NEW TOY

[D.E.C]

I BOUGHT A BLUE RIDGE .36 FLINTLOCK THIS MORNING. LOOKS OKAY. GOOD WOOD TO METAL FIT.
CLEANED IT THIS AFTERNOON WILL SHOOT IT TOMORROW.
GOING TO START WITH GOEX 3F. AND HORNADY .350 BALLS SINCE I DONT HAVE A MOLD. HAVE .10 PRE LUBED PATCHES.
THE STOCK IS NICE BUT KIND OF PLAIN, IM GOING TO REFINISH THE STOCK THIS WINTER. ILL TRY TO PUT TIGER STRIPES ON IT.
PLAN TO REMOVE THE ORIGINAL FINISH AND THEN DRIP AN EBONY STAIN ON THE STOCK. AFTER THAT DRIES ILL FINISH IT WITH TRU OIL .
ONE ODD THING, THE FLINT ON THE NEW GUN WAS ALREADY IN THE JAWS AND THE FLAT WAS ON THE BOTTOM, OPPOSITE OF MY GPR AND ALL PICTURES IVE SEEN.
OH YEAH, I USED BRAKE CLEANER TO REMOVE THE FACTORY LUBE, BOILING WATER TO CLEAN THE BORE AND LUBED THE CLEANED BORE WITH CABELAS MUZZLE LOADER LUBE. ALL NATURAL NO PETROLEUM PRODUCTS. FIGURE ILL TRY THE ADVICE OF THE MORE EXPERIENCED MUZZLE LOADERS, ALTHOUGH I HAVENT HAD ANY PROBLEMS WITH MY METHODS SO FAR.

[quickdtoo]

I've heard of using leather dye from Tandy Leather as a wood stain, also I have striped arrows by wrapping em with stain soaked twine, never tried a rifle stock, though. You won't go wrong with the tru-oil, it's my favorite. :wink:

[Shorty]

Leather dye.  That's a good idea!  I know that it's hard to stain a maple or birch stock with an oil based stain, it just doesn't penetrate enough.   :grin:

[filmokentucky]

The eternal question of all flinters: bevel up or bevel down? The Leman
trade rifles were often artificially striped using India ink and then varnishing over it. To see how they looked go to Track's web-site, click on updates, then click on percussion rifles. There's a beautiful Jack Brooks Leman there.

[Birddog6]

I don't mean to be discourgaing, but I suggest ya don't stripe it, just leave it alone & use it like it is.  It is what it is & you cannot make a Cadillac out of a VW.  Nuthin more head turning (away from it) than a faked striped rifle.  Unless you are a real pro or practice profusely on wood Exactly like you are going to attempt to stripe, you will most likely make one ugly mess of it.....  
  In the past 35+ years of Ml'ing, I have seen probably 75-100  faked striped rifles & aof all of them, bout 10 that were done well, and of those 10 they looked good til ya go up to about 10' of them & then it is ovbious they were fake.  Just really takes all the class & worthyness from the rifle when you find that out....  No matter how beautiful a job of building, workmanship, finish applied, it still all comes down to it being a fake.....

If ya want real stripes, buy the parts & get a good builder book & build a striped rifle. (Gunsmiths of Grenville County is a good builders book)  Or buy a In the White rifle from Tip Curtis Frontier Shop and all ya have to do is finish the rifle. Tips usually has 20 of them or so built. (615-654-4445)

[D.E.C]

got to the range with the new .36 saturday.
started with 30grs. of 3f goex. first 10 rounds were all over the target.
went to 40grs. 3f goex and groups shrank to about 3-4''. had .005 thick patches and used two. think i need .015s.
all shooting done at 50 yards from a rest.
 recovered very few patches.some were burned through.
over all pretty happy with it. i figure if i get good reliability i can make it accurate.

[Birddog6]

In past years I have had 3)  36 cal rifles & still have one of them.  In all 3 of them I ended up shooting .350 RB with a .015 Oxjoke patch.  

I prefer a fairly tight load in all of my rifles, thus seldom have a patch burn thru problem. This is usually caused by gases blowing by in the grooves, thus you need a thicker patch to help seal it off.  

I suggest trying some .015 Oxjoke patches & some .015 pillow ticking. If that is still too loose try a .017 pillow ticking.

Also on these small bores be sure the patch is not too big or you will have a problem with the short starters & jags binding when loading them. You need just enough patch dia to cover the ball or cut them at the muzzle.