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...

New car day +2

After yesterday's running around today should be easy, get the car inspected. Well, the plans of men...

Its raining today and I noticed the driver's wiper wasn't doing a great job, that'll fail inspection so I grabbed new ones, figured I might as well replace both.

Thats the end of the wiper, its a weird slide in sleeve thing. The wipers have to be in "wipe" position to lift the arms too, weird...

Much fiddling with adaptors

Until finally...

Okay, off to the inspection station:

Rats!

This actually isn't so bad, a black R is not safety related and you can drive the car, in this case its because some emissions sensors are reading "not ready". This is probably because the dealer I bought the car from had to have a DPF regen performed at the dealer. DPF = Diesel Particulate Filter, and a regen is when it burns off the built up particulate. If the car had been mostly city driven on short trips the filter could fill up early and not get to burn off which is why it needed a dealer regen. I drive mostly on the highway which is ideal and shouldn't have an issue, also VW has been forced to issue a long warranty on the DPF and finally the aftermarket has "DPF Delete" options for "off road use only".
So anyway the plan is to put a couple hundred miles on the car and try again in a couple weeks.

Finally I tried to set the clock and clear the "Oil/Inspect" notice in the dash. Both require pressing the odo reset button which I tried and didn't seem to work. So being an optimist I pulled the dash cluster.

 Its super hard to see but the problem is right where my finger is, the contacts for the button are on the green board under that white lump and theres a white bump of powdery corrosion. I squirted a little De-Oxit in there and worked a piece of paper towel in to remove the corrosion.

Reinstalled, tested and the clock is correctly set. You might also notice in this picture I've forgotten to reinstall the two screws that hold the cluster in place. I didn't remember until I started writing this blog entry, I had to pull the trim again and reinstall.

Even with having to redo the trim the whole process took less than an hour. Yes I could have made then dealer fix it but its a half hour drive to the dealer, time to get it fixed and half an hour home, in the end its just as fixed and I know more about the car and I took a moment to De-Oxit the other side while I was there.

Last thing, I picked up some nylon washers for the license plate screws. I'd bought some stainless steel screws but they're just a little too long. I could have cut them but I was a little worried about corrosion on the cut edge, the stainless screws you get at the hardware store aren't the finest stainless in then world...

New Car!

When last we left our hero his ride was a 1998 Volkswagen Jetta. Purchased in 2013 its been a wonderful car, I only paid $1500 and have driven it many a mile but, trust me on this one, its done...
The bad: alternator, passenger's rear door, central locking, air conditioning, daytime running lamps, lots of rust, the rocker panels fairly flap in the breeze.

Actually now that I look at the list, other than the rust most of that isn't so bad. The alternator is the straw that broke the camels back, I replaced it a couple years ago but found it difficult to source a proper 120amp unit. The less powerful 90a units were easy to get but the 120a was $450 new but not to be found in a rebuilt. In the end I got a used one out of a junkyard. It didn't look like much but it was cheap and got me through, I think two years. When that failed I couldn't see paying for another, even a $100 90a, replacement for what is probably a $100 car.

So the search was on, I've been kind of half heartedly looking all summer, I knew this time was coming but I really like that car and was hoping somehow, magically, it would get a reprieve. In the end it was not to be and I knew I needed to find a replacement when a 2015 Jetta TDI showed up on Craigslist.

TDI pricing is a funny thing, the older cars command somewhat of a premium, this car has a mere 51,000 miles and while its a base model I really don't need any of the fancy accoutrements. The seller also had a 2014 with twice as many miles for the same money, that car has a sunroof, leather interior, fancy sound system, remote start and so on. I figured the newer, lower mileage car was the better deal. We bargained around a little and the deal was struck.

The engine is VW's 2.0l "common rail" which supposedly sports 150hp, although I don't know if thats before or after the "repair". You see this is one of the "cheater diesels" from a couple years back which VW has detuned so it doesn't cheat on emissions anymore. Actually now that I check, Malone Tuning says its 140hp which I find more believable.

Anyhow the car really scoots and the 6spd manual transmission is fun to row through the gears. The instant read mileage thing says I was getting 46mpg on the run from the dealer to our house, the '98 has been getting 50-55mpg for the last few months and I feel like once I run it some more this car will probably nudge 50.

I do have thoughts on a couple upgrades, it'll want snow tires for the winter which I'll probably put on dedicated wheels. I'm also thinking in the spring we'll do a tune on it, either stage 1 or 2, I haven't decided yet. I'll talk to my TDI before I choose. In theory, while providing more power a tune also makes the engine more efficient which will lead to better fuel economy provided you can keep from squandering it by driving super fast...

Is this car as fun as the '98? Sort of, that car had personality and I'd worked on it a lot so I really knew it inside and out. This one is slightly bland and I know its not going to need much hands on which is actually why I bought it, my work schedule has been crazy busy so I wanted something I could just fuel up and go. Maybe someday I'll have space and time for a project car but that time isn't now...

Quick one for Friday

I'm stuck in Regan National Airport waiting for a late flight with a bad "h" key on my keyboard. Stupid Apple, the new "butterfly" keyboards suck.

Anyway, I grabbed a bottle of "Bai Antioxidant Cocofusion" tonight with my dinner, I'd noticed it before and figured I'd give it a try.

I like coconut water and they advertise "1g of sugar, no artificial sweeteners" so imagine my surprise when I tasted what basically amounts to sugar water with trace coconut flavor. Its basically coconut flavored Kool-Aid.

My suggestion is to avoid this stuff at all costs...

Snowed out of camp

I've been going deer hunting with my Dad in northern Maine for a week every November for nearly 30 years now. Usually the first or second week of November we head up there and spend a week not shooting any deer.

This year was different, on Tuesday we got snow, it was supposed to snow until noon, in the end it snowed all day, in the end we got about eight inches. Eight inches of snow is generally no big deal, the roads were clear, stores were open, no sweat. Then remember that our camp is 3/4 of a mile from the road...

This is the first time we've ever plowed snow at camp, we've had snow in past years but usually only a couple inches and a warm day or two usually takes care of it. This year it was cold, like single digits cold and Thursday the weather report was for another five inches...

I'd never had to shovel the path to the outhouse either.


Wednesday night Eric got his pickup (the Chevy pictured above) stuck in a snow drift. The only way to drive in this stuff is in 4wd with a heavy foot, carry some speed into the drifts so that you don't bog down. He was going slow and hit a particularly deep spot. I managed to get him out with my truck but it was a near thing...

Thursday morning Eric and Michael headed south, we couldn't go back on the woods roads since we couldn't see the water holes and wouldn't dare to carry a bunch of speed on the woods roads anyway. Hiking around in the woods wasn't much fun either. So I couldn't blame them for heading out. In fact once I read the weather report I told Dad I didn't think sticking around was a good idea for us either.

That last picture is deceptive, we're pointed down a hill, the snow at the bottom is probably 12-18" deep where its drifted in from the field on the right, this is where Eric got his truck stuck. Just after taking the picture we headed down and even though we were going at a pretty good clip we still nearly got stuck.

By the time I got home that night (9 hours later) it had just started to snow at home. Even in MA we got 5" of snow...