Shooting Shot from a 50 Cal BP Rifle

Description

http://www.thepathfinderstore.com

Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning folks I'm Dave Canterbury with the Pathfinder school and what I thought we'd do this morning is have a little discussion about one of my theories when it comes to black-powder firearms I recently returned from the SHOT Show in Las Vegas and that's the reason I haven't shot any videos for about the last five or six days and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about black powder again because we are preparing to add some black powder firearms to our website at self-reliance Outfitters we're going to have both kits and we're going to have finished guns and we'll have them in a few different calibers we will have some Fowler's and we will have some rifles now the Fowler's are more expensive because they have to be custom-built it's very hard to find a smoothbore or a shotgun or Fowler in black powder either in cap lock or flintlock without paying the custom price because they really don't make a production manufactured Fowler anymore unless you go to somewhere like pet rizzoli which is one of the types of firearms that we're going to carry but again you're talking almost $1,000 for a Fowler they're very expensive firearms now I'm working on getting some kits some custom you build kits into the shop and the $700 range but that's about as cheap as we're going to be able to get a type diffusal or any type of Fowler and it will be just like the one that I carry except it will be a kit instead of a finished gun but one thing that I wanted to talk to you guys about going to the common man side of things you're going to the less expensive and still pretty bulletproof side of things is just these side lock type cheaper model black-powder guns this one happens to be a 50 caliber Cabela's made in Italy so it's not going to be any different than most of the things that you're going to find from CVA traditions all of those lower end side lock type firearms and cap locks always going to be less expensive than flintlock so I've had lots of guys ask me about smaller caliber rifles like 30 to 36 caliber and number one they're very difficult to find and number two usually they're very expensive traditions does have a smaller caliber

rifle but they're out of stock right now and they don't know when they're gonna get them back in I think it's a 36 caliber so they're fairly hard to find the second thing that I find is in my mind for the Eastern woodlands they're almost a waste of time because they're a dedicated firearm for small game like squirrel rabbit and things like that okay so here's my black-powder solution or my 21st century long hunter solution if you will to being able to make this 50 caliber firearm more versatile I can buy a smaller caliber rifle to hunt small game like a 32 or 36 something like that but it's not going to be legal for hunting deer in the state of Ohio so it's a very limiting firearm I'm almost investing the money in that small caliber rifle only for small game I can shoot shot from a 50 caliber rifle barrel I'm going to suffer accuracy over distance but at Short ranges of 15 to 20 yards which is no problem for squirrel and rabbit

I'm not going to suffer enough to make me miss my target and I still have the ability to shoot that 50 caliber round ball or buffalo bullet from this gun so I have the big-game opportunity and a small game opportunity wrapped into one gun I'm going to show you today what the pattern looks like on a small game with number six shot fired from a 50 caliber rifle stay with me okay so here's some of my terrible artwork this isn't my small gray squirrel we're going to hang this in a tree and about 15 yards away I'm going to show you how to load shot for use in a 50 caliber rifle caplock black-powder firearm will take a shot see how we do stay with me now there's a couple of different ways that I can shoot shot from this firearm I can load it as a traditional Fowler and just put powder in there a wad shot and over wad and shoot it or I can create a cartridge from paper surrounding a shot and load it that way the paper chuck shot cartridge is going to have less variation or less spread of the pattern than just loading a straight down the barrel and letting it travel through the rifling both ways will work the first one I'm going to show you is the way that I normally load which is just to put my powder in put a wad in put shot on top of that wad on top of that and fire the gun very quick and field expedient so I would just take my powder flask load my measure with the proper measure of powder grab a piece of sheep's wool and I like to use sheep for wool because the lanolin lubricates the barrel and it's also and not very flammable when it comes out to the other end and I will Jam that down inside just like that then I would use the same volume measure for my shot and put an equal volume of number six shot as I used powder there is no cap in the gun at this point there was no chance of this gun going off and then the last step is just to put an over wad of again sheep's wool down the barrel and now I've basically created a shotgun shell within this gun once I'm done with that then I would have reach into my bag and grab a cap hey prepare the gun by putting on a half cock full cock I always hold the hammer when I'm doing this and keep my fingers off the trigger load the cap and then I ride to trigger forward to the half cock position just like that and now I'm ready to huh okay so there's mr. squirrel target hanging from the tree and we're about 15 yards away see what we got okay so here's what we got no doubt that's a dead squirrel

all right so let's take a look at on bugs here you'll probably have to walk up on and can't hardly see it in the camera I don't think I'll take here's what we got on a rabbit twenty yards he's got plenty of holes that he messed for sure there's at least two in the head one two three in the upper area the spine and one two three four in the gut and one and a hind in he's not going anywhere that's twenty yards with six shot out of a fifty caliber rifle okay guys so here's what I found out over time you're gonna have to play with your firearm in your loads I generally use the same powder measure and shot volume measure if that's what you want to look at it for all of my black-powder firearms but I only use 50 to 69 caliber generally speaking you want to start with about the same amount of powder as the caliber of your gun as a starting load so 50 grains of powder for 50 caliber 60 grains of powder for a 60 caliber and so on and then if you're using shot you want to use an equal volume wherever that volume of powder comes up on your measure you would use an equal volume of shot and it's got a pattern different from a rifle that it's going to from a smoothbore so you're gonna have to play with your loads a little bit play with your shot volume play with your powder volume and things like that to get it down to where you want here's the thing this rifle is capable of shooting shot and it's capable of being effective out to 20 yards very easily for taking small game I don't need a small caliber rifle to hunt squirrel and rabbit and things like that if I can use shot in a 50 caliber rifle which is much more common much less expensive especially if I'm just trying to get into black powder I want to see how I like it I can get a 50 caliber rifle fairly cheap and I can play with shot and 50 caliber round ball 50 calibers buffalo bullets and all of those things

to get the feel for how I like black powder and it doesn't take a whole lot of accessories to shoot these firearms and they're not that difficult to clean appreciate you guys joining mater today for this theory on shooting shot from a 50 caliber rifle I thank you for your views and your support I thank you for everything you do for our school for our family and for our business on the back turn of the video says I can't