Couple of videos I shot yesterday while shooting...

John Rogers · 02-10-2015, 08:08 AM

Took the slug gun to the range yesterday and even though we had 15 knot wind the grouping at 100 yards was pretty good. This the one I made last winter and recently mounted a scope on it. I also made a scope and have experimented with it but the vision through it is not great due to the lenses which are the same as used in the 1850's or so. These are the second time I went with my GoPro and the sound came out much better.
http://youtu.be/T68FaTJJ8Do
http://youtu.be/e1ZEUDbW2OM

Target Picture:

HardDrive · 02-10-2015, 08:33 AM

Beautiful weapon!

02-10-2015, 01:14 PM

Agree - that's a work of art!

tabs · 02-10-2015, 02:11 PM

No wonder why Custer lost against the indians at the Bighorn. Custer saying, "Can you wait a minute while I reload," didn't go over too well with the indians. While Mr Rodgers was loading and firing one round I coulda got off a box of 100 with my AR and a coupla clips with my Glock.

So with that myopic notion expressed WELL DONE MR RODGERS.

But where is the False Muzzle and Short Starter?

72doug2,2S · 72doug2,2S's Garage

Beautiful gun, did you do the wood work?

Taz's Master · 02-10-2015, 02:43 PM

How satisfying it must be to build something so aesthetically pleasing and at the same time remarkably functional. Also, 5,600 grains of lead went through that target, it would take tabs' 100 rounds from an AR to equal that.

Seahawk · 02-10-2015, 03:26 PM

That looks like a lot of fun, John.

Beautiful rifle.

sc_rufctr · 02-10-2015, 03:50 PM

Great vids John. Beautiful gun.

Do you always swab out the barrel between shots?
Why the miss fires on the two shots? That would really annoy me. Is this normal?

Nostril Cheese · 02-10-2015, 03:51 PM

Nicely done.

John Rogers · 02-10-2015, 05:36 PM

Yes I did the wood work. That took about 5 weeks of sanding, scraping and more sanding. The stocks from most places come about 75% completed and the biggest item is to inlet the barrel channel and cut out the area for the patent breach/tang. That all gives the phrase measure twice.....cut once a real meaning. I sprayed on 20 coats of clear gloss lacquer and it was 2 days per coat so that took a while!

The apparent miss fires are from the percussion caps not seating fully on the nipple and it generally happens with ones from Europe, not ones made here. It happens because they are a bit tight and after the nipple gets some wear that goes away. The bullets are bore diameter after the wrap so no starter is needed and they swell when the black powder fires off and start the 0.060 fiber wad down the barrel. It is interesting to see the piece of paper fly out the barrel with the huge cloud of smoke and they generally are 50% destroyed. With a double wrap patch, the paper can go half way to the targets at times and can really upset the bullet, even one that big. In the late 1800's false muzzles were used with a cross type of patch until shooters started using bullet swaggers to reduce the size of the bullet, around 1880 or so I've read.

I wipe after each shot as the guns shoots better doing that. We have some shooters that will shoot a whole 25 shot match with no wipe at all until finished and their guns shoot well. That is just one of the items that make shooting these guns interesting. I did build a couple of AR-15s and a pair of 1000 yard high power rifles but got tired of them and sold them all (made some $$$$) and just shoot the muzzle loaders now.

Tobra · Tobra's Garage

One more thing added to the list of things to carry in your Altoids tin.

That is a very pretty weapon, groovy scope too. Do you have a photo? The fish eye effect on the video I have no doubt detracts from its beauty.

sc_rufctr · 02-10-2015, 09:31 PM

Thanks John

I've always loved the look of these old guns especially with the period telescopic sites.
Is it possible to take a photo looking through the site please? (Maybe using an iPhone)

I'm curious to see how good the optics are.

John Rogers · 02-11-2015, 07:38 AM

It appears the GoPro has several different ways to record video. The one I used here since these are the first few videos I shot is the wide angle shot. I figured it would show what is on the shooting bench better although you guys are right in that it does make the video a little harder to see detail. Probably next week I'll try the other settings to see how they work. One thing I noticed is how dammed long it takes to upload a video to YouTube so I plan to try some other formats to see if it can be sped up. The second video took several hours!

BlueSkyJaunte · 02-11-2015, 11:24 AM

Great stuff...and nice shooting.

Can't beat the ol' Holy Black for a fun afternoon! I guess I'm going to have to take video of my buffalo rifle's maiden voyage later this month.

Jeff Higgins · 02-11-2015, 04:09 PM

Outstanding stuff, John.

So, what are the particulars on the rifle, scope, and bullet?

John Rogers · 02-11-2015, 04:53 PM

The rifle is from a collection of parts I bought from Pecatonica River Supply. The barrel is a 1:16 twist 45 caliber Green Mountain with a patent breech. I shoot 90 grains of FFG Goex, 0.060 fiber material wad, 560 grain straight sided bullet with a Creedmoor nose. The bullet is a bore rider so after wrapping it slides down the barrel nicely. The paper is single wrap with 15# butcher paper or as properly named the Chase wrap system after the old fellow that invented it. The trigger has a 1 oz break after the rear is set.

The barrel floats in the channel with 2 contact points only and the scope in these videos is one of the Chinese Malcolm copies with 6x magnification. This one I bought from a guy back East who decided not to use scopes and I cut the dovetail and mounts for the rear mount which scared the hell out me as I did not want to ruin the barrel. The supplier said it would be 18 months of so before I could get a replacement! One of these days I plan to load up the full 120 grain 1000 yard load just to see how bad that really kicks.

Reiver · 02-11-2015, 05:00 PM

John,
Very nice...I have a couple of .54 cal Colonial flintlocks I really enjoy shooting. Colerain swamped barrels with round groove rifling.
Just great fun.

John Rogers · 02-11-2015, 05:04 PM

The Lehigh long rifle I built several years ago has a 42 inch Colerain 50 caliber barrel and shoot groups that touch out to 200 yards! It is a hard rifle to balance so I figure those guys 150 years ago were pretty darn tough!

BlueSkyJaunte · 02-11-2015, 06:14 PM

.45 caliber....are we talking .452 or .458? I'm not too familiar with muzzle loaders.

Jeff Higgins · 02-11-2015, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by john rogers

The rifle is from a collection of parts I bought from Pecatonica River Supply. The barrel is a 1:16 twist 45 caliber Green Mountain with a patent breech. I shoot 90 grains of FFG Goex, 0.060 fiber material wad, 560 grain straight sided bullet with a Creedmoor nose. The bullet is a bore rider so after wrapping it slides down the barrel nicely. The paper is single wrap with 15# butcher paper or as properly named the Chase wrap system after the old fellow that invented it. The trigger has a 1 oz break after the rear is set.

I noticed how easily the bullets seated. My patched round ball rifles are markedly harder to load than that.

Back when I was still competing, I remember several breach loading guys were playing with bore diameter bullets and doing quite well. I always stuck with groove diameter, or actually that +.001 to .002.

Quote:

Originally Posted by john rogers

The barrel floats in the channel with 2 contact points only and the scope in these videos is one of the Chinese Malcolm copies with 6x magnification. This one I bought from a guy back East who decided not to use scopes and I cut the dovetail and mounts for the rear mount which scared the hell out me as I did not want to ruin the barrel. The supplier said it would be 18 months of so before I could get a replacement! One of these days I plan to load up the full 120 grain 1000 yard load just to see how bad that really kicks.

In my experience, 120 grains always proved to be too much in a .45 caliber rifle. Granted, my experience is with breach loaders and fixed ammunition. That, and I always shot "dirty", using a blow tube rather than swabbing between shots. So, under those conditions, I found charges heavier than 90-95 grains got ahead of me, fouling-wise. Probably way different with a muzzle loader that you are swabbing, though.

On top of the fouling, however, when I did seat bullets out so I could load up to 110 grains in my .45-2.6" cases, recoil in my 14 pound '74 Sharps just got to be too much to get through a match. It wasn't "brutal" by any means, but rather just plain tiring. I did just as well (or actually even better) over the long haul with the 90-95 grain charges at 1,000 yards. So, don't despair if the 120 grain charge proves to be too much. The charge you are using now will work just fine at 1,000 yards.