Howdy Gang,
I'm new to this forum, although I suspect I know some of you from the SASS or CAS City Boards, and thought this post would be a good place to introduce myself and explain "why" fer Walt.
I came to CAS from another shooting disciplen, Muzzleloading/Buckskinning. So Shooting black powder was already in my blood and I don't find it any more problematic to clean cartridge guns than frontstuffers, when loaded with BP.
As others here have noted, BP clean up really isn't much, if any, more difficult or time consuming than cleaning guns shot with smokeless. You still have to clean & lube smokeless gun too, ya know!
I clean mine with water based solvents or mixtures like water and Ballistol, then apply lube same as any smokeless shooter would. No big deal. (a big plus...leading is nonexistant with BP)
Loading BP has been covered in another thread here, suffice it to say that loading BP in pistol calibers is purdy easy and the only thing to remember as far as safety goes is to make sure you deal with that "no air space" thing, and to use a BP lube like SPG or 50/50 mix.
For me, CAS is about doing what our ancestors did (only we git to do it fer fun) and competeing with the same guns and equipment they used is the central aspect of my fun. I have shot in the Duelist catagory from the outset of my involvement and until recently there was no BP Duelist class for cartridge shooters. So I was competeing against smokeless shooters. Sometimes I would win! That was always a great feeling, beating the smokeless shooters at thier own game!
Now SASS has instituted Frontier Cartridge Duelist, as a class of it's own, so I suspect we will be seeing more cartridge shooters competeing with BP!
So Walt, you've posted a couple of questions now about BP and CAS. So I suspect you are considering it with some degree of serious interest. My best advise at this point is to jump in and do it! You'll luv it and you'll give up that silly new fangled smokeless stuff fer good! :wink:
