Your Spencer in CAS match?

[Oregon Bill]

How many have shot their Spencers under the clock in a match? How did you do? Did you get good, positive ejection each round? How did you deal with the last two shots being single loaded?

[Sloan Dodgy]

Last year I campaigned my .44 Spencer throughout the season and had a ball.  No problem with ejection except the few that went down my shirt - even those little cases (fired with BP) are hot!   

Single loading the .44s and .45s through the top is easy once you get the timing of the extractors figured out; the .56-50 is a snap with no timing issues at all.  To top load the smaller calibers, close the action all the way, then open it just far enough so that the extractors don't quite start out of their home slots and the ejection ramp is all the way down.  Poke in a round, close and shoot.  I will often start a stage, magazine loaded, by top loading the first round.

This year I'll probably use the .56-50 most of the time just because I can. 

[Two Flints]

Chili Mac,

Would you please add a little more and describe what's involved in "single loading" .44 or .45 rounds in your Spencer.  And do you know of any differences between the first runs of .44 Spencers and later serial numbered ones?

Just curious.

Two Flints

[Ed Clintwood]

Are .56-.50 now legal?

[Sloan Dodgy]

As far as I know, and by the SASS new 'covenant', .56-50 is now a legal main-match cartridge.  I also asked the folks who run our local match setup if they are OK with this - we had a trial shoot to see how a 365 grain .50 caliber bullet propelled by 32 grains of FFg would affect the plates and found no problems at all, so I know I'm good to go locally.

I mis-spoke about single loading the two smaller caliber Taylor's Spencers and I'll edit my prior post.  The trick is to open the action just far enough so that the ejector ramp is all the way down and the extractors have not yet come out of their holes on either side of the chamber.  You do have to start with the action closed since that's the only way to fully seat the extractors in their holes, so if you plan on single loading at the end of a firing string you will have to close it fully on an empty chamber first.

You can also single load the first round over a full magazine this way, but you can't open the action much further or you might get a feed from the magazine.   I don't know of differences between early and late numbered ones, my .44 is number M0202.

Because the .56-50 models have the Lane extractor you don't need to worry about extractor timing, just open it 'til the ramp descends and pop one in.

[Backstrap Bill]

Haven't had any exraction problems since I started annealing (I shoot straight black, real black).

I have a mild load for  cowboy shooting.  An uncompressed load of 2F Scheutzen under a 365 gr bullet.  Goes about 650 fps.  Still makes a fair divot on mild steel.

When I step up with the rifle, I grab 3 shells in my right hand (I am a lefty).  When I run dry, I single load them over the top, like an 1897 pump shotty gun.

Ain't too fast, but style points have been awarded.

[Ed Clintwood]

Shot my first match last Sunday with the Spencer and a case full of 777 with DW's bullet.  What a hoot.  I was about 30 seconds slower but no problems feeding, just with me trying to single load 3 rounds.  I think a Blakeslee box may be in order.  Load 3 then use the tube to load 7.