Target Sports

CLASSIC SHOOTING: THE REAL THING

Created on 14th May 2009

JOHN EMMERSON explains the satisfaction behind shooting an original percussion revolver from the classic period in competition today

THIS ARTICLE was born from a conversation over a very nice bottle of Merlot in the London & Middlesex with our esteemed and dynamic editor Richard Atkins at the Phoenix a couple of years ago.

You will have read many articles about the tests carried out on new and reproduction firearms. In my field of shooting we use many original rifles, pistols and shotguns in competition. As a member of the Muzzle Loaders Association of Great Britain international team I take them all over the world, competing with shooters from other nations also using originals.

I find this aspect of the sport extremely rewarding. I think it is a great honour for the long-dead craftsmen who made these firearms to be using them in modern competition. I must point out that I am by no means an expert in historical firearms. Nor am I a gunsmith who can strip a pistol down to its component parts in three seconds. I just enjoy the challenge of shooting a pistol which is well over 100 years old.

Some competitors strip their pistols down to the smallest component following a shoot, to facilitate cleaning. Is this necessary? Well, my old friend and mentor Colin Jackson, who's now sadly passed away, used to simply drown the thing in WD40 until the next competition. I'll grant that he did also swab the barrel, but that was it as far as I'm aware. Colin was a regular (not to mention very successful) competitor, so it was seldom long before the pistol would be used next. Our very own Nick Harvey is a complete strip-down man - immediately after shooting! I walk the middle ground. I take the pistol home, soak it in boiling soapy water and then flush it out with lubricant while still hot. Nick certainly wins quite a lot of medals, and this is really down to his careful and methodical approach. Then again, I don't do too badly either.

Picked up at the Phoenix

The pistol that is the subject of this article was bought at the Phoenix trade show back in 1998. It has little or no finish left on its exterior surfaces, but has a beautiful bore and chambers. I was given a story to go with it, but have no idea as to its validity. The tale goes that it was at the battle of Bull Run during the American Civil War, where it was struck on the barrel by a musket ball. It was rescued from the field and rebarrelled at the factory. It was then sent to be issued to the cavalry during the Indian wars before being sold for scrap. Boy did it rattle, though! I had to get Jack Truscott, who is gunmaker at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, to sort out the trigger and foresight. As is usual with original Remingtons the main spring is rather heavy, making for an interestingly heavy trigger pull. The sights are always too low, making for a high shot. So Jack lightened the trigger spring and replaced the foresight with a rather tall one. The reason for the tall foresight was to enable me to file it down to my preferred height as I shot it. This is really the only way to do it, as you cannot adjust a fixed ‘V' rear sight machined into the frame of the pistol. Once the preferred height was attained, Jack hid the painfully crude filing which had been done by an amateur gunsmith. However, it started to shoot left, so Jack adjusted the foresight for me with the final result shown in the photograph.

Finding a load

Next, the load. You start with a familiar load and work on it. I began with my usual 22gn of Swiss No.2 black powder. I have also used Henry Krank's ‘Fine' in my revolvers with excellent (actually some of my best) results. However, when I travel to international competitions I can only get Swiss black powder, so I stick to this, simply for consistency. I then use inert filler over the powder - in my case Sainsbury's dry semolina powder. Why Sainsbury's? Well, it has a larger grain than the other stuff you can get and it meters well through my powder flask.

There are two basic reasons for using filler. The first is to elevate the ball on top of your chosen charge so that it is just under the chamber mouth, which is the optimum position for the ball. If you were to fill the chamber with powder to that point, you would end up with nearly a 40gn load and no accuracy with a big bang. Accurate loads are not necessarily full loads. The second reason is for safety.

When you fire a black powder revolver the front of the chamber is enveloped in flame. If there was nothing to stop it, the flames could bypass the ball and ignite the other chambers. A filler or wad with a coat of lubricant on top of the ball will help prevent this.

So what lubricants can you use? When I first started I read that you should use water pump grease. I couldn't find any before my first shoot and ended up raiding my daughter's tack box, pinching some hoof grease. It worked very well, but with an interesting smell. There are many proprietary mixtures about: Bore Butter is just one. This is very thick yellow grease and many fill the rest of the chamber with it, making a flush surface. I use simple lithium grease, applied very thinly round the ball with an artist's paint brush. I was taught this technique by one of the German team just before I won silver in the Repro Revolver event (Mariette) in Pforzheim, Germany, in 2005. I have used it ever since.

A check of the chambers showed that the usual .454" ball would fall straight into the chambers. A .457" ball proved perfect. Loading a pistol for the first time always throws up some problems. On this occasion I found that the nipples were not matching and they had to be replaced. On first firing the pistol I noted the dull thud of the discharge. I have this rather obscure theory that when you find the right charge, the pistol ‘rings'. Not the right term for it really, but it gives you an idea of what I mean. I raised the charge in 1gn increments until it sounded just right: 29gn of Swiss No.2 did the trick. I have not changed a single thing about the load since and it works for me.

The next revelation was at the World Championships in Batsville, Indiana, USA in 2004. There was a gunsmith on site who had set his heart on restoring all the old Remington revolvers. He took mine for one evening and when I got it back it felt like a new pistol. It didn't look like one, but it shot like one. It still feels as tight today as it did on that occasion.

I still get the occasional raised eyebrow on range when I shoot it because its report is a little loud; I even get offered advice about using a lower powder charge. The main thing for me is that it does its job: that is why I own these old pistols. They are sporting equipment with an investment angle built in. When I buy one I look for one that has little external finish but has good chambers and barrel. I enjoy competition shooting and feel extra satisfaction knowing that I am getting good results, sometimes competition-winning ones, with an original percussion revolver built so long ago.

I have just purchased another one, this time with a lot more finish on it and with absolutely mint bore and chambers. Expect to pay between £1,400 and £2,000 for one like this. Just imagine being able to speak to the craftsmen who made these pistols circa 1862. "Still shooting in 2008? Don't be daft!" they'd say.

CLASSIC SHOOTING: THE REAL THING

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CLASSIC SHOOTING: THE REAL THING

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