doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com muzzle loading bullets

Fitz, First post the long muzzle-loading description I'm sure there are many of us that would like to read it. I sold my .32 Pope mould to my good friend and then replaced it at Vegas several years ago. I sold it for $100 and had to pay $200 for the new one and told the guy I bought it from that I never thought I'd see the day of $200 moulds.

I'm with you Fitz, I've used many moulds by contemporary and vintage makers and there is NOTHING that even comes close to a Pope mould, the last one I bought must have weighted twice that of a Pope.

greetings iisj,

my danish isn't so great cause i speak American :). i reread your first post. is your barrel already built or are you going to make it???

the reason i ask is, if it is built. the most important thing to do is, make the bullet to fit the throat and bore. that is much more important than a pope bullet..

second, a muzzle loaded bullet will be straight after loading and it will be the size of the bore and grove. the throat should be set up to accept such a bullet..

it is very very imporant to fit the bullet to the gun. if the gun is built, slug the throat with a soft lead slug and build the bullet accordingly.

..ttfn..grampa..

PS.. when i started schuetzen 60yrs ago 40/1 and 45-1 were very popular.. 50 yrs earlier even softer, all the way to pure was popular.

PPS. what you mite look for, is a slug of the pope throat and 1 inch of the bore.

PPPS.. just reread all your posts. saw ron snith will make the bbl. is he going to cut the chamber?? if so, a slug of a pope throat is important. you mite charge him with making the mold to fit the barrel.

PPPPS.. a lot of the old timers said a straight twist geo schoyen was more accurate than a gain twist pope.

this ps stuff is starting to be fun.

PPPPPS.. hudson believed his straight adjustable for length mold was better than pope's or schoyens.

greetings iijs,
got tired of ps's.

if it's pope type you want, don't forget the left hand twist..

now, i think what you want to do is build a pope type rifle from scratch?? if so, there are guys on this site with at least 1000 years combined experiance, information and knowledge. any of them could walk you thru the projet step by step. and yes, there is an order in which to do things. the people here have done it many times..

gary quinalin is the biggest pope collector in the world.. i know him as do many others on this site. he may have documentation.

..ttfn..grampa..

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

Fitz,

Very good and not long winded at all. When I seat the first bullet in my Pope I have to insert a plugged case or the bullet falls right out on the ground. After a shot or two the bullet stays in the barrel. First time I seated the bullet got ready to load the shell, looked into the breech and no bullet. Regarding the loading rod if one is not with a Pope look on the side of the barrel for a fine scratch mark under the blue in most cases. If you lay a case and a bullet on the outside of the barrel the end of the bullet will be right at the mark, it was put there to make a new loading rod. If anyone comes by to talk stop every thing and start over when they leave. Right after someone ask me a question I shot the false-muzzle off Pope No. 24. I've never gone softer than 1-30 so I will look forward to your report on 1-40 1-50.

For more reading on the subject.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&...esult#PPA418,M1

Hi All

XXGranpa, you got it just right I have been looking for a Stevens Pope in 33-47 for quite a while now but without success, the ones I found has been way out of my price range, I do not need a like new rifle I will settle for a good used and not abused rifle, a month ago I was visiting Peterson gun shop in Albuquerque in NM and found a Ballard Pope in 33-47 at a reasonable price unfortunate it was sold to a regular costumer the day before I arrived, so now I will try to build a copy instead based on a CPA action on a no. 52 stock.

It is OK that your Danish is lacking a little behind after all we are only about 5.5 million people here speaking it.

FITZ, a very good description thanks what comes in to my mind is if there is any difference in accuracy when breech loaded vs. Muzzle loaded, In the book “The Rifle In America” by Sharps the author claimed there is about 0.5 to 1 inch in difference.
Is there a chance that you can upload a photo of the stand you are using?

MP, I phoned Ron the other day and he does not keep records of his barrels so the obvious question have you ever slugged the barrel, if so I would like the dimensions.

Regarding the difference in the muzzle loaded and the breech seated bullets Pope recommend 2 different bullets for the 32-40 and for others calibers as well, I do not know if it is weight only or it also is in the design, but for breech seating he recommend 165-185 grains and for muzzle loading he recommend 180-200 grains so it would be interesting what your guys casts are from yours 32-40 moulds.

Michael

PS. sorry for the late answers som digger up the road cut our connections to the outher world.

The Ron Smith barrel I have is .338" x .330" and was marked 14.6 x 30". My friend and I spent the better part of the day trying to measure the twist without success so we decided it was whatever Mr. Smith said it was.

I use the same 220gr Pope bullet muzzle-loading or breech-loading.
On the .32 Pope's I have owned I used the Pope 200gr bullet for both muzzle-loading and breech-loading.

Mike, that is why I tie a good twine to the Blinder pin and tie it off to my shooting tripod. Have come close a few times to shooting the false muzzle downrange. My Pope has the witness scribe for loading rod length. The Pope .32-40 Molds I have used and worked on all seem to throw a 193 to 198 gr Bullet. In Winchester barrels these weights are right on the edge of stability. Lot of Tip at 200 Yds. I traded a SAECO 32-40 mold that was near copy of a Pope and he shot it well in a Stevens, again with tip. Then he got a Winchester Schuetzen and he reported that he would occasionally get a shot flat sideways at 200 yds. So I looked his bullets over. Now the Pope I shoot measures exactly 1.000" overall length. His Measured 1.050 and weighed in at 210 Grs. So I took his mold and faced .050" off the base band end and rebored the base to cast a .324 Diameter base band. He now reports it shoots better and tips less and gets no more sideways bullets. I have begun to wonder if some of the tipping we see at 200 yds is instability or the bullet going from supersonic to subsonic. It is known that at that point the bullet goes through some serious wobble. Well all for now. Regards, FITZ

mriis, I have at one time had 7 Pope 32-40 molds here for either repair or just to cast some samples from. I will say Pope had it down pat as they were nearly identical in size, weight and shape.
variations were in the order of 2 to 4 grs, and on the Base band .003". The smallest base band being .324 diameter and the largest being .327 .3275 Mine. Now as to accuracy, there is no question in my mind that when shooting Black Powder the Muzzle loading method is superior at least in my .38-55. When Muzzle loading I can shoot straight black with no concern. When Breech seating I must at least shoot Duplex loading in order to have any success. As to one better than the other I would need to Bench shoot for comparison and I do very little of that. Prefer
to do all my load development offhand over a period of time. Gets me a lot more shooting anyhow. I will endeavor to take some pics of the shooting tripod. Will see if my daughter can download it here. I so far have not done well at dealing with pics to computers. HTH Regards, FITZ.