Today we were blessed with a visit by Leo Laden and his black powder boys.
I've found something new to spend money on!!!
We began the day with a rimfire sillhouette shoot, something different for the front stuffers, however they gave a very good showing with one of them taking out second in very windy and trying conditions. (Did anyone check his score???....)
We soon moved on to the main event for the day, which apart from the shooting was a great history lesson for some of us, thank you Leo, always a pleasure to hear a passionate man extoll the virtues of his chosen vice.
From Leo in Email
For the record, the M/L rifles we came with were all made by the English firm of Parker Hale, ( out of business for last 20 years due to the poms silly gun laws ), copies of the famous Enfield .577 rifles, first issued in 1853.
2 patterns present were the longer P. 1858 and the short P. 1961 Artillery carbine. The large bullets we fired were .575" soft lead Minie balls, invented by a Frenchman called Claude Etienne Minnie, a self expanding undersized bullet easy to load, despite ever increasing deposits of fouling left after every shot.
After a volley to start the day and set the mood by covering us all in a cloud of white smoke, it was down to the business of letting us neophytes have a go with the big bangers.
It feels so wrong putting the powder and bullet in the wrong end, and there's something not quite right about not doing case prep, you know resizing, neck turning, checking concentricity. These guys just chuck a bit of powder down the pipe, drop a humongous snapper sinker on top and let fly in a huge cloud of smoke!!
And we all know where there's smoke, there's F_U_N!!!!
Thank you very much to Leo and the boys:
Leo Laden,
Geoff Price,
Franco Della,
Pierre Gintzberger,
Ben Grguric,
Frank Owen,
Bob Wright,
Peter Norgard
.
We look forward to an invite to the Muzzle Loaders Club sometime soon.