An overdue trip to the indoor range

The Mt. McKinley Mountainmen muzzleloading club holds a blackpowder pistol shoot the second Tuesday of every month at the Matanuska Valley Sportsmen’s (MVS) indoor range on the Glenn Highway south of Palmer. I finally made the trip over this past week to impress everyone with my prowess with a handgun!

For one reason or another, I hadn’t been to a pistol shoot in a while. My attendance at the monthly rifle shoots has been hit or miss as well. The long gun activities are scheduled for the third Saturday of each month at the MVS range also.

My plan was to start getting ready for the 1000-Point Shoot pistol match coming up in early May. I’ll mention more on that later. For this evening’s match, I brought my 54-caliber percussion side-lock pistol to shoot.

After checking my notes, I realized I hadn’t recorded the powder charge I had used before in this pistol. I took a guess and loaded 30 grains, by volume, of FFg blackpowder and the usual patched round ball. The load was shooting low and left for the first 3-4 shots and, as the pistol got dirty and settled down (or I did), started printing hits on the target at the proper elevation but still a little left.

My first 10-shot target had ten scoring hits but nothing in the black. My “Kentucky-windage” sight picture holds finally started working and my second target saw me score two 10x hits, but somehow, I managed to pull one shot completely out of the scoring rings. I need to bring a hammer and punch next time to bump the rear sight to adjust for that left side grouping!

I learned a couple of things at this match. First, I need to keep better shooting notes. I shoot a lot of different caliber blackpowder firearms, some more than others, and my memory isn’t what it used to be! I also don’t shoot the blackpowder guns as much as I used to, so remembering load recipes has an influence here. Second, I have always swabbed the bore after each shot, whether rifle or pistol, when shooting blackpowder to reduce fouling in the bore.

At the last rifle shoot with my underhammer, 36-caliber rifle, I was having misfire problems. I finally quit swabbing after every shot and my misfire problem stopped. I may have been using too wet of a cleaning patch and not wiping the bore dry enough between loads. I thought I’d try not swabbing between shots with the pistol and had 20 consecutive shots with no problems and no deterioration in accuracy. Not swabbing after every shot will greatly speed up my shooting times!

I also did something I hadn’t done in years – I “dry-balled” one load. That means I forgot to pour powder down the barrel before seating the ball. I was able to pull the nipple and get some powder behind the ball, just enough to shoot the ball into the backstop and clear the gun for reloading. I need to pay closer attention when shooting!

What is this 1000-Point match I mentioned earlier?

The match was started a few years ago to allow shooters to qualify for a ranking which allows them to participate in the correct shooting class for their skills at regional and national pistol matches. So far, about 15 local shooters have received their qualification rankings.

Participation in the 1000-Point match has fallen off recently and, unless at least 10 shooters sign up for this year’s two-day event, the match will probably be cancelled. I plan to attend and, while I might not shoot the full 1000-point’s worth, I’ll still be supporting the match. Even if you don’t shoot everything, just participating is a lot of fun!

Something else the local blackpowder club has instituted recently is awarding beads for hits in the ten-ring, one white bead for each ten-ring hit during the monthly pistol match. Once you collect ten white beads, you can exchange them for one red bead. With my two 10x hits, I was awarded two white beads.

How does that compare to the other shooters? Our national-class pistol shooter won nine white beads. One of the guys who forgot to bring his shooting glasses won four. The remaining shooters ranged from three to six beads for the 20-shot match. I told you I was going to impress the guys with my shooting prowess. Coming in at the bottom of the pack is always impressive!