Range day!
I decided I needed a little range time ot keep from using my firearms on other things, and i wanted to confirm what my coalburner was going to do after a year of idleness, so I dragged it off to the range and sat down for some shooting.
First of all, I realized I had forgotten not only my targets, but my spotting scope. After a few moments of rummaging in the truck, I managed to find a couple unmarked pieces of cardboard and two lonely shoot-n-C dots.
So i hung my piece of cardboard, and settled in to burn some coal. I found, to my delight, that not only was the scope still on, I was also still able to put holes where I wanted them. I was shooting within minutes of squirrel, and I only needed minutes of deer. I put nine shots in a three inch circle at 50 yards; anyone who shoots at deer further away than that with a 20″ barrel coalburner is nuts.
Wrapping things up, I managed to BREAK MY DAMNED RAMROD.
I was so pissed I could have screamed.
Anyway, I went to my favorite local spt to try to replace it, and they didn’t have what i wanted, which was the self-extending CVA rod. So I ended up with a cut-to-length aluminum rod.
I also got a right-length birch dowel, nice and straight, and I cut the ends down on a table saw and fitted the old ramrod tips to it. As I was doing so, It dawned on me: I have done this before.
I did it before building my first coalburner, a 40 caliber, years and years ago. I had a friend who set up to make several, so we found stock and drew it out octagonal, draw filed it by hand, stress-relieved and ground it, and bored the barrel. We rifled the barrels by hand, six grooves, .025 deep, .005 per pass, five passes per groove. We put in the breechplugs and fitted curly maple stocks. We also stored cow urine, burned willow stumps for charcoal, and dug sulphur to make our own blackpowder. Bastard shot like crazy. We made five rifles in all. I ended up giving mine away, the guy still has it and loves it, you just can’t use .40 in Indiana to hunt deer.
So every time I get down thinking about the stupidity of the pelosi’s of the world, and the bullshit to come, I think, I can make my own damned guns. I can make my own powder. I can do everything necesary to make a firearm that will be the equal of anyting around.
Bring it on, folks.
Percussion or flint, Og? I was going to do it too, you could buy all the lockwork and crap from Dixie Gunworks years ago. Dunno about making my own powder though…did you corn your powder, Og? I have never heard of anybody actually making their own powder.
Can you go into more detail?
Percussion. I got the lock off an old shotgun. Best place to buy a lock, actually, lots of old external hammer shotguns out there.
As for the black powder, you can make it with willow charcoal, sulfer, and stale urine. Pick up a Foxfire book at the library, I think it’s number 5. Have to experiment a lot, and you have to do a lot before you can make it consistent. S’why I use Pyrodex now, non corrosive, always exactly the same.
If you go flint though, I have to say that pyrodex doesn’t charge a pan for shit. Nothing beats good old 4F black powder for flint ignition (3F works fine too, if you keep your touchhole clean).
Come to think of it, I should see if Contagion wants to go in on another 25lb shipment before the commie bastards try banning BP sales…
Grau, I have a small flask of 4f and a can of goex when I want to shoot the pistols. Otherwise I’m all about convenience.
I can respect that. Hell, if I was hunting I’d probably use the pyrodex for the simple fact that you can buy it off the shelf around here (unlike BP which is classified as an explosive, not a propellant).
Save my BP for rendezvous time :)
Where do you dig for sulfer? And does the type of wood make a difference when it comes to making charcoal? Since I am on this line of thought, what is a good way to learn how to make your own black powder? I made some in highschool, but that was with science lab grade material.
petey, there are hundreds of resources online, and more at your local public library.
Sulphur deposits form around volcanic vents. You can also buy flowers of sulphur at most drugstores.
I got here just by typeing coalburner shooting and found this to be an exciting site, “Homemade bp” what a friggin’ hoot. I came to bp shooting by chance, at a quaker yard sale a floor lamp was a 1867 remington rolling block and I bought it for 5.00, shoots fine bp .45-70 with 3″ ladder sights. Then once that was so, a free muzzleloader from me brother, a free 1858 unfired remington-beals. So I bought a colt s.a.a., bp frame and last week I had to have the Ruger new vaquero with 7.5 barrel and all weekend we were burning coal.