New joy pattern 1858 Enfield musket !
Have become friends at my gun club with a very unique, small niche of shooters, These guys are a small group of guys whom enjoy shooting BP only antique military muzzleloaders. These guys as much as they love shooting they are involved in the N-SSA , and also do local reenactments. It started about 2 months ago when I tried an 1861 Springfield. Done deal, had to get into this shooting experience. What an awesome nostalgic shooting experience ! Only issue shooting the '61 was the fact I have very poor eyes and the friggin LONG *** sight radius was an issue. I did manage to put 2 out of 5 shots on a 12" gong at 60 yds offhand. My buddy advised me to look into the British 1858 "2 band" Enfield as opposed to the Springfield. The '58 Enfield has a shorter barrel, and thus a shorter sight radius. After much research I actually by luck found a used / unfired Pedersoli 1858 Enfield from a gun shop somewhat near to me. After a close inspection and accessing the sights I bought it. The repro Pedersolis are VERY nice fit and finish for relatively short money as opposed to buying authentic (which runs upwards of $1800-3K for a decent shooter). Very much looking forward to learning more history on antique military muzzleloaders, and how to load and shoot authentic paper cartridges. I had my first opportunity to shoot the P58 yesterday, and it was absolutely awesome to shoot. After precision pinning my bore I have a slightly oversize bore that I will call ".578" so my mentor Fred casted me up 3 different weights , a 460 gr FB , a 470 gr hollow base , and a 525 gr hollow base. All of which are the typical nose profile similar to the LEE 575-500-M nose profile . Using the baseline charge of 60 gr of Goex 2F, both the 470gr and the 525 shot very well , and seemed I was slightly more consistent with the 525 gr but this was just my maiden shooting trip so some more conclusive testing needs to be done before I make the final decision and order a custom mould.
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