My new Pedersoli Gibbs! (Which .451 part 2)

[dromia]

I am a big fan of the Pro Shot range of black powder rods, jags and cleaning patches.

Just a shame they don't do them in .32 calibre just had to adapt an old Duey rod and 30 cal jag for my new Pedersoli .32 cal flinter.

Pedersoli jags bloody metric.

See my previous posts for my tried and tested loading regime, I use the Pro Shot patches for ease and fitting the Pro Shot jags. I use and carry a small mist sprayer filled with Aquoil to the range for dampening my wiping patches, it also serves for the range clean of the gun.

I would not add a wad and change you wiping regime at the same time, that is altering two variables at once, not good load development practice, you would not know whether to attribute any change on the target to either or both of the changes. Wipe down the barrel on top of the powder first for a couple of dozen shots and see what that does, then add the wad and see what that does.

Now you know you are on target I would move back to 100 yrds for your next session give these long bullets a chance to settle down.

[ovenpaa]

I am also a big fan of Pro-Shot and it is possible to machine down a Jag for a 38/357 to suit .32 - You could probably do it by popping the Jag in the chuck of an electric drill, spin it up and put a file across it and finish with wet and dry. I use a lathe and deepen the grooves at the same time. It is easy enough to calculate the new diamater however I have it written down if anyone is interested.

[dromia]

The real problem is that the rods they do aren't of a small enough diameter, now if you could turn down one of their BP rods that would be good.

With the smaller calibres ordinary rifle rods seem to be the way to go, I don't have a long enough Pro Shot rifle rod for this 42" barrelled rifle if I did then cutting the tip of one of their 30 spear tip jags would have been just dandy, fortunately I had an old Dewey rod of sufficient length and ground down one of their 30 cal jags so I'm well sorted. The Deweys are fine rods and this one will serve well for this lovely little flinter which was delivering fine, five shot touching, 50 yrd groups for me yesterday on its first trip out. Phwoarrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[legs748]

I was using pro shot 2" cleaning patches but they were just too tight on the pedersoli loading jag, luckily I had a .44 pistol jag in my box but that cut a perfect .44 wad as it touched the false chamber if you are not careful! Rifle jag measures .430, I was just going to drop it 10 thou, don't get me wrong the way it cleaned was fantastic but I was having to grip the rifle with my knees to pull the bugger out.

My plan was to shoot three 10 shot groups at 50, first with the patched bullets from the previous owner, the second with my first attempt at patching then the third with grease groove bullets, all with the same load, sights set to zero and the same MO. Then to repeat at 100. This is more to train the shooter/loader than anything else, but the problems I encountered and limited range time meant this couldn't be completed.

[legs748]

So I've had the third outing with the Gibbs and things are looking good. On the second outing I adopted the loading regime recommended by dromia and had no misfires and was getting reasonable groups with the previous owners bullets but was not able to shoot the program I had planned.

Today was the first outing with my own cast bullets in my own paper patches. After a fortuitous delivery of some old roofing lead I got to work on Saturday and finished the day with 80 550gn bullets wrapped snugly in .002" 100% cotton rag paper. So to the range today, over the same load of 67gn of Swiss no4 the first five shot group was looking good at 50m, sights still set to zero.
So to try and get on to the diagram it was time to fiddle with the sights, not very usefully graduated in inches, I wandered around a bit and let the concentration on my loading slip, resulting in a stubborn band of fouling right about where the bullet was seating. After a good scrub out this was the result.
Four shots touching and the flyer only just outside. I'm feeling more confident with this rifle now and am really enjoying shooting it as well as the work that goes in to feeding it, next step is to up the range, I know the gun can perform but can I?


Sent from my iPad using "An application"