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holes.jpg A few years ago I bought an 1884 trapdoor rifle from Al Frasca. I told him I wanted a shooter, he said he had just the rifle for me. It got a little rusty in storage and had some surface mottling on the barrel and action. It looked like it had never been fired after it left the arsenal. I do take it out shooting when I can. I had it safe at my brother's place outside Sandpoint ID last couple years. Bonner Co has a pretty decent gun range so we we sometime take the trapdoor along when we go shooting. I had a bunch of fresh 45/70 loads with me when I went up week before last, so I took the rolling block and the trapdoor. Paul took his muzzle-loader.
We didn't have our own targets so we had to use the red-on-white "sight-in" targets the range hands out. I w2asn't sure about the zero so I put up a target at 50 yards. I got a pretty good sight picture through my 1.5 readers and this is what the old gun could do. About a foot high, but otherwise tight and on-center. I moved to a target at 100 yards, but the red target was mainly a blur - I am sure the rifle would group tight if I could see the target better. It was shooting a foot-and-a half high!
The range has targets out to 200 yards and I think I'll try the gun at that distance with a black target, see if the bullets hit closer to the POA.. The loads are 385 gn lead as-cast, over 70 grn of Swiss 2fg. If I size the bullets the shells might load easier in that tight chamber.
Anyway I switched to the rolling block and shot the rest of the box at 100 yards. Between the two of us we kind of smoked out the range. Paul ran out of powder so we went home.
jn
We didn't have our own targets so we had to use the red-on-white "sight-in" targets the range hands out. I w2asn't sure about the zero so I put up a target at 50 yards. I got a pretty good sight picture through my 1.5 readers and this is what the old gun could do. About a foot high, but otherwise tight and on-center. I moved to a target at 100 yards, but the red target was mainly a blur - I am sure the rifle would group tight if I could see the target better. It was shooting a foot-and-a half high!
The range has targets out to 200 yards and I think I'll try the gun at that distance with a black target, see if the bullets hit closer to the POA.. The loads are 385 gn lead as-cast, over 70 grn of Swiss 2fg. If I size the bullets the shells might load easier in that tight chamber.
Anyway I switched to the rolling block and shot the rest of the box at 100 yards. Between the two of us we kind of smoked out the range. Paul ran out of powder so we went home.
jn
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