Whooo Hooo! New toy

[Pitspitr]

In keeping with my GAF Persona and Brevet I recently traded for an H&R Officers model trapdoor. (Can you guess what I'll be using for a rifle at the Grand Muster?)
Has anybody out there in GAF land shot one? Right now I'm thinking I'll use the standard Carbine load (55gr FF). Anybody have any other load suggestions?

[Steel Horse Bailey]

How cool is that!

Congratulations!

[RattlesnakeJack]

The carbine load would definitely be preferable to the full rifle load, Colonel!!!   

If anything, for GAF shooting I'd think you might want to go even lighter .... say about 45 grains.

Are we gonna see some tintypes of that there new shootin' iron posted here? 

[Advertising]

[Bull Schmitt]

Pitspitr,

If my recollection is correct I believe some of the H&R trapdoors have a reputation for  popping open when fired. I don't recall what the fix is but a Google search or a visit to some of the BPCR forums may provide an answer. I don't recall if all of them had this problem or only those of a certain vintage.

YMMV

Col Bull

[Pitspitr]

If anything, for GAF shooting I'd think you might want to go even lighter .... say about 45 grains.

What would be the fun of that? I want to be bruised for a week.....or not

Col. Schmidt, Yes I'd heard that too. The problem has to do with the way the cam is attached to the thumb latch. From what I've read, you can actually exchange the latch from the H&R for one from an original (which I happen to already have) and solve the problem...or you can weld it. One way or the other it should be in the realm of my capabilities. The previous owner has said that it's really a sweet shooter. I'm really anxious to find out. Maybe tomorrow

[RattlesnakeJack]

What would be the fun of that? I want to be bruised for a week.....or not

Well .... I was bruised for a good two weeks after Muster last year!     

A couple of days of shooting even "light" Martini-Henry loads will do that to a fellow (65gr with only a 405 gr bullet, as opposed to 85 gr with a 480 gr bullet.)   

[Bull Schmitt]

Pitspitr,

Glad to hear you were aware of the potential problem and some of the recommended fixes. I would like to have one of those rifles or a carbine. I gues sI'll have to use the two long rifles I have.

Col Bull

[Pitspitr]

I hear ya Col. Robson. There's something about the stock of a Trapdoor. The load I use in my originals is 70gr FF and a 500 Gr bullet. After a while your shoulder starts getting sore but you don't really realize it. Then you subconsiously start moving the butt out on your bicep to get it away from the bruised area. When you do that it really jumps up and bites you. Right under the nose! It'll bring tears to your eyes.

Col. Bull, the latch on the H&R looks just like the one on my Pedersoli. Hopefully my H&R is new enough to avoid the problems they're famous for but I'm not counting on it. Thanks for the heads up.

[Steel Horse Bailey]

I hear ya Col. Robson. There's something about the stock of a Trapdoor. The load I use in my originals is 70gr FF and a 500 Gr bullet. After a while your shoulder starts getting sore but you don't really realize it. Then you subconsiously start moving the butt out on your bicep to get it away from the bruised area. When you do that it really jumps up and bites you. Right under the nose! It'll bring tears to your eyes.

Col. Bull, the latch on the H&R looks just like the one on my Pedersoli. Hopefully my H&R is new enough to avoid the problems they're famous for but I'm not counting on it. Thanks for the heads up.

With some luck it'll be OK.  I don't know any more than what I've read about, but I did hear that H&R made a fix during the production run, so we'll hope yours is one of the Improved versions!

If I can make it to the Muster, may I give it a try?  I hope to be able to bring my own (downloaded) rounds - BP of course, but let me know if you only shoot that fad smokeyless powder.
  

[Four-Eyed Buck]

I'll stick two cents in here, if I may. IIRC, the Pedersoli's are made on the old H & R tooling. The Pedersoli latch works could probably work on the H & R. I believe that Sgt. Drydock would be a good one to query on this............Buck

[Rancid Roy]

pitspitr,

You may find the Pedersoli is a good replacement for the unlatching of your H&R as that is the fix that was reported on the SASS Wire years ago.

I have the H&R standard carbine and I have found that the 400 grain bullets seem to group better than anything larger or smaller. It might be because they were rifled for the factory load of the 405 grain in production then. However I have not done a complete and thorough testing of loads, as in wide number of powders and bullets.

Congratulations on your purchase [or gift]. I too hope to buy one some day.

[Pitspitr]

Hi RR
The previous owner did quite a bit of work on it including installing a folding front sight and an original rear sight. He's said its a fine shooter so I'd think if he expierenced any of the latch problems that some have talked about, he'd have either fixed it or at least mentioned it sometime. He's had the gun as long as I've known him and I've known him since the mid 70's and been good friends with him for over 15 years. He has said that he gave $125 dollars for the gun when he bought it.

I'm glad to hear about the 405's being the bullet to use as that was what I was planning on.

It wasn't really a purchase or a gift, as I traded labor (Or Labour for Rattlesnake Jack ) for it. I replaced the heads on one of his tractors for it.  Hmmmm, maybe I need to make one of those little cardboard signs, "Will work for guns." 

[Rancid Roy]

Yessir, make one of those signs and stand on the side fo the road in Washington D.C.

Let us know how the 400/405 grainers shoot in it. I still intend to find a "serious" load for my H&R Trapdoor. As it now shoots I amd getting 3 inches at 100 yards with Miester 400 grainers lubed with SPG. That was with Goex FFG. I have some other powders coming in and will see how they shoot.

[Oddman]

I also have a H&R Officers model, been shooting Schuetzen 2f and 3f powder with 300 grain spg bullets. Depending on the class
I have loaded between 35 to 70 grains of Schuetzen.  60 grains of bp with a 300 grain spg bullet works good out to 100 yards, any further and that load starts to fall short. One could up grade to a better rear sight, thats the only problem I have noticed. Have fun with your new toy.

Oddman

[Pitspitr]

Well I finnally got to shoot it today. I found that I have a little work to do on it before the Grand Muster. The ejector isn't working, but the more I shot it the better it was working. Maybe it just has some gunk in the spring or something or the spring may need to be replaced, I don't know.
Another thing I found interesting was that when I shot it fast (speed is a relative term here as it is still a trapdoor) I shot it better than when I took my time and really aimed it. Should be just the thing for shooting at a Muster.

[Pitspitr]

I took it all apart last night and cleaned it up real good and the ejector is working better now. It had a lot of caked oil in most of the mechanisms It sure wasn't goiing to rust that way but it sure is working alot better now.

[Pitspitr]

Well, I found out that not all Pedersoli parts nor will all original parts interchange. It appears that some will, but it's a matter of trying the things that you need and find out if they fit or not. Still haven't gotten to try it out for accuracy but function is definately better than when I first started playing with it.

I finally got some pictures.

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

                   Really nice Rifle pard, I can see why you went WHOOOO HOOOO, Thanks for letting us take a look


                                                          tEN wOLVES 

[Pitspitr]

I was looking back over some old threads in search for some information I needed and came accross this thread again. In it I was asked to let folks know how it worked for the muster. Sooo.....

Great comes to mind as does outstanding. I love this rifle. It did it's job very admirably, unfortunately I let it down a time or 2.

Outside of 2 rounds that should have been trimmed before reloading them, the load I used worked very well. The load was 55gr FF goex, with federal large magnum primers 405 miester bullets lubed with spg between the powder & bullet I used a .060 fiber wad and ox yoke lubed wonder wad. The gun never fouled out even though it never got cleaned all weekend. When I got home and cleaned it, it cleaned easier than any load I've ever used. I think I found a winner.

[Drydock]

If you are still interested, I would highly reccomend the Lee 405 HB over 55 grains FFG.  The Lee bullet is almost an exact duplicate of the orginal M1873 bullet, and has proven highly accurate in my Trapdoors.  Seat it directly on the powder with the Hollow base clean, and you willl enjoy the results.

Pedersoli indeed uses the H&R Tooling, but did change the latch installation design.  Best results are to use a complete block assy, will usualy drop right in.  In any case, H&R did make a run of these with the latch cam machined backwards, but most if not all those were corrected decades ago.  But the story never dies . . .