Black Powder Cartridge Spring 2021

I think one of the hardest things about producing a magazine, at least for me, is doing a relevant and timely editorial for each issue. This is especially difficult for a quarterly publication, as the news of the day can change so fast that the piece that you worked hard on to make “up to speed” on current events, a few days later sounds like you’ve been living under a rock. ...Read More >

Our cover photo for this issue comes from Mike Nesbitt and Jerry Mayo. Mike was responsible for the excellent target and Jerry took the great photograph. ...Read More >

I very much enjoy the Black Powder Cartridge News and I shoot black powder rifles, pistols and shotguns. In the latest BPC News that I received today is a fine article by Bill Goodman on “Reloading Brass Shot Shells.” Bill mentions the problem of “fishing for the primer pocket” when depriming brass shot shells. Here is a hint to facilitate depriming: ...Read More >

Putting new grips on a revolver is almost as good as getting a new gun. Actually, this was an almost new gun, an Uberti New Model 3 Frontier in .44 Special that’s imported by Taylor’s & Company. The wooden grips that come on the gun are very good and serviceable, but I wanted something just a little more authentic in appearance. The vintage-style grips from Triple K quickly filled the bill. ...Read More >

There is a common belief among rifle shooters that smaller velocity variation equals smaller groups. This belief has been repeated so many times that now it is assumed as fact. When shooters share groups from their fine-shooting black powder cartridge rifle (BPCR) they will add, “And the velocity standard deviation is in single digits.” Generally, shooters like numbers such as scores, groups in inches, and velocity variation. As a result of my professional training, I probably like numbers more than most people. We all like to use numbers to quantify the quality, or lack of, just about everything. For example: golf scores and handicaps, time to run 40 yards or drag race a quarter mile. We have even gone so far as to rank football quarterbacks with a number. The passer rating for NFL quarterbacks ranges from 0 to 158.3. If everything worked out according to the numbers when two teams meet, the team with the highest quarterback rating wins. Similar to chronograph readings, it does not work out that way. The lowest velocity spread does not always equal the smallest group. ...Read More >

On page 69 of Muzzle Blasts Earliest Years plus Volumes I and II, a new record was listed as being shot by John Baldinger at the 19th annual matches at Friendship, Indiana. In August 1951, Baldinger shot a score of 100-9X at 200 yards with the old P.A. Reinhard target rifle made in 1879 and owned by “Skunk” Porter. A photograph of Baldinger, Porter, the target, and the old rifle appears in the September 1951, Muzzle Blasts magazine. “Pole Cat,” aka “Skunk” Porter continued to shoot “Old Harrison” (the Reinhard rifle) for 40 years or so. Pole Cat and Old Harrison were well-known at Friendship at the National matches, and Canal Fulton, Ohio. At the Ramrod Club in Canal Fulton, he and Old Harrison became legendary. ...Read More >

When a small financial windfall came my way, I spent it on a once in a lifetime hunt in Africa, as any reasonable person would. I consulted with a friend, a writer who has notched up numerous African adventures. On his advice, I booked 14 days with professional hunter Jofie Lamprecht at his camp on the Caprivi Strip in Namibia’s Zambezi Region. I decided to bring two rifles, one for Cape buffalo and the other for everything else. My consultant then decided he wanted another buffalo and invited himself along. Because this hunt wouldn’t be his first rodeo and he likes guns that speak to the history of safari, he came up with an 8-bore, black-powder double; a museum-grade Westley Richards “Explora.” (He borrowed it from a friend. We should all have such friends.) ...Read More >

Do you “wannabe” a Dave Gullo (USA)? A John Whittaker (England)? A Corena DeBeer (South Africa)? A Laurie Kerr (New Zealand)? A Mark Sobierajski (Australia)? A Guenther Kunz (Germany)? Don’t just dream about it – do it! ...Read More >

The greater percentage of our shooting, as well as most of the stories we read in The Black Powder Cartridge News, gravitates towards black-powder rifle cartridges. I have no problem with that, and I certainly join in, but black-powder loads in revolvers are also worthy of our attention. Most of my “happy handgunning” lately has been done with either Colt Single Actions or replica revolvers using black-powder loads. Those loads are generally assembled by following along the path of the original loadings, most often reduced by a few grains of powder to accommodate modern brass cartridge cases. The results are usually very pleasing and echoed by the roar of the black powder .44s. ...Read More >

Firearm technology evolved very quickly in the mid-nineteenth-century and went from muzzleloader to pinfire to centerfire in a few decades. Two very interesting examples of that evolution are presented herewith. They began with the Great Exhibition of Works of All Nations held in London in 1851. While the breechloader was first invented by Johannes Samuel Pauly in France in 1812, and had been used in France since the 1830s, it was not until an obscure French gunmaker named Casimir Lefaucheux showed a single-barreled pinfire shotgun with hinged, drop-down barrel at the exhibition that provided inspiration for a new generation of British gunmakers. Lefaucheux’s breechloader utilized cartridges patented by his friend, Monsieur Houllier, in 1846. The new gun was termed a “pinfire” because a pin, set into the base at a right angle, detonated a percussion cap inside the cartridge body. ...Read More >

Quite often, when researching the hide-hunting era, I run across items that just make me laugh out loud or scratch my head in amazement. This article is a very small collection of some of those very items. Enjoy. ...Read More >

There is a great deal of speculation and controversy about the strength of eighteenth-century black powder relative to contemporary black powder. Devices called eprouvettes were developed as early as the sixteenth-century to test the strength of gunpowder (Kempers, 1998). This article presents historical data about eighteenth-century gunpowder acquired with an eprouvette and data collected with a replica of it using contemporary black powder. I know of no comparative data other than that reported in this study. ...Read More >

Have you ever stepped on your blowtube? It seems somehow that always happens to my blowtubes, or they get disfigured and “out of round” one way or another. One way to fix that is to just get a new one. Buffalo Arms Company has them available in almost every size. Even so, it might be necessary to resize that deformed blowtube so it can be used some more. ...Read More >