Essential supplies 4 new BP owner

I would start with:
Hoppes Black powder bore cleaner
.50 call jag
.50 cal bronze brush
A dedicated range rod with threads that match the jag etc.
Hoppes #9 to wipe it down with as rust preventer.
Cut up an old tshirt into approximately 2" squares. (Waffle knit cotton is the best) for cleaning patches.

Welcome to the forum and BP shooting.

what armeored farmer said there easy to load for to.
hot soapy water is your friend when cleaning.
Starline brass
Lee 50cal mold
I use Lyman dies they work fine
I would do about 55 grains of black that's the old spring field carbine load by volume.
I make wads from those cork sheets for lighter loads to fill the case.

I have no experience with the Hoppe’s bore cleaner. Not trying to contradict anyone but I have not had to use anything other than soapy water and Ballistol for cleaning and lubrication. It’s hard for me to imagine that any BP shooter would not have a can of Ballistol at hand.

You get used to the smell.

Maintaining the gun isn't much different from maintaining any gun. Loading for the thing is a more complex subject. The information is on the internet, but you have to really work to separate the wheat from the chaff. I am glad to have bought some books about it - I think I avoided most of the pitfalls early on. The Steve Garbe book "Black Powder Cartridge Reloading Primer" was probably my most useful book when I was getting started.

Congrats on your new gun! Nice score!!

Ballistol is great stuff. It easily mixes with water and will allow it to evaporate leaving just the oil to protect. No need to use WD-40 and them remove that to oil as many do, and I did way back when. In a pinch it can be used to saturate the fouling if you find you don’t have time to clean it when you get home. I’ve tried it and it works.

If you find yourself shooting this thing a fair bit and bullets are hard to come by and/or spendy, you may want to get your hands on a basic bullet casting setup. I shoot a 54 cal muzzleloading rifle and the manufacturers have largely stopped offering anything but round balls in the caliber. It is nice to be able to find a vintage mold and crank out whatever I please.

^
I second that! I like wide meplat bikers for hunting, and there weren’t many options. I had bought Kaido’s modified Lee bullets but they were $40/100 + shipping (later upped to $50). A pound of lead at the scrap yard was $1/lb so that’s 35 of my 195 grn bullets for a dollar with no shipping, no worries about availability, and no hassles. Or for balls I get 48/lb all for a very nice price, which has paid for all of my casting equipment by now.

Just Googled the Ammo. Buffalo Arms. $66 for 20 rounds. That’s definitely an excuse to gear up and hand load.

Armored farmer said:

Hoppes #9 to wipe it down with as rust preventer.

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I hope you mean Hoppes' #9 with Weatherguard, as the original Hoppe's #9 is a solvent, and only a solvent and doesn't protect against rust. Note that the label says nothing about rust prevention. My father found this out the hard way on several of his shotguns.



You can use Hoppe's #9 oil, and it will give a level of rust resistance, but again the solvent doesn't help you, other than taking off finger prints which may be acidic. I have no idea what they add if anything to their oil that they call "weatherguard", but it may be more than marketing.

LD

I've never shot a BP like yours so you may use powder, patch, bullet but I will say this is what I use for my modern inline muzzleloader. The TC Flaskview is the greatest thing ever.

You will need to put your powder into a loader of some type and the flaskview is awesome.

When you fire your .50 70 Government Sharps carbine, to save you the wasteful expenditure of lead and black powder, I would consider the following:

If your carbine is anything like mine, it is probably sighted in for 200 or 300 yards. Does anyone know for sure where these were designed to hit with the rear sight as low as possible?

I would probably fire ONE round at both 50 and 100 yards to see if you hit the paper. My guess is you won't. My experience IIRC was at 50 yards I never touched the paper. At 100 yards the first shot never touched the paper but hit the cable above the target that supports the mat for the target. I think I then aimed at the ground right at the horizon and put shots in the target. That gun club has no range greater than 100 yards. I have since joined a gun club with a 200 yard range but have yet to fire my .50 70 carbine at 200 yards.

No idea with that rifle. I know a marine mechanic welder with one, but she's scary. Probably makes everything herself. I'll ask her. In general as a noob I find a clothes pin, appropriate screwdriver(s), Good containers for caps, balls, powder, ( cartridges? ), A big rubbermaid storage container or kiddie pool for bathtime, and what we called in the Navy 'ditty bags' of various sizes to keep your small gear stowed smartly to be helpful to me at this stage of general noobiness I'm at. GORGEOUS RIFILE btw. Congratulations.

rodwha said:

^
I had bought Kaido’s modified Lee bullets but they were $40/100 + shipping (later upped to $50). A pound of lead at the scrap yard was $1/lb so that’s 35 of my 195 grn bullets for a dollar with no shipping, no worries about availability, and no hassles. Or for balls I get 48/lb all for a very nice price, which has paid for all of my casting equipment by now.

Click to expand...

I consider Kaido a friendly acquaintance, we chat all the time. Never met in person. I'm going yell quietly at that sawed off gentleman of adventure. Respectfully. I bought his last 2 cavity 140grain VKV .36 and he gifted me 6 220s and 6 240s. I did not know he would make them for fifty cents a piece. I'm going to sell some for him before I get my six cavity 220 .44. I would definitely have a VKV mold for that rifle IF I were having a four digit budget to kit that out, getting one for my .44 revolvers as he already has some on hand..
I ran through the 240s at our makeshift range in a cornfield since I had to load off revolver, not enough loading gate. A friend and I also shot the 220s' one day when I shot my 1860 dry plinking at some trash before we picked it up. We loaded the 220s in the field and did some impromptu 'ballistics' testing. My guy was sold on them before we even checked penetration. Just for accuracy in my 1858 earlier and 1860 that day. 35 grains 2f pyrodex if memory serves, cci #10 caps. Piettas.
Might sell a 240 mold to my girl who has this same rifle and a sharps breechloader in .45.
Hovey's fb video uncut of him trying to video a charging hog is priceless.
Hovey _Mr_Rogers_voice_ " Kaido, first we shoot the charging pig then we take pictures" I almost fell out of my adventure armchair. The YouTube appears edited to discourage Kaido like displays of calm by poseurs like myself?
In any case, if Kaido had enough interest to justify having a run of molds made, he would definitely design a 50 for this gun. Or he could possibly be persuaded to give up the specs that he would have cut? I'll ask him.

50/70 isn't muzzleloading. It IS black powder cartridge. Lots of info on this forum- http://bpcr.net/forum/

Bullets aren't expensive if you get into casting. The bullet size for it is common. You WILL need to slug the bore to get the right sized boolit. The boolit will have to be about +.005 over bore size. Many molds are available in nominally 50cal, you just need one that drops at the diameter and weight you're after. Cast only pure lead as the barrel steel from back in the day is not what it is today. It is entirely possible to destroy the rifling with a steady diet of too hard lead alloy. Stick to pure lead. Another word of caution here, don't get wrapped up looking for tons of power. This is a precursor to the original 45/70. You won't need tons of stuff either. Your main expense in start up is brass. Starline makes it.

perldog007 said:

I consider Kaido a friendly acquaintance, we chat all the time. Never met in person. I'm going yell quietly at that sawed off gentleman of adventure. Respectfully. I bought his last 2 cavity 140grain VKV .36 and he gifted me 6 220s and 6 240s. I did not know he would make them for fifty cents a piece. I'm going to sell some for him before I get my six cavity 220 .44. I would definitely have a VKV mold for that rifle IF I were having a four digit budget to kit that out, getting one for my .44 revolvers as he already has some on hand..
I ran through the 240s at our makeshift range in a cornfield since I had to load off revolver, not enough loading gate. A friend and I also shot the 220s' one day when I shot my 1860 dry plinking at some trash before we picked it up. We loaded the 220s in the field and did some impromptu 'ballistics' testing. My guy was sold on them before we even checked penetration. Just for accuracy in my 1858 earlier and 1860 that day. 35 grains 2f pyrodex if memory serves, cci #10 caps. Piettas.
Might sell a 240 mold to my girl who has this same rifle and a sharps breechloader in .45.
Hovey's fb video uncut of him trying to video a charging hog is priceless.
Hovey _Mr_Rogers_voice_ " Kaido, first we shoot the charging pig then we take pictures" I almost fell out of my adventure armchair. The YouTube appears edited to discourage Kaido like displays of calm by poseurs like myself?
In any case, if Kaido had enough interest to justify having a run of molds made, he would definitely design a 50 for this gun. Or he could possibly be persuaded to give up the specs that he would have cut? I'll ask him.

Click to expand...

Got a link to that video?

rodwha said:

Got a link to that video?

Click to expand...

it was on Hovey or Kaido's page or in my fb messenger. Here is the YouTube by Hovey. Hovey is in the uncut video saying that right after the shot. It was hysterical. Those are two good guys to hide behind in a melee. My guess only. I'll try to find the uncut one. Kaido sends out a lot of videos in messenger. Probably buried in there somewhere.