Home Forums Hunting & Shooting BPCR BP "Gadgets" your own design or store bought that you use.

I have a couple of line/range boxes I am fond of. The line boxes sold on shiloh's web , made by Bryan Youngberg are great they hold alot of ammo and extra stuff.
I also got ahold of one of Woody's (Richard Wood ) line boxes for the bptr target games, the tip out in front holds 14 rounds, 4 for sighters and ten for score. There's also room in the box to carry wiping patches, etc.

What a bunch of show offs!! ..and neat gizmos

I was thinking the same... and being jealous because my gadgets usually involve duct tape or hose clamps and look nothing like the quality items posted above!

Seriously, a very nice thread!

John

Building gadgets is half the fun! Good excuse to buy some tools, learn a few new tricks too. Highly recommended.

And if you can do some gadget building then you have something to swap with guys that do the stuff you can't, and vise versa.

I'm not particularly adept at building small stuff, but I did get an inspiration at a gunshow last year. A guy was selling loading blocks made of pine for like 5$ each, and they hold 60 rounds. So I picked up 2 for the 44-77 and 2 for the 45-70. Then I built boxes out of some scrap plywood that would just hold the two trays. So now we can carry 120 rounds each plus our line boxes and not have ammo boxes scattered all about the camper.

I will build something before I buy it if I feel like doing it, but seems like when I build something it's either too big or too heavy.
Last rifle I build was a Hawken. I used a 1 1/8" barrel 36" long, fine shooter but too heavy for a carry rifle or shooting it off hand during a shoot.




Next I madeI a set of boxes and made one to big. Coulden't pick it up when I loaded it with spare bullets and powder.

Nice Hawken. I have one under construction (has been for a while).

For most of my rifles, I have done some part of the build. Usually the finish and bluing. But here is the first one where I just bought some parts and made my own, like your Hawken.

Much as I admire craftsmanship, and the aesthetic appeal of wood, I have a couple of problems with it.

1) I lack the skill and equipment to do good woodwork.

2) It's heavy.

In this case I combined the convenience, light weight, and relative cheapness of plastic, with functional wooden cartridge blocks for my paper patched .45-70 rounds. For me it provides the best of both worlds.

MTM makes cartridge carriers, .30 shown here, that have sturdy double latches. Trust me on this, you do not want your carefully assembled ammo spilling all over God knows where, and at the worst possible time. Then I made blocks that fit into the plastic carrier, and a piece of dense foam holds the bullets in place. Shallow loaded paper patched target rounds require especially careful handling.

Anyhow, just another item that works well for me.

Paul

Paul, you have as much skill as anyone, not to mention practice always improves one's skill set. Equipment is an other issue but can be dealt with in several ways.

The weight part, however, I think is over estimated. If you can build a wood box to suit your gear - you can do in one box what takes others several plastic boxes of unadjustable size to do the same. Even my maple box is not that heavy, and it holds as many rounds as your plastic box. It also holds everything from my spotting scope, patches, pigs, scope stand, notebooks, glasses and assorted other gear. I don't know what it weighs but not that much and the ergonomics of the box makes it much easier to hold than most other boxes with skinny handles that are far too small and poorly shaped.

I was going to put a guitar strap on it but found that was unnecessary. Even for the long treks up and down the Raton line and up and down our local range's stairs and hill side.

I figured you'd respond thusly, Brent.

I should also mention that's I'm short on patience, and a bit lazy, though selectively so.

Paul

Yup. We all got that.

One day, I'm going to figure out how to rebarrel. It will take a lathe, the space for it (hardest part) and retirement for the time to learn to use it. Then I'll almost be set. Almost.

Great stuff fellas except now I gotta build me an ammo box!

Brent.
That rifle started as an early model but was changed as I went along. I bought the barrel, plug, lock and trigger the rest I made. The butplate I formed from scrap gas pipe. The trigger guard was a bear to weld up and file down and bend it to shape. The stock started from a sugar maple hunk of wood I dug out of a pile of wood at the sawmill that has very nice tiger striping but the acid finish I used in time darkened it quite a bit but it still shows through in the sun light. The stock started as a full stock, but that changed when I was hogging out the barrel channel with a skill saw but a sneeze changed it to a halve stock. This is the last one I build and it started back in the 80's and the barrel is still not browned.
The caliber is a 58.
Two friends just had a Vincent build, beautiful rifles, and it sparked me to maybe starting a new 30 year project to make one in a .36 or .40 flint and use a rice barrel for this project.

I had the same issue with staining my maple flinter stock with acid. Got way too dark. Then I build my wife a .50 cal and used the same bottle of stain and it came out a beautiful red/brown - just perfect. Seems like the wood makes a big difference yet both were some form of hard maple.

The new one will be a pistol grip Hawken, and light in .54 caliber for killing stuff.

Speaking of which, this morning I found that I drew my Wyoming Elk Tag for this fall. That will be a bpcr hunt though. Not a muzzleloader. It will be a long slow summer getting ready. I need to get started soon!

Congrats on the tag Brent. Did you draw a general or for a specific area?

General.

Hey great!!

I might head back to Colorado if I can still take the 10,000 ft altitude. You can get a tag over the counter there

Good deal. If you don't already have a place picked to go, let me know via pm I found a couple of spots last fall that should work out for somebody ready willing and able to burn some shoe leather.

Thanks, but my normal partner with the elevation issues is sitting out, so that opens up the high elevations for me and my Wyoming connection. We will be up high somewhere Northish of Dubois more than likely.

Sounds like a good time.
I need to remember to get my bison list app in and need to decide right quick if I'm going to try for moose and sheep permits. Think whats left of our elk camp are going to try for permits in the Bear Lodge and make a combo elk/whitetail hunt out of it if we draw, but we've got till the end of May to work those details out.