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This morning I took my 1887 Mk 4 Martini Henry to the range for the first time, but with some trepidation.

I don't know when the rifle was last fired and I had never assembled the huge rounds for the gun until yesterday. I made up just 5 rounds with 85 grains of CCC black powder, a 3oz cotton filler, a wax 12mm disc, a grease cookie made from beeswax and vegetable oil, 2 more wax discs and finally the bullet, seated to give an COAL of 3.20.

So at 50 yards I fired the first round and I can't stop smiling!! Wow, what an experience| I fired another 2 rounds and then then the last 2 rounds went to my shooting mates. Smiles all around.

All 5 were on the target but a little high on the black, so its into the shed this afternoon to make up 20 rounds for tomorrow. I can't wait!

Awesome, thanks for the write up! Owning and shooting one of these rifles is on my bucket list for sure. Would be great if you had some pictures too :)

Bravo, there is nothing quite like that first shot on an ages old rifle that has not been shot in years.

That sort of enjoyment from shooting is worth the effort!

a correction to my original post, it was 3 grains by weight of cotton wool, not 3 ounces aaarggh

Just 12 rounds made up for tomorrow, with a change of bullet for 6 of them, these being paper patched.

Can't wait, not been so exited about shooting a rifle for a long time!

The only good thing to say about Sunday, was that all the rounds worked fine, the bullets made holes on the target, except that there was no semblance of a group, which I wasn't really expecting.

It was always planned to use 85 grains of Swiss 5 and I will collect that this week. The cotton wool didn't work, it looked like someone had shot a goose!

The suggestions, of which I had several, were manly to replace the cotton wool with cous cous, get rid of the grease cookie and use 45mm wads with various treatments added to them.

So the search is on for a working load, any suggestions on how to assemble the round will be investigated.

What groove diameter?

What freebore diameter?

What bullet mould?

What diameter?

Different diameters for the PP and GG bullets?

What alloy/how hard?

What lube?

What style of base?