Getting ready to take a walk on the dark side.

[Blackpowder Burn]

The humidity will cause it to form more smoke.  If you're lucky and don't have any wind, you'll soon be shooting from inside a fog bank of fragrant sulfur perfume.  I love the smell of sulfur in the morning!! 

[Bibbyman]

Well, I'm sure I made a big hit with the other members of the posse.  There were some faces made when they learned I was going to shoot black powder.  There was another shooting black powder on the other posse so no one was left out.  I think the others on the posse got more of the smoke than I did. Except maybe the last stage where it just seemed to come back on me.  Poooy! I had to spit some out. Had to reshoot one shotgun target because I just guessed where it was in the smoke and shot over it.

Handguns made it through the match just fine even though they have no special modification and I'm using standard cast bullets that were tumble lubed with Lee Alox. Never bound up and when I got home to clean them the bushings slipped right out still clean and wet from the Thomson bore butter I had lubed them with.  No problems with the Stoeger coach gun.

My Marlin 1894 45 Cowboy had problems pulling a case from the chamber on the first 3 stages. It's been working fine loaded with the other stuff but I suspect the black powder loads are expanding the case more and the chamber getting fouled brought out the problem.  I finished up the match shooting Mary's 44 Marlin.  A look at the extractor hook shows that it needs to be adjusted.

[Bruce W Sims]

A quick question from the History Buff:

I regularly read where folks are talking about making sure that things are lubed-up well. I'm wondering
if this would have been common knowlege during the period that BP was a regular carry and what a
19th Century gun hand would have used to address it. Since CRISCO didn't come around until after the turn of the century
what else might have been available to, say, a Civil War Cavalry person?  Thoughts?

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[Noz]

Sperm Whale Oil was an issue item.

[Lefty Dude]

Lard, Bacon grease, etc.

[Bruce W Sims]

Lard, Bacon grease, etc.

I don't imagine that such stuff was in place for long periods of time. What do you figure... maybe a couple of days at a stretch?
I'm thinking that after The Wilderness, Military action took a significant tick upwards. But during relatively quiet periods I wonder how long a person could carry a BP pistol before there was a noticeable degrading of reliability. Anyone ever do any research on this?  Thoughts?

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[jimbobborg]

Just throwing this out there.  Back in the day, when the Soviets were fighting the Nazis, the conscripts would piss down the barrel of their Mosin-Nagant rifles to wash out the salts from the corrosive primers that were in use at the time. 

[litl rooster]

Just throwing this out there.  Back in the day, when the Soviets were fighting the Nazis, the conscripts would piss down the barrel of their Mosin-Nagant rifles to wash out the salts from the corrosive primers that were in use at the time. 

The soviets tend to fight fire with fire.... It don't make it right.

[Bibbyman]

Is it just a rumor that the buffalo hunters would wizz down the barrel of their big 50 Sharps when the barrel got hot.

Like I've said, I've shot a lot of black powder over the years but in muzzle loaders and single shot cartridge guns. I was shocked at how hot a gun gets when it's shot rapidly.  Good reason to wear leather gloves.

[jimbobborg]

Is it just a rumor that the buffalo hunters would wizz down the barrel of their big 50 Sharps when the barrel got hot.

Like I've said, I've shot a lot of black powder over the years but in muzzle loaders and single shot cartridge guns. I was shocked at how hot a gun gets when it's shot rapidly.  Good reason to wear leather gloves.

Try running 10 BP rounds through a Henry replica.

[Bruce W Sims]

My people sometimes wonder what my fascination with history is and you fellas just gave a couple of good answers.

just sayin..../BWS

[Noz]

Try running 10 BP rounds through a Henry replica.

Ten round of anything black powder with raise blisters.  We had a 10 round shotgun stage this spring and I had to run a wet patch thru the barrels just to be able to handle it on the next stage.