NCOWS Plainsman experiment

[Books OToole]

Last week at The Ruckus at Raccoon Forks we tried out a new class.  Multiple names have been thrown out but none have stuck; yet. [My vote is Plainsman.]  The time period 1860-1900.  Participants used a single shot rifle and a revolver.  Six brave souls joined the fun.  One used a Remington Rolling block (.45 Colt), four used various versions of Trap-door Springfields (with reduced loads)
and one crazy nut used a TTN double barreled shotgun with a .45 colt insert.  The number of shots per stage was reduced to five so as the not slow down the process too much.

It was great fun and I learned what to do and not to do next time.

The jury is still out whether this class will be adopted or not.

Books

[Major 2]

I know that one crazy nut    does look like fun. 

[Mogorilla]

It was FUN!   I will jump on board for any chance to shoot the trapdoor.   Many Thanks to Wooly Dan who loaded down some 45-70 loads for me, Woody and himself.   I was the guy shooting the full length Trapdoor Rifle, which maybe gave me an edge being closer to the targets  (-:   

I heard people worry about the length of time we would take to shoot and issues in scoring.   The two on our posse shot roughly 60 seconds per stage, and there were only 5 rounds to brass.   We had 4 members of the posse shooting 4 gun, they averaged about 85-110 seconds per stage, so we did not slow anything down.   Once we had a discussion, that was pretty much reiterated at the start of each stage, the spotters were on board and there was no issue in scoring.   

If you have an apporpriate single shot, I encourage you to talk to your posse.   Having this much fun should be illegal. 

[Major 2]

Did the 45/70 download involve Trailboss ?

[Mogorilla]

Wooly Dan's loads did.   I believe he did ~ 8 grains of Trailboss under a 300 grain bullet.   My pistol was 45 Colt with a 255 grain bullet with 6.4 grains of Unique.   i think the pistol had more impact.    Good Troy was shooting black powder, 30 or 35 grains of black powder, filler, wad and a 454 round ball.   

I will note that my time put me in 4th of the pack of six.  I did not have a miss with the rifle and 5 misses with the pistol (10 stages, 50 rifle and 50 pistol).    Good Troy placed 2nd with his load and did it with the aplomb of knowing he was making lovely smoke. 

[Niederlander]

Were you required to load down, or just did it for giggles?

[Mogorilla]

I believe it was planned/requested for lighter loads since we are shooting at pistol caliber ranges/targets.  We shot the same stages as all the other NCOWS shooters, just reduced to the first five rifle targets.

[Niederlander]

That makes sense.  A couple of us have been kicking around the idea of doing a muzzleloading shoot based on what we do at the Brigade Muster.  Way less targets, of course.  We'll see.

[Mogorilla]

Sounds great and a reason for me to think about buying a muzzleloader, having sold my hawken.    Careful, if you have too much fun you could be hosting a GAT, Grand Army of the Territories.

[LongWalker]

You say that like it is a bad thing. . . . sounds like a fun match, I'll bring my Leman and Colt's 1860!

Not sure I'd want to go to a reduced load in my infantry rifle.  I'm at just over 1,200 rounds of carbine loads through it so far this year: finally getting a "feel" for the rifle/load combination.  Maybe pick up a cut-down rifle and set it up as a sporter for the match.

[Johnny McCrae]

Several years ago, the Sweetwater Regulators shot a few stages where a Sharps Rifle was one of the Firearms used. A Sharps Rifle and ammo were provided.   

[BlackButtes]

That looks like a blast! Glad everyone had fun.