Want To Enter The World of BP Rifles.....

One great thing about shooting BP is that you can improvise most aspects of it - lots of tools needed, but very little that can't be had for cheap or made for free.

Casting is very easy - as long as you've got a safe area outside to do the casting and a $20 lee mold you're pretty much set to cast. When I first began I used a tuna can for a melting pot, bend nose pliers for holding it, spoon for clearing the dross off the top and a nice .50 mold. Made sure to keep a good breeze through the area for fumes and used a pan to police the dross and spare lead bits from getting spread around and makes cleanup easier.

For patching some thin pillow ticking or really any thin cotton fabric that will make up the difference between the bore diameter and ball diameter will work. Patch lube can be saliva or a nice grease lube of some kind (save your bacon fat and render it down to tallow, mix with bees wax according to outdoor temperature). Any sort of flexible rubber tube that will fit into the barrel will work as a blow tube - sometimes barrels will coke up and blowing a good breath of air down the barrel helps soften it sometimes and gets some extra shots out of it. Blow tube keeps your face away from the muzzle.

Only thing that's not intuitive is getting a non-wooden ram rod. Wood's ok as long as the grain's straight, but even so, rods can snap when ramming and you can end up with a dowel in your hand. They make flexible plastic rods that work well, or if you're shooting in one spot, brass range rods are great as well (they really help if the bore's coked up). Odds are a wooden rod won't break, but no sense in taking the risk when the solution's an easy one.
 
I have buddies with inlines and have never shot them yet.As I now was the only one with any experience they asked me to come with them to buy supplies.What an eye opener!!!Start to price 777 pellets,sabots,jacketed bullets,shotgun primers and you will see you can lay down a good buck.A patched round ball can be pretty economical to shoot comparatively even if you don't cast[another path this sport can take you down and on my list]I have put over 500 rounds through my rifle in less than 10 months.I am not up on the cost of maxi balls etc compared to round ball but casting your own down the road would add to the experience.It was rewarding taking game with my first hand loaded centerfires and would be really fine to hit what you aim at with your own bullet whether it be game or target!
 
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B_noser said:
I must disagree on one point.
I would not use bacon fat in a lube. It contains salt and one of the last things I would want in
my barrel is salt.
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Technically potassium nitrate is a salt so you already have some in there :p But you'll see from the rest of the sentence that I said for making tallow. You do that by rendering fat down to make a neutral fat - it's stable and if done well will have pretty much no salt or anything else left in it.
 
I have been spending too much time on the Loyalist Arms website recently, and it will end up costing me money I just know it! Many historically significant pieces there for reasonable prices, and several CGNers have spoken favorably of them...
 
leverboy said:
...better not shoot black powder in it then...lol
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I don't know about you, but I clean my gun after each shooting session. I would prefer not to be obliged to do it after just running a lubed patch down the spout.
It has worked for me for 40 years. You are welcome to lube with whatever you want. I will avoid known corrosives.
 
You didn't say if you want to hunt with this new toy or if it'll be just for range and plinking giggles.

If you don't mind more cost I do believe that you can import BP muzzle loaders directly from the US through dealers such as Track of the Wolf and others. These will cost you as much as a Pedersoli. But you stand to get an even better product. They do take their BP shooting seriously down there after all.

When I jumped into the BP muzzle loaders I wanted something as different as possible from the modern stuff. So I went with flintlocks. I'm very happy that I did. The contrast is HUGE but that's what makes it fun. If you're concerned that the difference may be too much don't be. Oh sure, there's tricks to learn and a whole and seriously different shooting experience to contend with. But that big POOF! in front of my face is worth it all and then some.... :D
 
Glen: The rifle shoots great,it's the jerk on the trigger needs some work.In saying that I have been taking grouse at 20+/-yds with head shots and a rest.At our last shoot [of which I did not read the instructions having shot at least 8 shots more than prescribed] I counted 2 bulls and 10 hits in or cutting the 10 line.I did not have my targets scored so I do not know how they may have scored properly.One round consisted of 33 shots 17@ 25 , 11 @ 50 and 5 @ 100 yds.I could be off on that too not having read the rules .I only hit the target 3 times out of 7 @100.Because of my eyesight I have been experimenting with sights and am using an aperature sight which disqualifies me in any case.It is a fun shoot and no one is really too concerned as long as were all having fun.It is all off hand shooting and to be honest I should retire now as I do not shoot that well normally.I am still working on patch/ball combinations and will have to go to the bench for that.Now weighing and sorting balls and will look to start making my own .I have found the hand cast ones I have been buying much more consistant.
Michael
 
bandanaman said:
Glen: The rifle shoots great,it's the jerk on the trigger needs some work.In saying that I have been taking grouse at 20+/-yds with head shots and a rest.At our last shoot [of which I did not read the instructions having shot at least 8 shots more than prescribed] I counted 2 bulls and 10 hits in or cutting the 10 line.I did not have my targets scored so I do not know how they may have scored properly.One round consisted of 33 shots 17@ 25 , 11 @ 50 and 5 @ 100 yds.I could be off on that too not having read the rules .I only hit the target 3 times out of 7 @100.Because of my eyesight I have been experimenting with sights and am using an aperature sight which disqualifies me in any case.It is a fun shoot and no one is really too concerned as long as were all having fun.It is all off hand shooting and to be honest I should retire now as I do not shoot that well normally.I am still working on patch/ball combinations and will have to go to the bench for that.Now weighing and sorting balls and will look to start making my own .I have found the hand cast ones I have been buying much more consistant.
Michael
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Offhand shooting is pretty tough, for sure. All those 10-rings doesn't sound too bad to me, though!
Couple of questions; are you cleaning the bore between shots? What are you lubing your patches with?
I found that swabbing between shots improved my groups fairly dramatically. I believe that the reason for that is at least partly because it allows you to use a tighter fitting patch, without having to bash the thing down with a hammer. Pushing a tightly patched ball down a clean bore is much easier than a dirty one. With the Gibbs rifle, I pour in the powder, then seat a card wad gently on top, then wipe the bore with windex, then a dry patch. Another strategy, is to clean before pouring in the powder, but you have to be careful, or you will have problems with misfires and hang fires.
I used spit for patch lube for years, until I bought Dutch Schoultz's book. Now I use a mixture of water soluble cutting oil, water, and isopropyl alcohol. Soak the patches, then let them dry out for a couple of days The water and alcohol evaporate, leaving only the oil in the patch. The idea here is to have only a small amount of lube, and very consistent form one patch to the next. You can #### around with the mixture to achieve varying amounts of lube left on the patch. The alcohol is to keep algae from growing in the mixture if you store it for long periods of time (thanks to Mooncoon for that).
Hope you don't mind the unsolicited advice....
Oh, and apologies to the original poster, for hijacking your thread.
Glen
 
I found this site a few years ago they have used and new custom muzzleloaders.

ht tp://www.thegunworks.com
 
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I have a Lyman .54 Deerstalker flintlock and just love it. It is more compact than most muzzleloaders and I just love that when I am out deer hunting (24" blued barrel with 1:48" twist and 41" overall lenth, weighing in at 7.5lbs). You can also add various sight options or even a scope if you wanted, and it allows you a modern sling too. Here's a pic of it being shot for the first time awhile back (I put in 100 grains of FFF in this picture, but have since dialed it in to 70 grains for hunting).

All I'll say is, once you get bit by the BP bug, there is no turning back! :)
Flintlock_zps354b33d3.jpg
 
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