I played spectator at a monthly silhouette match yesterday, hosted by the Hellgate Civilian Shooters Association, and held at the Deep Creek Range in Missoula Montana. Met a bunch of great folks and saw some great shootin'. Lots of lever action rifles including original Winchester 92s in 25-20 & 32-20 in the Pistol Cartridge class. They put me to work resetting/painting steel targets and I spotted for a match director, a very spry gentleman in his 80s who was shooting 32-20 and 38-55.
After lunch we moved to the 500 meter range for Cowboy Lever Action (out to 200 meters) and High Power Scoped classes (out to 500 meters).
I expect I'll give this sport a whirl, starting with a lever action 22LR and eventually a 45 Colt.
A fun time was had by all.

      Greetings, All!

   Just Say NO.

                    M.T.M.

I’ve been watching and looking for a Spencer for years. Should have pulled the trigger on one two or three years ago, because values have been rising on originals and repops.  Reproduction Spencer’s were $800 - $900, some even cheaper before Covid. While Italy production was shut down the remaining stock in the US started going up, some selling as high as $1800.  The new MSRP from Chiappa or Taylors is $1995.
   Well, I found a Taylors and Co. Spencer carbine in 44 Russian for $1350.  I already load 44 Russian so didn’t need to gear up for a new caliber. I really like it although I’ve seen them with better wood and case colors. It cycles my reloads just fine.  Boy, that rear notch is tiny. But I have some original Civil War breech loading carbines, and they are the same.

Didn't realize this was for sale in my initial post. OOPS! My apologies.

Dave

Sir Charles is spot on.

Undersized "standard" bullets in the 6.5 Carcano led to its reputation for very poor accuracy.

I make small game rounds  for my hunting rifles. I use smokeless, and I use cast bullets, but not lubed normally.

Years ago a new gunwriter, named Venturino, wrote an article about using TEFLON gasfitters tape wrapped around the bullet. The Teflon proved excellent lubrication, and solved a problem that NRA researchers had long identified, that copper jacketed fouling did  NOT play well with fouling from the ALOX based lube used with most cast bullets. This required thorough barrel cleaning when switching from  cast to jacketed rounds. OK for midrange target use, but impractical when small game offered tasty camp meat. The DIY plumbers tape found in hardware store is a bit flimsy. Talk to a gas fitting professional for a source.

Thick Yellow gaspipe teflon tape works a treat for wrapping a lead bullet to size.
Various long distance shooters (and paper patchers)  tried teflon back in the day and have disgarded it,
but for practical purposes it is great and easiers to get good results than with paper patching.

The next thing for small game rounds is find a medium pistol/shotgun powder in the speed range from Greendot to HERCO. Universal is a good choice.  For .30-30. I use 7 to 9 grains while for .308 to 7 x 57, I go up to about 11 grains. While fillers are controversial, I use a quarter sheet of toilet paper or a pinch of soft toy stuffing to hold the powder against the primer.
...

Unique powder ( as well as Universal) is excellent for this also. the "magic" load for ~ 30 ish cal rifles is ~ 7 to 10 grains.
TP is good, poly toy or pillow stuffing also.
Some folks make a point of elevating the muzzle and giving the stock a tap between shots with reduced loads.

Another advantage is these loads are rather quiet.

P.S. I am not recommending black powder in bottle neck cases. Even in the day, necked cases using BP were problematic.

Agreed!

prf marbles