Went shooting with a friend(Scott) & his son(Ethan) yesterday. I took my .48 Miller gun & Ethan was shooting his .62 Jackie Brown smoothbore. As usual my gun shot like a laserbeam.
It was Ethans first time shooting his gun (other than blanks.) He had had some trouble with it. He had cleaned it with hot water after firing it with blanks & didn't get the lock dried out(sear & tumbler were all rusted up.) I disassembled & cleaned the lock & gun & educated the young man on proper care & maintenance.
He had ordered some .595 balls & .10 oiled patches. We tried that combo with a 60 gr load of FFFg. I told him to try a fiber wad on top of the powder & loaded up some 6 shot loads. He & Dad had great time bouncing empty water bottles around with that. We ended up using wads instead of patches for the round ball loads. He was keeping most of his shots in 3-5 inches offhand @ 25 yards. Not bad for a young man that had never before shot a flinter at a target.
I let Scott shoot my .48 & he was hooked! He told me he was going to save up for a gun. I told him he ought to just build one(he is a blacksmith.) "one piece at a time"
A good time was had by all & I spent several hours last night cleaning my rifle & sewing balls into patches to replace what was shot.(Don't fix what ain't broke.
)
