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After all the problems I've been having with my hands due to arthritis and loosing feeling in my fingers it looks as though my handloading days are numbered. My usual winter holiday handloading fest over two months in Scotland turned into a brief snack as I spent more time on the floor picking up dropped gas checks, primers, sundry tools and boolits.

So having contemplated this I have decide that for this years shooting I will go the black powder muzzle loading route, I have always shot muzzle loaders and love black powder as a propellant. As the balls and bullets are larger, powder handling is on a bigger scale and priming is easier on the nipple especially with top hat caps it seemed a sensible approach to keep me shooting.

Firstly I went through the racks to re-acquaint my self with what I had, so far I've found three original Parker Hale rifles a P53, P58 Naval and a hexagonal barrel Whitworth. I also found a little percussion Jager smooth bore in .45 with which I am having a lot of fun shooting on the 25yrd range. I also found a new in box Investarms 54 calibre Hawken flinter in a another dealers bin end box which I promply purchased for a very friendly price. I have cast some RB and cut and lubed some patches for this and will be trying it out next week on the 100yrd range. So I have the makings of a decent battery of MLs already, still have to go through the obsoletes and see what I have in there as well that might be worth putting on ticket

Today however I set too with the pot and ladle to cast up some Pritcett bullets to make up some paper cartridges for the P53 and the Naval rifles.

Here is the set up.



I managed to churn out this lot of Pritchetts before my hands packed in, not bady for a single cavity and ladle.



Bullet ready to drop from the mould.



A finished Pritchett waiting to rolled into its paper cartridge.



After a wee rest I went back to the pot for another round and put up some mini Minies and round balls, all ready to make smoke with.

Arthritis sucks, sorry to hear that.

Nice set up you have there, I am sure Ovenpaa will go down that route once we have a bigger workshop.

I had one of those smooth bore jager .45's about 15 yrs ago, good little fun gun.

With arthritis in your fingers, I would skip the paper cartridge and go for a grease groove bullet. I have the Lyman RN mould for the the P53 but I also have the Lee "Modern Minie" which seems to be much more accurate, at least at the short ranges that I shoot at.
You have my sympathy---my wife has the same problem: she used to play the piano for various church activities, but can no longer cope.
Fred

Rolling up the cartridges isn't too bad, my goodly wife cuts them out for me.

I shoot a lot of GG Minies too, in fact there is a selection of moulds for them on the table behind the bullet catching pad.

They will next to get cast up and as I said I did some mini Minies today, being short they shoot well out to 100yrds in the slow twist P53.

I do have a soft spot for the Pritchett loaded from the paper cartridge though and it does shoot very well especially as this is a short version that again works well in the three band.

I can sympathise on the arthritis issue having similar problems myself, but have to complement you on the superb looking bullets.

I cant wait to see these in action !!

FredB wrote:-my wife has the same problem: she used to play the piano for various church activities, but can no longer cope.
Fred

Sorry to hear that Fred, I bet she misses it.

Getting old is about you body packing up in instalments.

Dahonis wrote:I cant wait to see these in action !!

Shame you are not there tomorrow, I was going to bring the rifles down.

dromia wrote:

FredB wrote:-my wife has the same problem: she used to play the piano for various church activities, but can no longer cope.
Fred

Sorry to hear that Fred, I bet she misses it.

Getting old is about you body packing up in instalments.

It's happening to me already!