Love BP now more than fixed ammo guns now

[Tallbald]

Having three Ruger Old Armies in the stable, I've found myself becoming more and more fascinated by black powder arms, almost to the exclusion of fixed cartridge guns. I credit my change in focus at least in part to the wonderful folks on this forum, who have offered encouragement and knowledge to members new to this area of the shooting sports. Perhaps my enthusiasm stems from a bit of boredom with fixed cartridge approaches after almost 50 years of same. Maybe it's the leather and wood accessories I can make for myself to further the enjoyment of black powder. The boom, the fire and smoke delight me like firecrackers did as a youngster. Perhaps it's also a willingness as I age to "slow down" and enjoy conversation with fellow BP shooters at the range between shots, and the concerted effort that each shot requires just to launch lead down range. I've often been told I should buy a cartridge conversion cylinder for my Old Army's, but really they don't interest me. For me, to do so would negatively impact the pleasure I get loading loose powder, wads and ball. And I have much more efficient revolvers at my disposal if I want to shoot fixed ammunition.
Nothing really of value to share with the group except my appreciation for the kindnesses shown by members here as I learn more about this exciting hobby. Thanks all. Don

 

[Crawdad1]

Don, I agree 100% with everything you just said. Maybe it is the leisurely pace or maybe it is all of the effort used and the satisfaction received, I don't know. All I know is; I really love to shoot black powder revolvers.

 

[rodwha]

I also find much more interest in them as well. I think a part of it the focus it takes, and how in-depth you can get involved.

I found that I'm greatly enjoying casting my own projectiles, punching my own wads and patches, and creating my own lube (Gatofeo's). I was even making paper cartridges for my ROA for a while, though now I have speed loader tubes.

The smoke and thunder is amazing, and just about always gets people over to my corner asking questions, if not just checking it out. I even had a RO come by and tell me that they don't allow heavy magnums (41 Mag and up) on the pistol range any more. I had to explain that it's a bit deceiving in that it's closer to a 45 Colt +P (not Ruger only but ~500 ft/lbs). One friend of mine who goes with me is still reluctant to try it out. All of that scary fire and smoke and all!

I think it amazes many with how accurate they can be. I know my ROA is capable of extreme accuracy as I'm not an exceptional shot by any means, but my 15 yd targets often look like, or better than, the 7 yd targets of some of the fellows with their autoloaders.

 

[toolslinger]

I wish to be associated with these comments. The process and the guns themselves are fascinating. I own
2 ROA's
A Walker
3rd Dragoon
Remmie
G&G
'60 Army
'51 Navy
And even though I am not home to fondle them in the last week I have managed to find great prices on 2 of my grail guns a Rogers & Spencer and a double barrel 12 bore

 

[grter]

Muzzleloading with all it's extra steps can be more fun at the range than cartridge guns.

That said the one thing I do not love is the corrosive nature of black powder and even more so it's substitutes (Pyrodex etc...)

I do not care much for the soot either, but dealing with soot can also be fun if not for the fact that it will ruin your guns in short time.

If reenacters or other want an authentic black powder experience they should design a Sub that produces all the smoke and soot without leaving metal destroying corrosives embeded in every nook and crany of your gun.

That would be nice.

I still love the boom, huge smoke cloud, and load tayloring of a muzzleloader. I also think their effectivness are way way underated by those who are ignorant of balistics based on experience and observation in the old days.

 

[Phantom Captain]

I'm the same way. I grew up with them thanks to my late father and still have the passion and love of everything BP.

As a caveat though, I have to say I also REALLY love loading for and shooting BP cartridge guns, only with hand cast bullets and real BP of course. It's a nice mix of the old and the new.

 

[Armored farmer]

Yea, I'm there too guys. I have had a tremendous amount of enjoyment the last several yrs with these cap 'n ball revolvers. I enjoy making my own wads, casting balls, making accessories, and just plain old fiddling with the gear. Not to mention having the gun delivered to my door without a FFL.
There's nothing like exploding a target amidst a robust white smoke ring! Very satisfying.

8" '58 Uberti; 5 1/2" '58 Pietta; 5 1/2" '51 Marshall Pietta.

 

[swathdiver]

In addition to the nice things already mentioned, I enjoy letting others shoot them and get a chuckle as guys come up to the line with 2 or 3 guns each, fire off 100 round in 10 minutes from their pop guns at 21 feet and leave. Meanwhile my daughters are shooting their revolvers at 50 foot B2 targets.

 

[Nite Ryder]

Tallbald,

It is nice to read a post from someone with a positive attitude. When it comes to Black Powder, Ifeel very much the same. I bought two converters and I've used them with both BP and smokeless powder, but I always go back to using just plain old triple FG. Why bother to put powder in brass cases when it is so easy to just dump it in a hole in a cylinder? Years ago when I first got into using my ROA's, I sold most of my other big bore revolvers, but I've ended up buying replacements over the years until now I have more than I started with. Anyway you look at it, Black Powder guns, and shooting continues to be fun.

 

[Fingers McGee]

That said the one thing I do not love is the corrosive nature of black powder and even more so it's substitutes (Pyrodex etc...)

I do not care much for the soot either, but dealing with soot can also be fun if not for the fact that it will ruin your guns in short time.

If reenacters or other want an authentic black powder experience they should design a Sub that produces all the smoke and soot without leaving metal destroying corrosives embeded in every nook and crany of your gun.

Black powder and substitutes are not as 'corrosive' as you make out. BP in and of itself will not corrode a firearm when left loaded. The residue after firing is hygroscopic and will cause rust to form; but that process can take days or weeks depending on the humidity. The 'corrosiveness' of using black powder was based on the corrosive nature of the percussion caps and primers being used a hundred years ago; not so today. Triple 7, Pinnacle, and APP is as forgiving in cleaning as real black powder is; while Pyrodex is less so.

 

[EljaySL]

Why bother to put powder in brass cases when it is so easy to just dump it in a hole in a cylinder?

I started making BP 45 Colt rounds when I started reloading because I felt more comfortable learning with black powder than smokeless. I shoot more cap and ball style but it's fun to change it up and use "modern" ammunition occasionally. I cast the boolits and that turned out to be a useful thing - I cast for a couple of smokeless calibers now as well.

I did find that while I use 777 in cap and ball I dip into my Goex supply for the 45 Colt. If you're going to remove the fun of loading manually I feel like the extra stink and smoke is necessary to perk things back up a bit.

 

[alsask]

I take my Lyman flintlock hunting, with a patched round ball, in the regular season. It just seems more fun.

 

[grter]

My main experience is with pyrodex. I have tried to find black powder but finding small amounts on the fly has always eluded me.

I cannot bring powder back from the range to where I reside due to laws so I have to use it all at the range.

I find Pyrodex works quite well except for that fact that not thoroughly cleaning out the residue after being fired within 24 hours has resulted in rust, damaged blueing, and an even more difficult to clean residue afterwards.

I did use windex to quick rinse followed by a thorough drying and then another rinsing with a black powder cleaning product and thorough drying so that may have been the cause but even though in the past I have found small rust spots (not serious but alarming nevertheless) if my cleaning was not thorough enough to get to every little bit of it.


Maybe I should try ballistol as many say it's great stuff.

 

[IROCZ]

I find myself agreeing with your feelings. I have the whole complement of modern and ultra modern guns (NO Inlines!) But when I want to enjoy my self at the range the BP powered guns are what makes for a satisfying day.

 

[Skinny 1950]

I have only been shooting for about four years now and bought my first gun even before I had a licence to own firearms. I ordered an 1851 Colt Navy (Uberti) from a dealer and was told it would take six months to arrive,this gave me lots of time to take the Canadian Firearms Safety Course and then apply for my Possession and Aquisition Licence (PAL), had to take a further course to acquire Restricted firearms. In this country modern reproductions of antiques are restricted...real antiques are considered non-guns and no license is required unless they are chambered for certain cartridges (the list is as long as your arm).
After passing all the police checks,courses and paper work and getting my RPAL in the mail my 1851 still hadn't showed up so I bought a Browning Buckmark .22LR to get used to the shooting of handguns which I had never done before.
When my 1851 finally arrived it had issues right out of the box and had to be sent out for repairs...that was disappointing but I had the Buckmark to keep on plinking with so I made it through.
My interests are mainly black powder but I have branched out to include many centre-fire handguns ie: 1873 SAA .45 Colt (this lead to re-loading) 1911 45ACP (classic) a couple of 9mm's.
I also have some rifles that I can use in case I ever have to hit something more than 10 yard away. I have a Remington revolving carbine, CVA 1970's Kit rifle .45Cal (work stilll in progress) also a Winchester Model 1894 in 30WCF and my latest "Aquisition" is a really nice .22LR bolt action rifle with a scope on it. I know this is blasphemy...I may have gone to far with this one but I made up for it by spending most yesterday at a (once a month) black powder shoot up at the range with the CVA and a .50 cal flint pistol.

 

[Noz]

The truly crazy ones are the ones that shoot C & B revolvers in CAS competition. Our home club(Me, Fingers, J-Bar) will frequently have 15-20% of our shooters shooting C & B.
One of our stalwarts is Chaos Jumbles that shoots a Dragoon on the left and a Walker on the right. Lots of smoke. Lots of fire. Lots of hoorah and occasionally some fairly fast times. Then there's Buffalo Bill Matthewson that shoots a pair of 1851s, gunfighter style.

 

[J-Bar]

The truly crazy ones are the ones that shoot C & B revolvers in CAS competition. Our home club(Me, Fingers, J-Bar) will frequently have 15-20% of our shooters shooting C & B.
One of our stalwarts is Chaos Jumbles that shoots a Dragoon on the left and a Walker on the right. Lots of smoke. Lots of fire. Lots of hoorah and occasionally some fairly fast times. Then there's Buffalo Bill Matthewson that shoots a pair of 1851s, gunfighter style.

Why do I hear Patsy Cline singing...???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-wJNpWgss8

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Why bother to put powder in brass cases when it is so easy to just dump it in a hole in a cylinder?

Well, let's see. Maybe it has something to do with how much faster it is to pop empties out and load new cartridges in than is possible with a C&B. You know how guys are always talking about needing extra cylinders and extra revolvers? You don't need that when you can just pop in fresh cartridges. All the old cartridges, 45 Colt, 45 Schofield, 44-40, 44 Russian, 38-40, 32-20, 25-20, were originally loaded with Black Powder.

I was down at my club one day wringing out some Black Powder 44-40 loads our of a lever gun. A guy came over and he was dumbfounded. Said he never knew that cartridge guns could fire Black Powder. He assumed that it was all muzzle loaders. He had never seen rapid fire with Black Powder.



And guess what else. You know what a pain it is to clean out all the nooks and crannies in the chambers of a C&B revolver? Guess what happens with a cartridge gun. You just soak your bore brush with your favorite water based BP solvent, twirl it a couple of times in each chamber from back to front, and they are clean as a whistle. Mop dry with a dry patch and oil with one patch soaked in Ballistol. Done! Much easier than cleaning a C&B cylinder. You don't even have to dry out the oil when you are done like you have to with a C&B because you are not dumping powder into an oily chamber.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that you don't have caps falling into the action and gumming everything up? You don't have to be messing with wedges and getting the gap just right, you just pop the cylinder out, clean it, clean the gun, then pop the cylinder back in.

How about Top Breaks?



Even quicker and easier to reload than a Colt. Break it open, all the empties fly out. Throw in five fresh ones, close it up, and you are back in business.





I can crank out Black Powder ammo almost as fast as I can crank out Smokeless ammo. I just run a little bit slower because the BP powder measure is not hooked up to the linkage and I have to throw it for every crank of the handle.





There are lots of good reasons to put Black Powder into a cartridge. That's why cartridges were invented.

P.S. I agree. Black Powder is nowhere near as corrosive as most folks think. It was the combination of BP fouling AND corrosive primers that did most of the corroding in the old days. We don't use corrosive primers (or corrosive caps for that matter) anymore, and BP is nowhere near as corrosive as most folks think. Can't speak for subs, I never use them. But BP has been getting a bad rap for a long time.

 

[Packman]

I have a whole safe (and then some) full of modern cartridge firearms that I hardly ever shoot anymore. I shoot my main ccw gun enough to be proficient, but you know what gets the most attention from me? My Pietta 1858 with the 8inch barrel. It's a ton of fun to shoot, it's cheaper than my 9mm, and it's hard not to grin like a fool when you see someone's smile light up when they first make it go BOOM!

I was out at the range a while back, and this guy had his wife out there with a full size .38. It kicked enough and had enough blast she was afraid of it. I took out that longbarrel Pietta, loaded up six powderpuff loads and had her try it. She loved that .44 and didn't stop grinning until she left. It made my day just watching her smile.

 

[MCgunner]

I got really into the BP guns, rifle and revolver, for a while, sorta quelled, but still love 'em. I don't go to the extent of carrying one concealed, but I do have my 5.5" 58 hanging from the bedpost.

We moved to the woods last year. I can now shoot at my leisure whenever I want. The Remmy and my ROA get a lot of shooting out here, especially with the .22 ammo crunch.