gnoahhh;
Good morning to you sir, I hope that this Remembrance Day/Veteran's Day finds you well.

Thanks for the cautionary tale for sure, it's instructive on a lot of levels.

Back in the day I walked into one of the bigger gun shops in Calgary wanting to purchase a side by side hammer shotgun. The older chap behind the counter informed me they didn't have any - weren't common back in the late '70's early '80's as they seem to be now. Since I had money burning a hole in my pocket, I pointed to this rifle which was hanging on the wall and said, "I'll take the one with the fancy wood then please"...

[Linked Image]

When he asked if I knew what it was, I replied "Not exactly" but since I'd owned a .36 Navy revolver previously was not entirely unfamiliar with black powder.

Nonetheless, he went through the loading and maintenance very carefully with me which was great. I can still hear him say, "Never, ever, never load straight from the horn son. A random spark in the barrel can cause it to blow up and they'll only find your boots!" That got my attention.

The rifle is a Navy Arms Hawken Hurricane and originally had a nipple with musket caps that had a huge interior diameter. It'd recock the hammer with anything above about 80gr of powder which was both disconcerting and dangerous.

When we moved here to BC in the early '80's, I had a local fellow who was familiar with black powder arms put in a Uncle Mike's Hotshot nipple, which required a Helicoil of sorts to be Loctited in, but that solved the "auto recocking" issue.

We can sort of see on the photo too that I made up a shield of sorts on the hammer out of a 7mm Rem Mag case and that kept any percussion cap splatter from coming back at the shooter.

Anyways for sure for those who might be new to black powder shooting, always load with a brass measure or once you know the load, drill out an antler to the right depth so it looks "old timey".

Thanks again and all the best.

Dwayne

The most important stuff in life isn't "stuff"