OK guy's here it goes. Hope we don't time out.
First thing you should know is that Muzzle Loading is or was an offhand procedure. Primarily because it is best done upright. Not that you cannot Muzzle load and shoot bench but it will be awkward as you will see. If shooting Offhand you will need a stand,a structure to park your Rifle against for the loading procedure. Mine is a heavy wood Tripod with an added flat plate fitted about waist high with cutouts for the Rifle, the Loading Rod, a place to park the Bullet Starter, and also a place to tie off the False Muzzle so that if you try to bring the Rifle up to shooting position with the False Muzzle still attatched to the Rifle it will stop you. Also needs to be big enough to park Bullets, Cartridges easily at hand. All the Pope rifles I have had the opportunity to shoot need to be fouled. That means a couple of shots into the bank. Now we start.
You will bring the Rifle to vertical and park it in the stand.
Then with the palm of your hand or a clean wiper you will wipe the muzzle of the barrel clean of debry. Then you will carefully put the False Muzzle on and seat it easily. ( Don't just smack it down) You now will pick up the Bullet starter and insert a bullet into it and then carefully fit it onto the False muzzle and seat it down. You will then with the palm of your hand give it a sharp smack to drive the bullet into the barrel. Most starters will drive it down about 2". You then remove the bullet starter and taking the loading rod insert it through the false muzzle and push the bullet carefully until the loading rod bottoms on the false muzzle. Do not do this very briskly as the Bullet in many cases will just fall right through into the chamber or onto the floor or ground. Now carefully remove the Loading Rod and then the false muzzle. You can now bring the Rifle up to the Horizontal and look into the Breech and make sure you can see the Base of the Bullet. You are now ready to insert the loaded cartridge in behind the Bullet and close the action. You may now bring the Rifle to firing postition and take aim and fire. ( ten to 15 seconds) BANG! It is now time to start the whole process again. Now Pope Rifles and Lube do not like to be fired cold. So this means that at the begining of each relay you will need to fire at least one fouler. I prefer to prepare for this by going thru the loading procedure up until I have a Bullet seated with the False Muzzle and loading Rod still in place. Action open. So after the line is made hot again I can get back in action with no delay, remove the Rod and then the false Muzzle and look into the chamber for the Bullet and I can bring up the Rifle and insert the loaded shell and fire my (FOULER). And then proceed with the serious stuff. Now when you consider most Schuetzen Rifles weigh between 12 and 14 Lbs and some even a lot more. Think about all this activity for a 50 or 100 shot match. And many Clubs will run realy's in 30 minute time frame. Etna Green runs 45 Minute time which does give you a break. I have shot both a 100 and 50 shot match Muzzle loaded and have decided to not ever do this again. I will shoot in 10 shot matches that are re-entry but thats it. When something I do for fun becomes tedious work I want to be somewhere else.
Now having said all this I will report that the two best Offhand strings I have ever shot, a 236 and a 237 back to back with Black Powder were shot in the middle of the 100 shot match. I may just have been so tired and sore that I was delerious. Some things to add. Muzzle loading or Breech Seating, the bullet should be driven (Muzzle Loading) or seated, (Breech seating)
in ONE smooth motion. If you have to bang and whack away at it you will not shoot to the same zero from shot to shot. Every time you hit the bullet it WILL bump slightly. and thus will shoot differently, and believe me, very differently. Alloy should be 30/1 Lead/Tin. or even softer. The first time I muzzle loaded my Pope I used bullets that were a alloy of Linotype and Pure lead. WOW! what a suprise, pain, hand that carries the trigger finger all swollen, Bullet just barely got into the barrel and could not budge it with loading rod need a good cleaning rod to remove it, felt really stupid and almost ended my Muzzle loading efforts right there. Lubricant, I use Popes formulae. Do mot really think it is better than many others but it does work and once I accumilated the materials needed why bother with others.I have recently (A year ago) made up a batch of 40/1 alloy and plan to try it. Lot of the old match data indicates the older shooters were shooting 40/1 and even 50/1 alloys. Well I told you this would be long winded. Hope it helps someone in some way. Regards, FITZ
