A couple years ago I did an article on Rich Pierce and his hand knapped gun flint. Earlier this year I contacted him about his 2012 price sheet to post up here. One change worth noting from previous years is that his email address has changed. Below is his 2012 information sheet in PDF format:
The past week while I have been on spring break and away from college I have kept my self busy reloading ammo.
Earlier this year I bought a Lee Reloader Single Stage Press along with Lee carbide dies for .45 colt. Considering I paid a little under $30 for the press it has been working pretty well. Some day when I am out of school and have a job maybe I will buy a better press, but this will work for now.
I used up a whole bag of 100 230 grain conical bullets left over from an experimental try in my Remington cap and ball revolver.
Despite the extra cost over normal powder I have been trying IMR’s Trail Boss powder. It seems to be working well and its nice having an double loaded shell being very obvious. Right now the load I am using is 5.5 grains compared to the overall capacity of the .45 Colt loaded to the brim with Trail Boss should be 12.4 grains this means that a quick peek in the case should easily tell me if it is one or two charges. I have read that with other denser powders it is very easy to double or triple charge a .45 Colt case with smokeless powder.
I did give loading a few blackpowder rounds a try as well. I tried 35 grains of 2F blackpowder with the 230 grain conical and they seemed to shoot well. I used about a two foot long drop tube to help the powder pack in better–I’ve read rifle rounds must always be loaded with a drop tube because it packs the powder in better. I do think that 35 grains was a bit to much for the case capacity though because I noticed the bullet compressed the powder a very long ways and after I loaded the rounds a couple of the bullets pushed back out a little ways. I read that when loading blackpowder you should over load the case slightly, similar to how I did, and then start backing the charge off until you get to the point where the powder does not push the bullet back out any when you let it sit over night. Next time I reload blackpowder I’ll have to experiment some to find the right amount so that the bullets don’t get pushed back out any.
I gave a few round ball loads a try as well. This is a bit more iffy, because IMR and none of the reloading manuals seem to list loading data for round balls. The closest I could find was that a Speer #11 manual lists loads for round balls, but it is so old it does not list Trail Boss powder. Initially, I started at the same load I was using for the conicals which was 5.5 grains, but I suspect from IMR’s load data they have online that really the 140 grain round ball should be getting closer to 7 grains of Trail Boss. I emailed IMR about load data, but they said they had none.
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I saw a few deer today.
Around noontime I saw three cross a pipeline. Two of them were bucks and looked to be about 4-point size. The third did not have antlers, but as it crossed it was right next to one of the others so I could not shoot.
This evening when I was watching a wooded area I saw one antlerless deer. It was about 75 yards away and had a little brush between us. It was getting pretty close to quitting time so I decided to shoot. When I fired, my flintlock hesitated for part of a second. I held pretty well on the target, but chances are I moved some. Anyways the deer must not have been hit because I saw it walk away. I went and checked for blood, but did not find any.
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Camping-gear-outlet.com provides a wide range of camping and hunting equipment from a camping tent to a game call. The company is listed under the BBB as having an A+ rating. According to their site they are based out of Prairieville, Louisiana.
While, getting another tent for camping is not of interest to me I did find they have a decent selection of hunting related items. They especially seem to carry a lot of calls made by Primos, so they might be worth a look when shopping for a new turkey call.
Since, I still have a buck tag that can act as a anterless tag I went out hunting again today. I hunted around home some, but did not see anything not even any tracks in the snow. For the evening my father and I went to a state game land and put on a short drive, but did not see anything.
