waksupi, the black powder site that you listed could not be found.
waksupi, the black powder site that you listed could not be found.
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
toot, Ric's link works for me: https://www.blackpowdermag.com/categ...s/experiments/
Maven
Thanks for posting this - the touch hole experiment particularly interesting. The separation of priming charge and main charge by an airgap and asking for ignition to flash from one to the other has never made any sense to me - quite the opposite - I always treated it as one charge as much as was possible - coned touch hole liner to bring the main charge as close to the pan as we could and banked the priming against the touch hole - never used a vent stopper - I see guys loading with a stopper in the vent - and I just go - why do that??? - have had plenty of comments as to how fast my flinter fires "thing goes off like a caplock" but mostly they lose interest as soon as they see the little Dikar lock I am shooting - too cheap = cant be any good - I guess is the thinking.
For those who leave a vent pick in while loading, if they will just give the gun a couple light slaps, or bounce it lightly on the ground a couple times to settle the powder properly, that is unnecessary, and gets the powder as close to the vent as is possible. THEN seat your patched ball. Same holds true for percussion and flint.
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
Thanks for posting the site, lots of great info.
bob
Game Warden: what boys dream of being and old men wish they could have been
Good article. Just ordered a kit today. Just a few weeks away, though. It will be something new for me.
This cast boolit thing has been nudging me towards holy black for a while. Very interesting.......
when I go to the site, it comes up page not found, shame as I would rely like to see it.
Maven, it did work, thanking you. it is one helleva of a site!!
has any one ever fired or tried to fire a flintlock in / under water? just courious? and what about the so called water proof / sheading pans also? I would rely like to know if any one has tried any of them?
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
Look up the battle of King's Mountain. Mostly rifleman (Over Mountain men) vs Patrick Ferguson's regiment. There was a small fight a few days before the battle. Between the Virginia and Tennessee contingents of the Over Mountain Men. About who would be in command. Split decision, so the Tennesseans went up the front slope and the Virginians circled around and scaled the cliffs behind the British position.Bad day for the Brits.
And there was another battle (Saratoga, I think) where the British commander was a bit too habitual about checking his position each morning. A rifleman (Timothy Murphy) got him at a couple of hundred yards, and the Brits withdrew. Saratoga forced Cornwallis to concentrate on a Southern campaign, and King's Mountain forced him to retreat to Yorktown.
I am a new member to this site and just this morning found this section on ML. It is a remarkable treasure trove of valuable information and just plain BP/ ML shooting. I will read through it line by line in the coming days.
But I wanted to take a moment and comment on the piece about Chuck Dixon.I first met Chuck and then his son Greg about 25 years ago when I got interested in Flintlocks and ML. Two of the most helpful and informative folks I have ever had the pleasure to speak with. And it's due to their help,a nd patience, that I continue with ML shooting to this day. The last time I spoke with Chuck was probably 10 years ago when I was at Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop there in Kempton. Chuck was spraying weeds in the lower parking lot area and we spoke. And we spoke for about an hour and at not time did guns, hunting, shooting ever enter the conversation. We spoke about living and his philosophy on this subject. To this day I recall that conversation vividly in my mind and I cherish the time we spent together and hearing his views. Chuck was much more than a watershed of information and knowledge on BP guns and shooting. His views on the nature of man, life, death and God were similar, if not exactly the same, as mine and how he articulated them in that conversation will always remain with me.
This is still a fine read after all this time.
"Behold The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world". John 1:29
Male Guanaco out in dry lakebed at 10,800 feet south of Arequipa.
Which is noisier, a flintlock or a caps lock (because of the caps)?
not the dominant experience I think !
I enjoy my flintlock shooting and have chosen to use it against caplocks in open comp numerous times - i do better with the heft and longer sight radius of a long rifle -
Dependable? we live (and shoot) in a fairly dry environment - caplocks go bang everytime you pull the trigger (unles something broke last shot) flintlocks usually do too - so long as you do all the stuff that needs done to keep them working well - dependableness of a flintlock is much more in the hands of the operator rather than the mechanism
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |