Ginormous
Member
Hi, I am a new BP shooter, having recently purchased a Uberti '58 Remington NMA from a regular on this forum (thanks Voodochile!), and an unfired Uberti '48 1st Model Dragoon from another forum. Both pistols are just too cool for words, and I am really pleased to have acquired them at very fair prices. The '58 Remington is finished in a low maintenance phospate-like black matte called "Millenium" on the box. The Dragoon has a standard bluing job, which is very nicely done. The fit and finish on the Dragoon is particularly good, while the Remmie shows it's definitely shared the love with its' former owners.
I did replace the '58's cylinder bolt with a new one from VTI Gun Parts to address a bit of rotational cylinder play. Lockup at battery was a bit tighter after the minor smithing, although I would not have been afraid to shoot it as it had arrived. My S&W Model 66 has a similar amount of rotational play, lines up well with the forcing cone and doesn't "spit" lead or copper when fired.
OK, so yesterday dawned sunny and warmish. Perfect weather for a day at the range. I knew from previous visits to the local indoor ranges that BP shooting was unwelcome, and that suited me just fine, since I really didn't want anyone I knew to see me with the new smokers.
Well, at least until I knew if I was going to be able to hit anything with them.
So I headed up to the Adairsville, Ga Sporting Range, where I had visited briefly before and knew BP shooting would be welcome.
My "possibles bag" consists of a Harbor Freight nylon tool bag. Works great, until I discovered BP shooting required quite a bit more stuff to be on hand than I was used to. No problem, I'll get a larger leather tool bag next week from the same source. Problem solved. Here's my shooting luggage as it looked yesterday:
Yeah, some improvement is definitely required.
So I arrive and check in, have a pistol lane assigned to me, buy a few targets, rent eye protection (left mine at home), unpack my stuff, and start the loading process. Over in the rifle range area I can hear the rapid staccato crack of semi-automatic rifle fire. I smirk to myself, as the gentleman of leisure that I now fancy to be, about how superior my carefully prepared loads are to their hastily fired cram and jam sessions. Now I had practiced this process in my mind a hundred times before this point, but what really struck me was how much S-L-O-W-E-R this was compared to my other revolvers. I wasn't in a hurry, but I really wish I had bought a BP cylinder loading press to speed things up . . . a bit anyway. Okay, no problem, mentally added this to my shortlist of necessaries to acquire, so I'll look around for something fit the bill.
At any rate, I hit my rhythm, and loaded up the Remmie first, minus caps, and placed it off to the side in it's holster. Did the same with the Dragoon. Next I hung my target, moved it out to 15 yards, picked up and capped the Remmie without too much drama (darned fingers are too fat for this, get a capper dummy!), drew my bead on the center diamond, squeezed the trigger, and Boom! Not a crack, but a Boom! And smoke. Lots of smoke. And the smell, like the 4th of July! It was pungent and earthy and STRONG!. I loved it! Shooting this pistol reminded you that it was fire, nitre, brimstone and carbon combusting rapidly that made that lead ball fly! No fancy smokeless, nitrocelllulose based powders hiding the inner workings here. No sir! This was shooting the way God intended. Oh, and I still had 5 more to go! Which I did, all without fail. Couldn't wait for the big boy after this. In short order, 6 more lead balls were sent down the range, in even more dramatic fashion, impacting the upper right diamond of the target. The groups were darned good! In fact, so good I brought the target back to REALLY look at it and count the holes. I was ecstatic, both pistols on my first outing gave groups I would have been proud of with my S&W.
There I am standing at that range, all alone, and gloating over my good fortune, and newly perceived expertice with BP arms, when I hear "Dad?" Huh? I look over my shoulder to see who has mistaken me for their father. To my genuine surprise it IS my 19 yr. old college attending daughter, her boyfriend, and a friend of his carrying an "Evil Black Rifle". An AK to be exact. They had been the ones at the rifle range I had heard earlier! So I offered up the opportunity to shoot my pistols, which the fellows didn't seem too interested in doing. Evil Black Gun syndrome was is full swing on those two! My daughter, much to my amazement, wanted to shoot them, well the "big one" anyway! So I loaded up the Dragoon with a milder load, explained how a single action revolver functioned, and let her shoot the same target I already had pinned. Her first group is the string along the upper to lower left side of the target. Not too bad for a 100 lb. young lady holding with all her strength an almost 5 lb. gun at arms length! I loaded the Remmie with 25 grains of BP, and let her shoot that one at the lower right diamond. A much better group. Things however weren't progressing fast enough for her tastes, so she went back with to rifle range for more instant gratification. Oh well, more shooting for me, har! And I did, happily.
It was a great day, I had a blast at the range with my 2 new acquisitons, and even better, got to spend and unplanned afternoon with my ever on the move daughter! Late Friday evening, I received an email from my daughter that simply said "had fun today! lets do it again soon." Wow. Cool.
Here are our groups as described above - mine center and upper right, her's left and lower right:
The Remmie and it's first group at center - 35 gr. Swiss 3Fg BP, Speer 140 gr. .454 RB:
Colt Dragoon and it's first group at upper right - 45 gr. Swiss 3Fg BP, Same Speer ball as Remington:
Everybody out for a look around:
Daughter with "Evil Black Rifle":
--
Ginormous
I did replace the '58's cylinder bolt with a new one from VTI Gun Parts to address a bit of rotational cylinder play. Lockup at battery was a bit tighter after the minor smithing, although I would not have been afraid to shoot it as it had arrived. My S&W Model 66 has a similar amount of rotational play, lines up well with the forcing cone and doesn't "spit" lead or copper when fired.
OK, so yesterday dawned sunny and warmish. Perfect weather for a day at the range. I knew from previous visits to the local indoor ranges that BP shooting was unwelcome, and that suited me just fine, since I really didn't want anyone I knew to see me with the new smokers.
Well, at least until I knew if I was going to be able to hit anything with them. So I headed up to the Adairsville, Ga Sporting Range, where I had visited briefly before and knew BP shooting would be welcome.
My "possibles bag" consists of a Harbor Freight nylon tool bag. Works great, until I discovered BP shooting required quite a bit more stuff to be on hand than I was used to. No problem, I'll get a larger leather tool bag next week from the same source. Problem solved. Here's my shooting luggage as it looked yesterday:
Yeah, some improvement is definitely required.
So I arrive and check in, have a pistol lane assigned to me, buy a few targets, rent eye protection (left mine at home), unpack my stuff, and start the loading process. Over in the rifle range area I can hear the rapid staccato crack of semi-automatic rifle fire. I smirk to myself, as the gentleman of leisure that I now fancy to be, about how superior my carefully prepared loads are to their hastily fired cram and jam sessions. Now I had practiced this process in my mind a hundred times before this point, but what really struck me was how much S-L-O-W-E-R this was compared to my other revolvers. I wasn't in a hurry, but I really wish I had bought a BP cylinder loading press to speed things up . . . a bit anyway. Okay, no problem, mentally added this to my shortlist of necessaries to acquire, so I'll look around for something fit the bill.
At any rate, I hit my rhythm, and loaded up the Remmie first, minus caps, and placed it off to the side in it's holster. Did the same with the Dragoon. Next I hung my target, moved it out to 15 yards, picked up and capped the Remmie without too much drama (darned fingers are too fat for this, get a capper dummy!), drew my bead on the center diamond, squeezed the trigger, and Boom! Not a crack, but a Boom! And smoke. Lots of smoke. And the smell, like the 4th of July! It was pungent and earthy and STRONG!. I loved it! Shooting this pistol reminded you that it was fire, nitre, brimstone and carbon combusting rapidly that made that lead ball fly! No fancy smokeless, nitrocelllulose based powders hiding the inner workings here. No sir! This was shooting the way God intended. Oh, and I still had 5 more to go! Which I did, all without fail. Couldn't wait for the big boy after this. In short order, 6 more lead balls were sent down the range, in even more dramatic fashion, impacting the upper right diamond of the target. The groups were darned good! In fact, so good I brought the target back to REALLY look at it and count the holes. I was ecstatic, both pistols on my first outing gave groups I would have been proud of with my S&W.
There I am standing at that range, all alone, and gloating over my good fortune, and newly perceived expertice with BP arms, when I hear "Dad?" Huh? I look over my shoulder to see who has mistaken me for their father. To my genuine surprise it IS my 19 yr. old college attending daughter, her boyfriend, and a friend of his carrying an "Evil Black Rifle". An AK to be exact. They had been the ones at the rifle range I had heard earlier! So I offered up the opportunity to shoot my pistols, which the fellows didn't seem too interested in doing. Evil Black Gun syndrome was is full swing on those two!
My daughter, much to my amazement, wanted to shoot them, well the "big one" anyway! So I loaded up the Dragoon with a milder load, explained how a single action revolver functioned, and let her shoot the same target I already had pinned. Her first group is the string along the upper to lower left side of the target. Not too bad for a 100 lb. young lady holding with all her strength an almost 5 lb. gun at arms length! I loaded the Remmie with 25 grains of BP, and let her shoot that one at the lower right diamond. A much better group. Things however weren't progressing fast enough for her tastes, so she went back with to rifle range for more instant gratification. Oh well, more shooting for me, har! And I did, happily.It was a great day, I had a blast at the range with my 2 new acquisitons, and even better, got to spend and unplanned afternoon with my ever on the move daughter! Late Friday evening, I received an email from my daughter that simply said "had fun today! lets do it again soon." Wow. Cool.
Here are our groups as described above - mine center and upper right, her's left and lower right:
The Remmie and it's first group at center - 35 gr. Swiss 3Fg BP, Speer 140 gr. .454 RB:
Colt Dragoon and it's first group at upper right - 45 gr. Swiss 3Fg BP, Same Speer ball as Remington:
Everybody out for a look around:
Daughter with "Evil Black Rifle":
--
Ginormous
) Her biggest is a 16.5 hand Percheron gelding, about 1500 lbs. of fence jumping draught horse. He doesn't know any better, all her other horses are jumpers, presumably he thinks that his job too. Really unnerving to watch that huge horse with such a small rider jumping 3' fences. The clomp on landing makes the ground shudder. 
