Well, I guess the pinnacle of black powder cartridge rifles occurred about 140 years ago so...

But they are so much more fun than boring smokeless rifles, trying to figure out the secrets the "Old Dead Guys" knew ...

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
But they are so much more fun than boring smokeless rifles, trying to figure out the secrets the "Old Dead Guys" knew ...

You know, Bill, I've thought the exact same thing about reloading smokeless cartridges.
Stick to a factory replication load and that's about it.
Unless you're a competitive shooter or just want to fine tune a particular load, there's not much to it.
Black powder cartridge on the other hand...

I am a relative newby to paper patched bullets, love it, keep looking here for info to learn but....?
Rick

The peak period for black powder reloading and shooting was in the 1970s and 80s; fading quickly in the 90s and almost dead today. Old guys, died off.
I used to load by the hundred and shoot all the buffalo matches around and win any time I wanted to. Now, the matches are all gone. I have like 8 Sharps rifles left; can't hardly give them away. I used to build several Flintlocks a year. Young guys don't know what they are and can't get real BP anyway.
So, good luck; try to find an old guy, closer.

Tom, I agree the recent ‘70s-‘80s moment has mostly passed, but it is still a wonderful thing to read Ned Roberts and other Old Dead Guys on the Golden Age of Schuetzen.

Schuetzen, but also BPCR long range was big into the early 2000s. Glenn Fewless was a BPCR shooter and gunsmith who used to post on here and taught classes at Trinidad. Inspired me to build a 45-70 on one of Steve Earle's Wesson #1 actions. Shoots great. Took it out to 600 yards last November. Fun to shoot with the 3 inch rear ladder sight and deadly accurate with the Hadley eye cup. Of course shooting it with 4198 these days.