Leverguns meet 6-13 and 14-09
Saturday:
We left Springfield and headed to the SAM Silhouette Club range near Knox about 8:30 Saturday morning. It took us a bit over 6 hours to get there. On the way we had to take a detour around Lake Shafer. For some reason 421 was blocked off at 24. This only added about an hour to our trip. I had the Pathfinder stuffed. I wanted to rent a small trailer, but we didn’t. Next time we will.
Once we got to the area we were sooooo glad to see OI’s sign. Turned in and found us a parking spot and stopped.
We got out and met Jason (2ndovc) and his son Justin. Then met JReed. I recognized him from his pics on the forum so it was almost like meeting an old friend. Also met his two boys, Evan and Logan.
Wife and I had met OI when he passed though IL on is way to Texas so we knew him from before.
After the greetings I handed Jason the old rear sight from my Enfield in trade for the nice new one he’d sent me in the mail. Then I swapped out the LR primers with OI. He had CCI LR and I had some Win LRM. OI explained to me that the firing pin in his drilling was set at an angle and because of that did not get a straight hit on the primers. So CCIs were problematic.
After that I got a quickie tour of the range. Handgun and .22 targets to the left, rifle targets to the right. And the big ram way out at 200 yds.
OI-Mokwaw-Evan-JReed-2ndovc-Justin
I started unloading guns and ammo and got pretty well set up. Shot some stinky black powder out of IJ and my OM BH. Sometime back a forum member suggested I fill the chamber mouths with Crisco or Bore Butter to compensate for incorrect lube I had on the bullets. This worked wonders. I fired off over 50 rounds of full 40gr loads and neither revolver gave me any trouble at all. I’ll be glad when it’s all gone though. I don’t mind shooting it, but this batch just isn’t accurate from any of my guns, so it needs to be used up.
I also put out one of the special sight in targets for the Enfield I got from a site another forum members suggested. This worked great.
Some 12 or 13 years ago I custom built a taller front sight because this rifle shot so high.
I never finished sighting it in. Then recently I mentioned in one of my posts that I disliked that sight. 2ndovc offered to trade me the old slider sight for a click adjustable one. I took him up on it. His new sight matched up with my taller front sight and put the groups where they were supposed to be.
The little holes all over the target were from JReed's 20 gauge Rossi hammer gun.
Eric65 and his wife Sharon got there sometime after we did. He brought his 78 vintage Win 94 Classic or Antique, I never can remember. It’s been totally uncooperative for him. He hasn’t been able to get it to hit consistently with any factory or hand load he’s tried. He was shooting a 170gr cast .309” bullet over a charge of 3031 when I started talking with him about it.
I tried the rifle and I’ve never seen one do this. High, low, right, left, and all combinations of the above. I had my 1950 Win 94 that has a goofy chamber so while I fired off a half dozen rounds of Winchester factory ammo through it. Even though the chamber at the shoulder and neck isn’t right I was smacking the 100 yd ram or pig or what ever with every shot.
I also shot off more black powder then and cleaned the guns.
Eric took eventually took every thing off that carbine, forearm, mag tube and barrel bands and it didn’t make any difference. It did the same things.
About all he hadn’t done was slug the bore to see what if anything that might tell us.
As I was banging the 100 target he commented he wished he could hit just once. I handed him my 1950 and he smacked it one real good. Said that made him feel better.
I got to shoot OI’s Howda pistol. It started of as a double barreled 12 gauge muzzle loading shot gun. It was shortened, and had the stock converted into a pistol grip, a very definite handful. I shot it and although I thought I had a good hold on it, I almost lost it the first short. The second shot I used both hands. No idea where the ball went, but it went.
Considering how late we got there we pretty much just sat around talking and visiting with everyone as we took a break from the shooting. Since my wife and I were going to spend the night in a hotel we started packing up.
Food was cooking and we were discussing slugging the barrel on Eric’s rifle when I mentioned that he might aughta shoot some jacketed through it to clean out any lead that might be there. Since Eric didn’t have any jacket bullets I dug out some of mine. I had a box of odd ball ammo that had one spitzer bullet in it. Before I could think fast enough to suggest just dropping it in the chamber Eric had stuck it through the loading gate. Oops! Wouldn’t clear the action so we had to take the magazine apart. Got that done and he fired of a couple rounds.
His and my wife got a couple good laughs at us. We’re trying to undo the jam and they’re sitting on their butts armchair quarterbacking us. I’d wager neither of them could figure out how to do what we did.
After eating we yacked a bit more then headed to the hotel. Nothing special, just a hotel with a good shower and really nice firm bed. Snooozzzzeeeeee…………………
Sunday:
Got there about 9:ish and said our good mornings. For some reason I was very tired so I didn’t really try to do much. I dug out my 9422 to test the new extractor I’d put in . The problems still exist. The .22 Shorts fall off the ejector and jam the rifle. Longs and Long rifles work fine. I was hitting targets out to 50 yards with boring regularity with it so after emptying out a box of Winchester Super X LRs I packed that one up and moved on to my Win 94 AE Trapper .45 Colt. I worked on readjusting the sights but just couldn’t get them right. The rear is an old steel Lyman 66A, but the front sight is the factory blade that’s soldered onto the barrel, and it’s tilted. So it almost forces you to cant the rifle to keep the sight straight. But I just couldn’t keep it consistent. That’s another project.
JReed had his Win 94 AE Trapper in 45 Colt there but he kept having under the carrier jams. What a pain in the rear. He said he’ll just buy a new link to fix it. Hope he has it done by the next meet.
Then I shot some out of my Marlin 1894. I shot up some lead ammo and wasn’t doing much with it so I grabbed what was left of a box of a local company’s ammo. Not a bad load at all. After a few rounds and hits on the 100 yd plate I decided to see if I could hit the 200 yd ram with it.
Now, I’m not bragging, but until last weekend I hadn’t shot that Marlin beyond 25 yds. So shooting it at 100 was iffy. I figured 200 yds would be a waste of ammo. But, I managed to hit that 200 yd ram twice, maybe 3 times. I couldn’t hear the round hit, but when that 250gr bullet hit, I could see the target swing back and forth.
Then after finishing up what I was going to do with the .45 Colt LGs I picked up my Enfield again. Mokawa had been working that 200 yard ram over with his SKS, so I figured I really aught to try it with my Enfield.
I had a bunch of ammo with me, but most of it was loaded with the Sierra 174gr BT HP match bullet. Or military ball MK 8 BT.
JReed and I had discussed how his Enfield with the 2 grove barrel didn’t like the BT bullets. Well, it looks like mine doesn’t either. I was all over the place with the Sierra bullets when he handed me 4 of his load. I stuck them in my old 5 round SanteFe magazine and set it aside while I shot up more of my Sierras. Finally I tried his ammo.
I got all comphy, put the top of the front sight in the center of the ram and pulled the trigger. Thwap!!!! I hit it. Then proceeded to hit it with the next three rounds too!
This is great! His cartridges were all neck sized and a couple were pretty snug in my rifle’s chamber. I wonder if that’s why they worked as good as they did.
I got the load from Jeremy and am going to duplicate it too see if it works as good when I load them as they did when he loaded them.
Jeremy coaching Logan and Evan on the fine points of loading a muzzle loader.
This was a great weekend. I got to meet a bunch of guys I’ve talked to for a long time, shoot at a real rifle range for the first time in a very long time. Shoot a bunch of guns I’d never shot before. Worked my muscles, ate some really good food. And just enjoyed ourselves.
October ….., wife thinks September for the next meet. But unless I’ve moved to AZ or somewhere way west, I’ll be there.
I wish I had more pics to post, but my wife was so busy taking videos while I was shooting we really didn’t think to pick up the other camera. Maybe next time. It takes so long to download the videos with this slow dial up that I really can’t post them.
{Edit to add:} My wife commented that she really enjoyed talking with Sharon and wondered what we can do to get more of our wives to join us at these get togethers.
I told her I didn't know.
Joe
) and a .22 ( not sure of the make). All the rest where levers, single shots, bolts, pump action,or muzzle loaders. The smell of BP was thick as Joe brought out his single action .45's loaded with the holy black. Not to be out done OI entertained us all with his Howda while I did my part with my repro 1858's. Not to mention all the smoke made by the front stuffers and OI's way cool Drillings.
It had slipped down behind the cushions on the couch during the unload.
.
So this one will have to do:
And a Special Picture for Ysabel... 
... (I need to get back on the roman chair. 
