
http://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/54510_600x400.jpg (http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54510_600x400/)
Believe it or not, this 4X4 is stuck.
http://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/54511_600x400.jpg (http://www.jpgbox.com/page/54511_600x400/)
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.

[Lead pot]

222809 WHAT AND GET MY BRAND NEW TWO WEEK OLD GUN CART MUDDY ?????? :lol::lol:
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

[flatsguide]

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

[Lead pot]

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.222874222875

[flatsguide]

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

[Lead pot]

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

[flatsguide]

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.

[Lead pot]

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.

222921

[flatsguide]

It sure is a head scratcher

[Bent Ramrod]

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).

244940

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,

244941

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.

244942

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.

244943

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.

[Edward]

Sounds like a great time ,thanks for posting !Ed

[rfd]

great post, almost like being there, thanx for sharing! 244958

[Old-Win]

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.
http://www.jpgbox.com/jpg/57432_600x400.jpg (http://www.jpgbox.com/page/57432_600x400/)

[BrentD]

Nice photo Bob!

I hope to see you at Lodi.

[Lead pot]

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.

[Bent Ramrod]

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.

[T_McD]

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.

[Bent Ramrod]

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.

[semtav]

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.

[flemdoug]

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.

[Lead pot]

semtav,

I had drop out and not shoot. I looked for you but only saw the bug bomber fly over :D Sorry to have missed you.

Kurt

[semtav]

Congratulations fd. Glad you were able to take it home. Hopefully they will get all the bug's out for next year and everyone shooting paperpatch gets signed up.

[mdatlanta]

Many thanks to Bent Ramrod (and everyone else who chimed in) for this very interesting thread. ��

[semtav]

Didn't realize you made it out Kurt.
Wanted to run down but just couldn't make it.

[Old-Win]

Dave, another great write-up! I think you missed your calling.:-D We had a great time this year once again. I didn't see you this year so couldn't give you at least passing nod. My daughter (see above) has really taken to this and wants to do well. We started on the #3 target or the postage stamp as some call it and it was tough on all of us for some reason. When it was my daughters time to shoot, it was dark and cloudy and hard to see. She missed her first shot and I gave her a correction and her next shot was 10' right. I' didn't know what to do so wrote it off as a bad round. Next shot was again in the same spot and I'm thinking "loose sight". Now, panic is starting to set in and I jump up and check the rifle out before her next shot. No loose sights. I got back in the scope but don't know what to give her for a correction. Her next shot, in the same place. All of a sudden, she turns around and says, I'm not shooting at the target but a spot on the hillside. It was there behind the old place where the target use to be as they moved the target about 10' left. Long story short, she took a zero. It took her a while to settle down after that and our next target is the diamond. What does she do? Gets another 8 pin. Bounced back pretty good. After that, we shot fairly well until the next day. Everybody did well on the buff except me. for some reason, a little 4-5:00 tail wind ate my lunch with the vertical and I ended up with a 1. Never before have I shot even close to that on that target. Sunday night, we're all sitting around saying how much fun we have and can't wait to be back there next year. Here's hoping

[Bent Ramrod]

Sorry I missed seeing you as well, Bob. It seemed that a lot of the people I was used to seeing there didn’t show up this time, so I sort of slacked off my looking during the practice days.

On the other hand, there seemed to be a lot of new blood there, a lot of younger shooters, especially. Very gratifying that this kind of shooting continues to “catch on” with the younger set. Hopefully, the Quigley will continue on for another 31 years, continuing to “hook” new people. Delighted to hear that your daughter has gotten the bug. Shooting is one athletic competition where body strength doesn’t matter that much; the women competitors are showing some pretty impressive totals.

The Match is funny like that; past performance doesn’t guarantee future results, just like the Mutual Funds people caution in their ads. This year’s winner might not even be in the top twenty next time. One of our guys was doing very well the practice days (4 consecutive hits on the Bucket, and even better strings on the sit-downs), but starting out on Match Day he missed all 8 on the Bucket and this rattled him so badly that he wound up doing worse than I did, overall. And on a good day with light winds, the targets can get greyed-out quickly, despite the painting schedule and relay switches. The occasional sprinkles that controlled the dust at the Line also obscured the dust at the targets; some misses were hard to see sometimes.

But that’s the way it seems to work in Gong shoots. You might feel like John Bodine when you do well at long-range Bullseyes, and Wright Mooar when you knock down a bunch of Silhouettes, but when you clean a Gong Target, you feel like William Tell; you pulled off a major-league Harmonic Confluence in the face of disaster against all odds. You not only did good, you did right, with Lady Luck curled securely in your lap, cooing into your ear. Nothing else like it.

Wally told me the Las Vegas shoot at Desert Sportsman’s is going in November. It’s great Quigley practice, obviously; he came in 5th at the Quigley this year. Other than that, I’m hoping to stay vigorous enough to be at the Quigley again. Only 11 months to go!

They put the scores up, but haven’t broken out the categories ( Trapdoor, Ballard, Scope, etc). I’d like to see how the average Paper Patch score compared to the average of all others.

Thanks again, everybody, for all the kind words and compliments. I get a lot of good info off this site; glad to contribute where I can.

[Old-Win]

Dave, did your buddy Wally shoot a 38-50?

[Bent Ramrod]

Bob, that’s what I was told. 55 gr 2f and a 360 gr Money bullet.

That caliber seems to be the magic combo of power enough to get out there plus minimal recoil.

[ragnar]

What is the Las Vegas shoot at Desert Sportsman’s, dates, description, etc?

[Bent Ramrod]

Email Wally at wpinjuv931@gmail.com for particulars.

[Lead pot]

I just went back over all of these posts and Dave you did a fine job documenting all of the events, best I have seen these reports. I hope to meet you there one of these years.
I wimped out of two Q shoots now since 2005 and this shoot. I look forward for the Q shoot because it got to be like a reunion with friends we shot together with all of these years.
Twice I had eye damage for shooting a large caliber rifle all of those hundreds of rounds before the start of the match and twice I got retina separation and this last time in both eyes that I lost my center vision. I go in on the 19th to see if the good Doc can repiar the damage.
I now have two .38-50's so I can keep this up for years to come.
I think Age is catching up with me :D

Kurt

[Bent Ramrod]

Thanks for the kind words, Kurt. I'll be up there again next year if I can move at all. The Quigley has gotta be more fun than the Burning Man reportedly seems to be, for sure. No less rain or mud in Montana, but a lot more community spirit and none of the whining and sniveling Victimhood on display in Nevada now. I'll ask around and see if I can find you.

Old age ain't for sissies, for sure. I had cataract lens replacement and had eagle eyes for four years or so. Then got a retinal detachment in my right (good) eye and had to switch to left-handed shooting with my less-good eye. Could stick with right-handed if all I used were scopes or pistols, but did the switch to keep the muscle memory going regardless of what I was shooting. I surprised myself with a 23 at Silhouettes this weekend; haven't shot an A score in a while. Hope springs eternal!

[Lead pot]

Just look for a Winnebago Micro-Mini Flex Gypsy Wagon. There is usually a Flag high above it. :D

I just passed my driver test a couple days ago so seee you next June.