Groomer Madness

Big storm on the way so day 2 of making sure the groomers are ready. Our fearless leader is actually on a snowmobiling trip to Idaho so today Ben and I went over to look at his Tucker:

A Tucker is a weird machine, I've heard it called "Farm Equipment with delusions of grandure." Its basically a 1ton truck with two rear axles and a cab over on tracks. The front axle pivots to steer. The blade on the front is 4 way, up, down and twist which is to say you can lift either end. You don't plow a whole lot with a Tucker because there is one big tie-rod that steers it and if you break the tie-rod end you're hooped...

Power is a Cummins 4BT, I think this one is rated at 135hp, ours is an '89 and is clapped out. Nobody has taken care of it even to the minimal level that Ben and I take care of the Pisten Bully and ASV.

Anyway it fired up pretty readily at 30F, the key is broken off in the lock, you start it with the stub, so hinky.  The hydraulics all work but drive Ben crazy since they're backwards, the front set of controls run the drag, the rear the blade. The Pisten Bully is the other way around. The ASV controls are all in a row so they both drive me crazy.

The accelerator pedal was sticky like the ASV was yesterday so I went back later to lube it up. At FLAPS I found a can of Fluid Film which claims to be "Penetrant, lubricant, protectant" and it was the cheapest magic goop they had so I grabbed it. The pedal free'd up pretty easily and now smells vaugely of sheep...

More on the Enfield

You'll remember that the musket came as a "non-firing replica" and I had to drill it out. Track of the Wolf suggests a 3/32" drill bit. I didn't get any pictures while I was drilling but basically under the musket nipple theres a channel machined, I lined up the bit with the channel and drilled through. This is easy with good drill bits. I have some Cle-Line bits that worked superbly, they're expensive but 100% worth it. I went back later with a 7/64" bit and enlarged the hole trying to get the hole angled more to the rear.

Around Labor Day I had time to get to the range, I loaded with 40gr of 2F thinking I wanted to start with a light load and work up and the dang thing wouldn't fire. When I pulled the ball there was a definite scorch mark on the patch so I knew the ball was sitting too far back.

Looking at this piece of wire in the nipple hole (breech plug removed) it should be tilted down a bit more.

The view from the opposite direction, the wire needed to be angled to the rear a little more.

Since I could remove the breech plug I had an idea to test the flash hole, I reinstalled the breech plug and "loaded" the gun with 50gr of corn meal. I did the 50gr by volume since its volume I'm concerned with. Then I carefully removed the breech plug.

Somehow I forgot to take a picture after I dumped the cornmeal out but the good thing is that the flash hole was open meaning the gun would probably fire with a 50gr load.

While I was there I took a burr grinder and carefully cut a little channel from the flash hole rearward parallel to the barrel. The idea being that this would help the flash find powder even with a lesser load.

On the range again I tried the 50gr load and the dang thing wouldn't go off. I tried to pull the ball to no avail. This is a problem in a smoothbore gun, the ball isn't held as tightly as a rifle would so the ball spins. Not wanting to give up in desperation I tried again and to my surprise it went off.

Not wanting to get caught again I went up to a 60gr load which fired reliably. Whew, wipe the brow for that one.

My plan right now is to pull the breech once more and deepen the channel I put in the barrel, I want that powder to have the best chance possible to go off. I also want to try it as a shotgun, I'm going to try my same 60gr load with an equal measure of shot, thats just over 2 drams which I think is going to be around 3/4 oz of shot which seems about right. .58 caliber is about 24ga and 24ga wads fit pretty well.

Party like its 1853

The British Enfield Pattern 1853 Musket, also called the "3 Band Enfield". If the Brown Bess was the musket that won Britain her empire this is the musket of rebellion.

It was used commonly across India and figured prominently in the early Indian revolts. It was also commonly used by the Confederate army here in the US.

I find it a bit amusing that they are now making reproductions in India, thats what mine is. Its smoothbore and while the vast majority of originals started their life as a rifle there many were bored out. The British lubricated their projectiles with either beef tallow or pig fat. In a feat of social ignorance they managed to simultaneously insult all of their native "sepoy" troops. By boring the rifling out of the guns they could go back to shooting unlubricated roundball.

These reproductions come from India non-firing, to change that you need to drill out the flame channel from the nipple to the barrel. I'll go over that in another post.
I drilled mine last summer but hadn't had much time to shoot it. I took it to the range back around Labor Day but the dang thing didn't go off. It turns out I'd drilled the hole basically straight down and as I only started with a 40gr charge the projectile was in front of the hole. I went shooting again on New Years day and with a 50gr charge it would fire. That said it would still occasionally fail, a 60gr change never did fail me and since it had very little recoil its what I'll continue to use. This is a 58cal gun so thats not an unreasonable charge.

The sights are VERY rough after I took this picture I worked the front sight into a rough triangle "barley corn" sight. The rear notch is quite shallow and I had significant difficulty seeing the front sight.

After a bunch of messing around and nearly giving up I finally got this group from 25 yards. My point of aim is the bottom right side of the paper so while the group is decent it needs direction. The problem is that the rear sight isn't attached square to the barrel and isn't adjustable for windage. The plan right now is to take thin strips of copper and solder then onto the front sight. I'll start with a wedge which should raise everything, then consider how to move to the left...

The best way to spend Black Friday

Black Friday is, as I'm sure you know, the pinnacle of American, and now I guess world, consumerism. Being that its the #1 day for people to go bonkers I want absolutely no part in it. For the last 5 or so years Dad and I have spent Black Friday at the shooting range.

This year I had a couple goals:

#1 Sight in my shotgun for deer season

Done and dusted. I had bought a box of 3" 12ga shotgun slugs but dad had a box of old ones he'd been given and I used those. The top right target is the last one, the three shots in the black are 2 3/4" shells from that box, the one flier out to the right is a 3". 

The shotgun in question is an older Mossberg 500 pump gun. I don't have a picture but you can look it up, its nothing particularly special. Its got a rifled slug barrel and a 4x scope I bought on Amazon. I like the combo a lot other than the typical complaints about a shotgun trigger.

#2 Work up a good load for the Renegade for muzzle loader season.

In case you've forgotten my TC Renegade:

.54 cal, I bought it last February. I'd shot it once with kind of mixed results, it didn't shoot roundball worth a hoot and while the 450gr buffalo bullets I had would pattern nicely the recoil was no fun at all.

In this session I quickly realized that the 70gr load I was using was way too much, the patches were all blown ragged. I dialed back to 50gr of 2F Goex powder and the group tightened up nicely.

Thats off the bench at 50 yards, I'm well pleased with that. Maybe sometime later I'll center it a little better but I'd had a couple shots go the other way, I think the shifting is probably just me, I don't get to shoot enough so I'm not in practice.

With my two goals met I finally got to shoot my Christmas present from 2017

This is a Remington rolling block gun built under license in Sweden. These were originally military rifles that were rebarreled for smokeless powder. Mine is stamped 1872 on the receiver with a later date in the 1890s on the barrel. I can't remember the exact date right now and I didn't take a picture.

Its in fantastic shape, the bore is perfect. The only down side is the nasty lacquered finish on the fore end. Someday I should strip that off and refinish with linseed oil.

Its chambered in 8x58r which is often referred to as "Danish Krag". Its a bit oddball but not that hard to get brass for, it can also be made out of a couple different cases. Dad has been working up loads, so far it seems like it works best with a heavier bullet. I'll let you know more when I have more time to play with it.

Finally dad's 25-20, this is, I think, a Ballard rifle. The scope is a reproduction Malcom, period correct for the gun. Dad has been doing real well with it. The best I can say for me is that all my shots hit the ground...