Ollin Magnetic Digiscoping System

Scope Recommendations (for new 1885)

Here is another.
https://www.gunbroker.com/item/773844499

You can see it has a hideous stock repair. Actually looks better than most, but this is so unnecessary when doing it right is so easy. anyway, if the bore is good (and I question the seller's description), it would seem pretty typical. The caliber is a good one but I would wonder if a relining or reboring (.45-70?) might be in order. One could buy this one and then surf the net for a while looking for better original stock. They show up fairly frequently, especially in the straight grip configuration.

Another price point (towards the low end of useable), I think it is probably a little too high. I don't know how long it has been for sale.
 
40-90 is nothing. Try the really big stuff like 577 & 500's. 150-160 grains of Black is a heck of a lot by volume. Makes that 90 grains look puny. :)
.
True, but staying with the commoner BPCR cartridges, .38-55s and .45-70s are a lot easier and safer than .45-110s.


The smokeless for Black can be tricky, but not if you pay attention to detail, and don't mind spending a lot more time weighing dacron filler. I've done some of this for the Shiloh Sharps I have, and had tremendous accuracy results to around .5 MOA with the 386 bullets.
I am doing this now for a .38-55 lever gun. I hate it, but this is one of those moments. I'm using floral foam, which I much prefer to dacron - dacron has some folks (like me) worried about chamber ringing. Might be an unnecessary concern but then I tend to look at smokeless itself as unnecessary usually, but these are unusual times for me at the moment.


VIkingsguy - Loading with Blackpowder is very straight forward. The only real specialized pieces of gear I've needed for that are a dedicated black powder powder thrower, a drop tube and a specific funnel for black powder. It's a great time, throwing smoke at the range while all the AR fan-boys are plinking with their poodle-shooters. Stops action on the line all the time. :)

It is VERY straight forward and much safer than smokeless. I use smokeless (Redding) powder measures exclusively. Funnels? I don't use anything special. Droptubes from aluminum arrows or whatever is handy. Pretty easy stuff to set up. But you have to throw out some of your smokeless preconceptions (and some internet lore about black as well). If you ever go that way - just start with Swiss powder. Everyone tries to cut a corner, save a buck and shoots themselves in the wallet by using Goex to begin with.

This is what a good bullet looks like :) Oh so very easy. Really.
:
Sharps%20bullets%20Grants%20book%20small.jpg
 
I'll havde to check out floral foam. I've not had any ringing with Dacron on any of my BPCR's after a few hundred rounds in each though. Based on the reading I've done from both the American Black Powder shooters and the British double fans, they've had no problems with ringing either.

Another really good source, albeit for the British BPE's, is Graeme Wright's book - Shooting the British Double Rifle. It covers everything from smokeless to black, to blackowder loads, to full nitro loads & techniques. Graeme has done a bunch of pressure testing at the Birmingham proof house on smokeless for black loads and has some interesting results showing lower pressures with smokeless than w/ BP. It's a great book, and has been invaluable to me in learning to load my doubles.

I've only used copper drop tubes and have the Lyman BP specific powder measure. My funnel is a cheap RCBS one, but it's only for black powder.

Totally agree on Swiss versus GOEX.
 
I spent the better part of Saturday afternoon working on the 40-90 Sharps. Between prepping 90 cases (trimming, chamfering, deburring & cleaning primer pockets) to trying to figure out how to get the danged thing to properly chamber, I think I issued no fewer than 987 swear words, but in the end, discovered that the chamber is incredibly tight, and that there can't be much variance between bullets, even so much as .002 of an inch.

SO - ignore everything I said and don't do it. :D
 
Compressing w/ the bullet. I don't have a compression die, unfortunately.

Although now that I think about it, the belling die could work as a compression die.

I found that belling the case a little more helped with this, and it kept the bullet straighter in the case, but I ended up with less neck tension that I had hoped for, leading to basically a bastardized breech seating of the bullet in to case.
 
I HIGHLY recommend a dedicated compression die. That is your problem. Almost certainly. They are cheap. Buffaloarms.com is your friend here...
 
Done deal.

Ordered and on it's way.

I did notice that chambering was much easier after using the belling die to it's full extent. So, I'm hoping that the compression die is going to do the trick.
 

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