- Location
- In lalaland, that is Ottawa.
Living in Windsor, Ont. in 1957 and just having got into Black Powder, a friend and I made the trip to Camp Perry, Ohio, where the US matches were taking place, on the Black Powder Weekend.
What a joy it was to see the commercial tables set up, to watch the BP matches and just hang arround.
There were flintlocks and percussion, sporting rifle rifles of the Pennsylvania pattern and also the plains style. As well the Civil War buffs, both Yanks and Rebs, had 8 man teams, outfitted with either Springfield of Enfield rifles muskets, .57 calibre. The team matches consisted of breaking balloons at I think 50 yds. and cutting off 2 X 4 stakes. To see these men in action was really something. Indeed, this was the year that the US left the Garand and went to the new post-war rifle. An 8 man Civil War team went up against a 2 men USD Army team equiped with the new rifles, balloons and stakes. Of course the BP men won because the .30 caliber bullets would not chew up a stake like a .58 minnie ball.
One match that really took my fancy was that for Slug Guns. These monsters weighed anything from 30 to 60 pounds, calibre, .40 plus, mostly .50 and fired from very solid bench rests. The barrells were about 4" diameter and long enough to digest a very heavy BP load. They had large target scopes, cap lock ignition and loaded from the muzzle like any MLer. The actual bullet, was usually swaged with the fore part of harder lead than the softer rear part which expanded on firing. If memory serves me right, these slugs were about 4 calibers in length, about 2". I think that they were also paper patched. In addition, all rifles had a false muzzle which had 4 pins and the false muzzle fitted onto end of the barrell. The false muzzle was part of the original barrell and then cut off. It was also slightly tapered so that the slug entered the barrell sized and entered the bore straight. I have seen the false muzzle used on many lighter weight bench guns as well front-end loading.
he matches were fired I think at several distances, 200 yds. and up to maybe 600 yds.
These Slug Gun matches did not have a lot of contestants. I think less than 20 and they all knew each other. They were all very capable machineists, and if not T & D makers, or at least well versed in their machine shop. Because of the weight of the equipment, they were permitted to have their cars very close to the firing line.
I believe that this type of rifle was developed during the US Civil War for long range sniping.
What a joy it was to see the commercial tables set up, to watch the BP matches and just hang arround.
There were flintlocks and percussion, sporting rifle rifles of the Pennsylvania pattern and also the plains style. As well the Civil War buffs, both Yanks and Rebs, had 8 man teams, outfitted with either Springfield of Enfield rifles muskets, .57 calibre. The team matches consisted of breaking balloons at I think 50 yds. and cutting off 2 X 4 stakes. To see these men in action was really something. Indeed, this was the year that the US left the Garand and went to the new post-war rifle. An 8 man Civil War team went up against a 2 men USD Army team equiped with the new rifles, balloons and stakes. Of course the BP men won because the .30 caliber bullets would not chew up a stake like a .58 minnie ball.
One match that really took my fancy was that for Slug Guns. These monsters weighed anything from 30 to 60 pounds, calibre, .40 plus, mostly .50 and fired from very solid bench rests. The barrells were about 4" diameter and long enough to digest a very heavy BP load. They had large target scopes, cap lock ignition and loaded from the muzzle like any MLer. The actual bullet, was usually swaged with the fore part of harder lead than the softer rear part which expanded on firing. If memory serves me right, these slugs were about 4 calibers in length, about 2". I think that they were also paper patched. In addition, all rifles had a false muzzle which had 4 pins and the false muzzle fitted onto end of the barrell. The false muzzle was part of the original barrell and then cut off. It was also slightly tapered so that the slug entered the barrell sized and entered the bore straight. I have seen the false muzzle used on many lighter weight bench guns as well front-end loading.
he matches were fired I think at several distances, 200 yds. and up to maybe 600 yds.
These Slug Gun matches did not have a lot of contestants. I think less than 20 and they all knew each other. They were all very capable machineists, and if not T & D makers, or at least well versed in their machine shop. Because of the weight of the equipment, they were permitted to have their cars very close to the firing line.
I believe that this type of rifle was developed during the US Civil War for long range sniping.
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