Recent content by Curator

Troy, At the Long Branch factory, they assembled rifles with both 2-groove and 5-groove barrels in 1943. However, most were 2-groove until 1945. It is also possible that your rifle was rebarreled at some time as well, The safety lever is not original Long Branch. It was probably originally...

There is really no such thing as "over stabilization", but round balls can strip out of the rifling when pushed too fast. I have had good accuracy with .495 round balls and .016" Pillow ticking patching over 40-50 grains of FFFg black powder in several "in-line" .50 caliber muzzleloaders. In our...

If you have a dry vibration polisher, try using walnut shells to clean up your black powder brass. I shoot a lot of black powder cartridges and have found the stainless steel pins in a wet tumbler cleaner work best but before that relied on my vibrating cleaner with walnut shell media. Corncob...

I have an unmarried daughter of 35 who I have been trying to convince to dab a little Hoppes #9 behind each ear before she goes out clubbing with her girlfriends. I believe she would attract the right kind of guys. My current wife loves the smell---reminds her of her dad.

The die screws onto your loading press. You can use multiple layers if they are thin enough to fit in the feed-slot. I find that 1/4" felt just barely fits in the feed slot but can get four or more cereal box sheets in it as well as about the same number of plastic coffee can lids (LDPE) Yes, it...

The cadillac of wad punches---from Buffalo arms. Available in several sizes. I have one each of .38, .40, .45, and .50 punches. These works off your reloading press. I can punch out over 1000 perfect wads from felt, cardboard, LDPE plastic, leather, or gasket material in about a half hour...

You may find that the Hornady 174 grain boat tail bullet shoots good for you, but probably not. It is on the small side (.3105) and many Lee Enfields do not shoot accurately with boat tail bullets. In my several Enfields, the single, most accurate bullet is the Hornady 174 grain round nose soft...

The 180 grain Remington load is a turkey! It has been chronographed in my Krag at about 1850 fps. The original Krag load was a 22 grain round nose cupro-nickel jacketed bullet at around 2100 fps. Both barrel time and recoil of this load results in it hitting about 6 inches high at 100 yards in...

I Built a .458wm on a Type 99 action in the 70's, Round-nose cartridges feed from the magazine nicely. I used a 24" Douglas 1 in 14" twist barrel and an English Safari-rifle stock design with serious recoil pad. I also added 1 pound of lead in the butt stock to help with the recoil, The gun...

rfwobbly: With respect, you should look up actual Trail Boss pressures. They are significantly higher than the same velocity loads using black powder. The advantage of Trail Boss is that its bulk helps prevent accidental double charges in large capacity cartridges "originally" loaded with black...

mr.rideout: Metallurgy in the early part of the 20th century was not what it is today. "Nitro-proofed" handguns may have only barely survived the proofing process. Most ammunition of that time was also lead bullets unless of military caliber. Your MkVI Webley was proofed for the .455 Webley...

tgun0223: I have had the same issue with 20 year old remington 7.62X39 small primer brass. I friend who saved his brass but never reloaded, gave me his stash of once fired cases. Most were 15 to 20 years old The resized fine, and shot well too. My first reloading of these found about 20% had the...

Casting lets you make boolits for everything and anything you "accumulate" over then next few years. Yes, you will accumulate both bullet moulds and casting alloy, but you will be in a position to custom make ammo that works in rifle/pistol at just about any velocity/pressure. I shoot everything...

I tried the Lyman .678 Foster Slug in both my 1842 Springfield Smooth bore Musket and my 1848 "Rifled Musket" with relatively poor results. I did try various powder charges and cream of wheat filler to get them to group into something I could brag about. Unfortunately, I never found anything...

If the bore is good, it will be a good shooter. Don't worry too much about it being made in 1898 as all of the M96 Swedish Mausers were made with high quality Swedish steel and good quality control. Shooting "standard" military level loads in it should be fine, just don't hot-rod a 120 year old gun