The Guns We Own

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One pf the things I have found with casting my own bullets (out of wheel weights) is that cast bullets can have amazing consistency and accuracy. The trick is to find a compatible mould and more expensive is not necessarily better. For .45 ACP I use a 200 grain copy of the H&G 68 and a 230 grain truncated cone. For a .45-70, I tried a bunch of different moulds but the most consistent seemed to be a cheap Lee 450 grain. Actual bullets come out at about 462 grains or so but variations are VERY small. I cull anything outside of a 0.3 grain range. For the rifle bullets, I weigh each bullet when sorting.

- Ivan.
 
I remember during our Arabic refresher training prior to OIF, one of the words was the verb for "to zero a weapon". The instructor looked at it and chuckled. "You will never hear this word."
What do they say? We asked.
"Allah will guide my bullets."
True story.
 

It could be that Allah has chosen to grant you a just reward for lack of preparation and determined that any replacement when you fall in battle is a better representative for his cause than you ever could have been!

- Ivan.
 
After 5/6 years of bidding and missing by $25 sometimes I finally scored a black powder pistol a 1858 Uberti which I am thinking of getting the replacement cly.?I got this one after bumping my final bid to $300 it paid off.The final bid was $275+fees+ shipping=$350 to the door.The brand new one is $582 so I am good.
 

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Just picked up an Ishapore enfield in a .308 in really nice condition with an excellent bore. Replaced the rear sight for the correct one and replaced the front cap with an Aussie SMLE, liked the rabbit ears better than the Ishapore. Also picking up an FN 7x57 M1922 in really good condition today. These will join my two IBM M1 carbines and my Fulton-Arms custom M14. Think I'm done for awhile.
 

Congratulations on the Ishapore guns. I am not sure how familiar you are with them but here are a couple things to keep in mind if you have not encountered them before. The chambers on these guns are 7.62 NATO specification and not .308 Winchester. While this may be obvious, the practical consequences are that the headspace might be a touch longer than a .308 and will probably chamber a .308 No-Go gauge. I don't actually have a 7.62 No-Go gauge, but the .308 Field-Reject gauge is shorter and if it does not chamber that, you are good.
The chamber is also slightly larger radially, but that isn't all that obvious.
As for swapping the nose cap, keep in mind that while the pieces are going to swap without a problem, if you want good accuracy, you should probably make sure that the barrel still clears the new nose cap. Another thing to consider on SMLE type rifles (and I believe the Ishapore .308 is the same) is that under the stock, there is a barrel band which holds the barrel at about its midpoint onto the bottom of the stock. On the underside, there looks like a big screw head, but it is a cap covering a spring which applies tension to the barrel band. There should be some tension on that spring. The original springs on many SMLE type guns just don't hold up and have taken a set. I cut a small piece from a worn out M1 Garand recoil spring to replace it. The Garand recoil springs are high quality steel.

Advice comes with no guarantees (Do your research) but this worked pretty well with my Frankenstein SMLE.

- Ivan.
 
Thanks for the info. I know about the caliber and also the pressures involved.. As for the front cap all is good though it does feel like that spring is weak. Might need to rig something up. The stock is in good shape, cool looking rifle
Thanks I know about the caliber and the pressures involved and as for the front cap it fit with little issues. The spring feels a bit weak so I will try rigging something. Will look at the other spring also. The stock looks nice also. Thanks for all your input. Appreciate it.
 

I never actually mentioned anything about pressures. I was just describing the headspace specification differences between .308 Winchester and 7.62 NATO. Without knowing this, you might conclude as I did initially that these Ishapore 7.62 Enfields have excessive headspace.
 

Folks might be wondering what level of performance one could expect from these cast bullets.
For the .45-70, I was getting 5 shot groups that were typically 1 inch to 1.5 inches at 100 yards. The gun / ammunition combination might do better, but there was no provision for mounting optics and I could not do better with iron sights. The more expensive Lyman Schmitzer and Postell moulds did not produce bullets that would achieve 1 inch groups though there were a few 1.5 inch groups.
As for the pistol bullets, the .45 cal bullets would shoot as well or better than jacketed bullets. Most groups were under 1.5 inches at 25 yards if the pistol was capable. There were a lot of groups with 3 or 4 bullets in one ragged hole.
With .357 158 grain SWC bullets, there was no hope of getting full magnum velocities (about 1250 FPS). I recall velocities that didn't go much over about 1050 or 1100 FPS. Accuracy was fantastic though. Getting a full 6 shot cylinder into a 1 inch group at 25 yards was fairly common.
With commercial cast bullets, 2 - 2.5 inch groups was about the best I could get. This velocity limit is interesting because I was getting just under 1500 FPS with bullets from a .45-70 with no leading issues at all. I suspect the difference is the way the moving bullet encounters rifling in the forcing cone of a revolver. Testing the theory with a .45 Auto wasn't really viable because a recoil operated pistol isn't really all that tolerant of very high speed rounds with recoil beyond a certain range. In this case, the shooter isn't either.

What I decided after a while was that it was worthwhile to cast rifle bullets because the accuracy actually made a difference. When shooting a pistol, there are not a lot of situations in practice that a 1 inch grouping gun is more useful than a 2.5 inch grouping gun, especially when the shooter can't hold anywhere near that when shooting offhand.

- Ivan.
 
I got what you wrote, again thank you
 
Not sure what caliber your new Uberti revolver is in but for my Ruger Old Army revolver, I stopped buying the .45 cal lead balls and just used the 200 grain SWCs I was casting to load in .45 ACP. They worked pretty well and I didn't even bother sizing them so making them was pretty easy. The .45 cal lead balls weigh around 160 grains. If you are concerned about longevity, I believe Pyrodex is a lot less abusive to a gun than actual black powder is.
 
15 years ago, my wife and I bought a 130 year old farm house and we're still making modifications and upgrades. 3 years in, I decided to tear out the existing basement staircase and get rid of all the junk that the previous owner had left underneath it. One of the pieces of 'junk' turned out to be a 58 calibre 1853 Pattern Enfield rifle. It was buried under a mass of old cans, boxes and still unidentified materials. The previous homeowner died in his 80s and was a known gun owner.

My prize was, and is, in remarkable condition. The receiver looks like it was put together yesterday. I have had the rifle completely disassembled, cleaned and put back together and that's all it needed. I am told it will fire, no problem.

As for its provenance, the stampings and numbers discovered during the disassembly indicate it as a Birmingham built commercial model, confirmed by the Royal Armouries in Leeds. The rifle was provided to either the United States or the Confederate States during the American Civil War, but without knowing when it was built/delivered, it would be guessing to say it went to one side or the other. According to what I read, the Union ceased purchases from Birmingham in late 1863, but the Confederacy continued to deal with them.
 

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Has anyone thought about grinding off the corners from the nosecap of an Ishapore L2A rifle?
The nosecap will still be a bit boxy looking but from a casual glance will be a lot closer to a SMLE.
 
The corners of the ears on the nosecap are just the most obvious difference. There are a few more shape differences if you compare the two nosecaps side by side.
 
I have after some hiatus started hitting the range a little more regular in the last couple of weeks sending about out about 250 rds.The rifle has had about 4/5K rds sent through her and I was thinking a new barrel was in order?I shoot only open sights and have replaced the rear sight with a WWII bar site I got off Winnie MI Garand parade rifle I got for $75 back in 2008.The problem was not the rifle barrel but the shooters lack of practice and grabbing that site picture!I got some of it back today now I need to ingrain that picture.The lower paper was 50yds,rim of target 75yds and center was 100yds.I will be 65 in January and I do not wear glasses but I do wear orange glasses for driving and the range.


Rifle M1a Standard
 

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