Winter Activies

[Pitspitr]

Earlier today one of my Division Commanders sent me an e-mail asking if I could suggest any indoor shooting activities his local GAF troop (That's Right a LOCAL GAF TROOP! ) could do during the winter. I suggested several things he might want to consider for winter activities and all were used by the US Army during the Victorian Era. I got to thinking the rest of the GAF might want to see these as well.

One is a candle shoot. The way  this works is that you load your brass with a PRIMER ONLY. NO powder or lead. Light a candle ( the "trick" candles that re-light themselves work really well for this) and shoot at it from a distance of 3 feet. If you're on target the blast from the primer will blow the candle out. I know this sounds easy but believe me, you really have to concentrate on follow through and sight picture to blow the candle out.
 
Another indoor shoot you can do is a gallery shoot. The Army used their trapdoors for this but I don't see why any .45 weapon woudn't work. Take a steel plate (we used about a 24"X18"X3/8") Cut a hole in the center the size you want your bullseye. Weld a "bullet trap" behind the hole and then weld scoring ring beeds around the Bullseye hole. Load your brass with 4 gr. of FFF and deep seat a .457 round ball for the trapdoor or .451 for a .45 lc. Use a muzzle loading short starter to seat the bullet against the powder in the brass. Don't forget to lube the bullet. J.S. & Pat Wolf suggest alox. Shoot the target from 50'. 4 gr of powder will produce virually no smoke indoors. When you put the bullet through the bullseye it will sound different and if you paint the target you'll be able to see lead smears where you hit the target. Below is a photo of my daughter and I shooting outdoor gallery practice at Fort Hartsuff. You can click on it for a closer look.



 
The previous two suggestions are intended with Marksmanship in mind and not speed.  Even though the gallery load bullets will flatten themselves out and fall hamlessly to the floor when they hit the steel, you wouldn't want to miss and hit the wall.
 
I also understand that at the SASS convention they had a wax bullet indoors shoot but I have no expirience with doing that.
 

[Silver Creek Slim]

Great suggestions, Sir.
The candle shoot would be great practice too.

Slim

[Steel Horse Bailey]

Howdy!

I loaded up a couple boxes of 45 Colt as primer powered wax bullets, having drilled out the primer holes.  They did well in my garage @ 30 ft. or so.  On a whim, I tried one in my 1874 Sharps, 45-70.  It worked great!  I was shooting the cord that serves as a backup for my garage door opener.  I opened the side door and the wax bullets actually flew for about 50-75 ft, but I didn't really try for accuracy at that distance.

It was also surprisingly "not TOO dirty" and cleaned up fine with one pull of a BoreSnake.

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[Grizzle Bear]

Here at the Kansas Vigilance Committee, we bought a bag of those wax bullets.  You do have to bore out the touch hole in some cases so that the primer doesn't back out and jam the gun. 

But they do shoot pretty good at short distances, and are a heap of fun.  We plan on having a booth at the NCOWS Convention with a wax bullet shooting gallery.

I never thought to try this with a .45-70.  The wax bullets didn't do very well with any rifles we tried, I think they are pretty well running out of poop by the time they get to the muzzle.

Wonder what just a few grains of 777 would do?

You do need to clean your pistols every few cylinder fulls, use a wire brush and WD-40.

Grizzle Bear