YES my kit is on its way.

[Aries-]

Ordered a Rigby sporting rifle from pecatonica back in febuary. and been waiting on the foundery to send out the breechplugs for them. called them today and they shipped my barrel, stock and barrel pins and stuff out last thursday.

when it arrives il be ordering the rest of the hardware.

il take pictures of it and post them up so you all can see.

got a Walnut stock, with a 3/8 ramrod hole drilled for it. (i know they dont normaly have them but il be useing it for hunting and such and dont want to carry the ramrod with me on my belt or back)

i cant wait for it to get here.

 

[Steve499]

Aries, is it one of the .451 'smallbore' Rigbys?

Steve

 

[O.S.O.K.]

pics

we need to see some pics when it arrives

 

[Aries-]

yeah its the .451 (ises a green mountain 45-70 barrel)

il be ordering a mould and stuff from dixie gun works when it all arrives.

i had to split up the order a bit so it would make it through customs ok. (ie barrel and stock nothing else) the rest i will order when it arrives.

shouldent be a problem getting here as a friend of my dads orders barrels from the states alll the time.

 

[Steve499]

You'll like that for hunting. The accuracy surpasses most all the other muzzleloaders once you get beyond 100-200 yards.

The only problem I have using my .451 hunting is keeping the bullet seated. You gotta be careful with that!

There's a lot of good information about shooting these things over on the Long Range Muzzle Loading list on Yahoo. http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/lrml/messages

Steve

 

[Aries-]

il be getting a 475 grain bullet, and a sizer from dixie. what i REALLY wanted was about a 6 inch pice of barrel with the same rifleing on it so i could stuff it in a lathe and turn the tip into a cone so i could push it through there first. then down the barrel so its got rifle marks on it already so it kind of slips into the ones in the barrel and goes down easy.

but the sizer should work well. im trying to decide on what sights to use. i want a flip up site for longer range stuff. but i also wouldent mind a normal site on the barrel for closer stuff. oh well il figgure it all out i hope lol.

thanks for the page. i like the rigby for its pistole grip type stock, regular rifle stocks hurt my wrist with any ammount of shooting. so having my hand at that more comfortable angle helps a lot.

 

[Steve499]

I guess having the rifling engraved on the bullet prior to loading would be o.k., but you might have trouble getting one of those seated in a less than absolutely clean bore.

I size mine in a .450 sizing die. They will load in a clean barrel by their own weight and in a lightly fouled barrel with only the weight of the ramrod. The mold I have for mine (not a Rigby, it's a .451 Volunteer) throws a 550 grain bullet. They bump up to take the rifling so having rifling engraved on them before loading really isn't necessary, though if I had a section of barrel, like you I'd love to try that out to see if it would be any advantage.

I have Soule type tang sights on two of my rifles, manufactured by Lee Shaver from Lamar, Missouri. http://www.egunsmith.com/ He's close enough to me that I can drive down to his shop and have him mount them, too. I don't know about you, but I just can't see open sights any more so the tang sight is pretty much a requirement. I killed two deer with my .451 this last season during low light. I just unscrewed the aperture from the tang sight and used the threaded hole. It worked fine and just takes a second to replace when the light improves. You probably won't really be able to use the full potential of the excellent long range accuracy your Rigby should give you unless you do go on and get a rear peep of some sort.

Here's a link to a picture in an old thread of a couple of those .451 bullets, before and after. The fired one penetrated 13 water filled plastic jugs and about 8 to 10 inches of dirt. The bullet is shortened by the bumping up as you can see by comparing the top lube rings on both.

http://thehighroad.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=44113&d=1156885388

Steve

 

[Aries-]

the egunsmith site doesent work. cand get to their products page in ether firefox or ie.

the bullet il be useing likely is this one http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_101_283&products_id=8051

i have to find out the weight of it. aswell.

as for 550 grain bullets. i havent found any molds that big before.

 

[Steve499]

That link is working for me, Aries, and I'm not a computer person so I haven't a clue why it isn't for you.

That Dixie mold, designed by Bob Roller it says, may just be the same Bob Roller who posts frequently over on that LRML site I mentioned above. He is quite into the Rigby-type muzzleloaders and has probably forgotten more about that stuff than I'll ever know. I got my mold from Joe Hepsworth, another fine gentleman/gunsmith or gunsmith/gentleman, who has also been around the long range muzzleloading target matches for years and years. Joe likes paper patched bullets. My mold, for a grease groove bullet, was one he had he decided he would never use so he sold it to me. Joe sells the rifles and most of the accessories you need for one, including sights. He can also fix you up with a platinum lined nipple. The slug shooting muzzleloaders generate substantially more pressure than a minie or round ball rifle and can erode a standard nipple out after as few as 30-40 shots. Joe's website is http://www.jcunard.com/

Steve

 

[Aries-]

GRAH !
got the barrel and stock today.

and someone it looks like at customes clamped the stock in a vice and took a huge chunk out of the butt of the stock. betufoul black walnut stock ruined. good thing its insured, but still its a beutiful pice of wood.

guy at pecatonica says he is going to contact the post office in the morning and find out what to do. as he has never had this sort of thing happen before. il update when i find out more.

looks like someone grabbed the base of the butt with a pipe wrench or something and gave it a twist.