Jim held his traditional "peep" shoot today. When he finished his cabin years ago, the crew celebrated by shooting stale marshmallow Easter "peep" candy on the lawn with muzzleloaders. Five of us shot today, at all steel targets except for the marshmallow peep candies. I think Jim came in first, Carney second (maybe the other way round) and I in third. I shot only one "peep", last to do that, not realizing we were shooting two of them. So I lost a possible point there, had I hit it.
Jim shooting. We all shot hand made rifles, Neill built two of them.
Jim loading, Neill sizing up the targets.
The targets here are a half moon and a crescent moon.
Carney shooting a rifle Neill built. All rifles were flintlocks except mine, I can't hold one well enough to make me feel good.
Ed trying out Neill's rifle. Hit the target, too.
Kyme's rifle dropped out, here he is learning to use Neill's rifle
This target is a steel clanger.
I didn't get a picture of me shooting, had to pose one when I got home. This is a .54 Kit Carson Hawken copy I built. I haven't shot all winter, and picked up a tin of pillow ticking patches for the shoot. They mike .018 but crush to .012, too big for my .530 balls. They loaded so hard I broke my short starter. This is when I tore my little fingernail and bled all over my gear. I was using a wet patch on my seater jag to wipe the bore as I loaded, and had to set the jag on the ball and jab the rod against a cedar tree to seat the ball. The cleaning patch wedged the jag and I couldn't pull the rod out. Had to go back to the shop and catch the rod in a vise but still couldn't pull it out. Finally unscrewed the rod from the jag and shot it into the ground. Dug at least a foot into the sand, couldn't find it, so used some .021 muslin which crushed to .007, thus able to seat the ball without a short starter. This is where I got behind on the marshmallow peep targets. If you wonder why I use so many different patch thickness and materials, this is why. The patch has to be thin enough to load easily and thick enough to hold together. I prefer .526 or .527 ball size in a .54, but ran out of them.
