Couple weeks back, got to shoot a sound, decent bore example of a later production infantry rifle. M1884, maybe.

Now in my late teens and early 20s, I shot other folks trapdoors quite a bit. Say roughly Jimmy Carter into Reagan's first term. But not at all since.

This one was a cast bullet w/ black powder lube over 60 or so grains by volume of FF. Launched with great authority, and I hit the admittedly large gong @ 100 with the first round. Then fired 4 more.

Now I am of the opinion that the action is a rinkydink device which was t-totally inferior to the rolling block. It's only advantage was that the US gov't didn't have to pay royalties on the in house design.

However, that's theoretical. The concrete part is that the things are piles of fun to shoot, and when it's burning charcoal, better still.

They are fun for sure! I stumbled into a pair of them at the local pawnshop. One was cut down and may be beyond refurbishing. The second one was pretty crusty but had a decent bore. I got it cleaned up and it shoots pretty good (steel plates at 100&300 yards). It is fun with BP. Come to find out, it’s a cadet model that was shipped to a military school at a Texas college.

That whet my appetite so when I came across a rough .50/70 at a gun show I jumped on it. Got lucky with some brass and dies and ordered a mold from Lee. Kind of the same thing it hits steel and makes a loud gong noise so that’s good enough for me! Jared and I were banging steel at 300 at Cannon’s last fall, having all kinds of fun!

--
https://facebook.com/M2bKydex/

https://youtube.com/shorts/-U-5oWqtXxY?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/AmkOONkBMOI?feature=share

On the target view; you can actually see the bullet streak down range!

--
https://facebook.com/M2bKydex/

PAID $15 FOR ONE IN EXCLEENT SHAPE IN 1957.UNFORTUNATELY MY BRAINS WERE STILL MUSH AND I LET IT GET AWAY.