Black Powder Pistol Shooting

**bamboomaster** · June 10th, 2018, 09:53 AM

We dusted off our BP Ruger Old Army revolvers this week and participated in a black powder pistol shoot. Distance was 17 yds. for the posted targets.

The missus shot great (her load was 15.8 gr 3F, corn meal filler up to 1/8" from the top of the cylinder, .457 Hornady round balls (which, in the process of seating, shave off approx .007 of the bullet), a dab of Bore Butter over each seated bullet to protect against the unlikely event of a simultaneous chain fire from all chambers, and #11 Remington percussion caps.

She finished with the highest scoring handicap (-9, used to reduce your raw score so one person doesn't win all the eight matches) of all shooters. Here's her "fox" target (5 shots - if only she could take back the floater

):

Nice shooting, girl! web.jpg

I finished with a scoring handicap of -7 and definitely shot lucky on the "buffalo" target (5 shots) with 20.8 gr 3F:

Nice shooting, dad! web.jpg

We really enjoyed ourselves yesterday and I would certainly recommend that any folks interested in BP shooting to give it a go. Half the folks had revolvers and IMO, the Ruger Old Army's are the best - roughly the BP equivalent of a Wilson Combat where built-in accuracy is concerned (the rest of the "accuracy" equation is up to you)

. The other half had single shot muzzle-loading pistols (all percussion), and many of those folks shot really well too...

**gghbi** · June 10th, 2018, 10:29 AM

Glad to see you putting those round balls to good use...

**Remington788** · June 10th, 2018, 10:49 AM

Nice. Where was it?

**bamboomaster** · June 10th, 2018, 12:12 PM

Originally Posted by gghbi

Glad to see you putting those round balls to good use...

Yep!

Originally Posted by Remington788

Nice. Where was it?

It was held at SCCS&FA (Southern Chester County Sportsmans and Farmers Association) and was hosted by the club "Brandywine Long Rifles" which has been around a long time.

The second Saturday of every month is a BP shoot (usually with the exception of December, January, and February). Brandywine members pay a $10 entry fee and non-members $15. We usually have folks from PA, Delaware, and a couple of vehicles from New Jersey - it's all good fun, and totally open to "noobs" who are going to pick-up a lot of great tips, advice and maybe even take home a prize since the matches are handicapped. Folks get there around 9:30 a.m., starts at 10:00, eight matches - usually four before lunch (bring a sammich), and four after.

They started the handicap because an old guy named Ralph usually showed up looking like he stepped off a farm field wearing overalls or red suspenders and took ALL the 1st places (and food prizes) in each of the eight matches. For years. Folks referred to him quite affectionately as "Rotten Ralph", God rest his soul. Thanks to Rotten Ralph's shooting acumen that nobody could touch, now, the better you shoot, the higher the handicap you accrue and carry forward during each follow-on match that day which is deducted from your target's raw score before having an "adjusted score". Since everyone starts with a ZERO handicap in round 1, it sure makes things fun for everyone.

Hey, sometimes I even get somewhere on the scoring ladder mostly due to the missus's handicap...

But dang, you'd be amazed how some of those guys can shoot. One is 89 (in really good health) and you just wouldn't want to be a squirrel on a limb chittering away flapping your tail just before you went into the pie...