Afternoon, all...

tac foley

Seems to me that we need a 'hi there, I'm...' thread here, but maybe I missed it out in my keenth to get on the forum, at last.

However, as you can see from my profile, I live in the UK for most of the year, but also in Canada [Ontario] and the north-west Pacific of the USA [Oregon and Washington State]. I also write on six other gun-related sites, one in the RoI and five in the USA.

As a very involved gun club member - RCO, coach for abled and disabled shooters] - here in UK and in the USA, I have access to a gazillion different kinds of guns that might be new to you guys in the RoI, and hope to be able to post images to one or other of you who can do this kind of thing.

I've been shooting since I was six, and I'm now past my 64th birthday, so I have a fair amount of experience with all kinds of guns and shooting, helped out by my past life. So I'm very happy to post responses to reasonable questions that are genuinely well-intentioned rather than derogatory [I'll ignore those] about guns and shooting here in UK and in the North American continent. I will not enter into areas where the interpretation of YOUR firearms laws are concerned as I am not bound by them and therefore have no ax to grind concerning them - our own are, ahem, strange enough. I will, however, do my best to explain how things are for those of us over here who are your counterparts in the sport, whatever your interest might be. You should be aware, however, that for one reason or another I am very familiar with your firearms' law and the general issues covered by them - my own views on them will remain firmly between my ears.

As an aside, our gun club here in UK has almost 250 members, and well over thousand or more firearms between us - some of us have thirty or forty mainly, it has to be said, of a very few limited types such as Lee-Enfields and variants, or the older style of firearms that are so popular here, but almost unheard of in the RoI. On a personal note, I have eighteen here in UK and a larger number in care in the USA, and I'm a keen and careful reloader of all the six centre-fire rifles and single handgun that I own. I also cast my own bullets for my Black Powder rifles and handguns.

So, I'm looking to talking to you all, and to learning about shooting where YOU are, and to making a valid contribution to this site and the sum of knowledge to be found in it.

tac
Supporter of The Cape Meares Lighthouse Rstoration Fund

ivanthehunter

tac foley wrote: »

I will, however, do my best to explain how things are for those of us over here who are your counterparts in the sport, whatever your interest might be

I think i could tempted to take you up on your offer:D Nice to see other views from outside this small island:D

WallysWorld

I'd love to hear a bit about casting your own bullets for your black powder rifles if you could! Also welcome:)

tac foley

Sir - nothing could be eaiser! To cast lead bullets [or ball] of any kind, you need -

1. A lead melting pot - usually electrical, but you can use a propane stove and an old saucepan.

2. A GOOD thermometer for hot metal, if you don't have an electrical pot with thermostat to adjust the heat.

3. Suitable bullet mould.

4. A lead ladle [if you don't have a bottom-pour melting pot].

5. Something to use as a flux - bees'wax or a small piece of candle wax.

6. A piece of soft towelling to drop the finished item onto.

AND - safety glasses, stout gloves, a good apron if you like to be real safe, and a lot of fresh air!!

Oh yes, a TOTAL absence of anything WET or damp in the vicintiy of the melting pot. A drop of water falling into the pot turns it into a steam-driven bomb. As a look at the ceiling of my little shed would confirm. Just don't be there when it happens.

Then - you melt the lead, and then clean it up by fluxing it, then pour it/ladle it into the mould, wait a few seconds and Voila!! A brand-new shiny bullet or ball.

I can make about 250 ball an hour for literally pennies - using scrap lead from our air weapons range or the softest lead you can find - usually scrap roof-flashing, althoug this is often not really good. Bullets for my rifles and carbine and handguns take longer and they are usually far bigger [Whitworth bullets weigh in at between 535 and 600gr - each], Minie bullets around 500gr each.

It's really just like casting fishing weights and so on...only the shape is different.

Hope that helps.

tac
Supporter of The Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund

bunny shooter

Hi Tac

I've met you on another site but welcome here too.

Ya might wanna try this one too I go there too

<mod snip>

WallysWorld

tac foley wrote: »

Sir - nothing could be eaiser! To cast lead bullets [or ball] of any kind, you need -

1. A lead melting pot - usually electrical, but you can use a propane stove and an old saucepan.

2. A GOOD thermometer for hot metal, if you don't have an electrical pot with thermostat to adjust the heat.

3. Suitable bullet mould.

4. A lead ladle [if you don't have a bottom-pour melting pot].

5. Something to use as a flux - bees'wax or a small piece of candle wax.

6. A piece of soft towelling to drop the finished item onto.

AND - safety glasses, stout gloves, a good apron if you like to be real safe, and a lot of fresh air!!

Oh yes, a TOTAL absence of anything WET or damp in the vicintiy of the melting pot. A drop of water falling into the pot turns it into a steam-driven bomb. As a look at the ceiling of my little shed would confirm. Just don't be there when it happens.

Then - you melt the lead, and then clean it up by fluxing it, then pour it/ladle it into the mould, wait a few seconds and Voila!! A brand-new shiny bullet or ball.

I can make about 250 ball an hour for literally pennies - using scrap lead from our air weapons range or the softest lead you can find - usually scrap roof-flashing, althoug this is often not really good. Bullets for my rifles and carbine and handguns take longer and they are usually far bigger [Whitworth bullets weigh in at between 535 and 600gr - each], Minie bullets around 500gr each.

It's really just like casting fishing weights and so on...only the shape is different.

Hope that helps.

tac
Supporter of The Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund

Thats really cool Tac, how accurate do you have to be with sizing the bullets? Whats your margin of error? Is casting your own pretty much a prerequsite for that sort of shooting or are there commercial alternatives?

tac foley

WallysWorld wrote: »

Thats really cool Tac, how accurate do you have to be with sizing the bullets? Whats your margin of error? Is casting your own pretty much a prerequsite for that sort of shooting or are there commercial alternatives?

Well, the ball are pretty much shot as cast, as they are very accurately made in the fust place.

The Whitworth bullets, both cylindrical and hexagonal, are weighed and sorted - anything more than 3gr off is tossed back in the pot. The cylindrical bullets [Lyman mould] are sized .451 in a specially-made sizing die, but the hexagonal bullets [cast 4 thou undersized] are paper-patched with air-mail writing paper and sizing them is not an option. They are not just hexagonal, y'see, but also 'twisted' to a 1:20 twist as well.....if you can figure out how to make a sizing die for that, please let me know. There are some pics of the Whitworth and one of the plain-base 600gr swaged bullets on another thread, I recall.

Minie bullets are examined for skirt thickness uniformity and cavities, weighed and then sized to .580" to go in my carbine.

Yup, there ARE commercial alternatives to the .44 cal round ball - about £12-13 per hundred - mine cost me about £1 a thousand.

Minie bullets of various weights are around £25 per hundred - but shipping them around the countryside here in UK is like paying for them five times.

535/545gr cylindro-conoidal bullets can be shot from the Whitworth with a high degree of acccuracy - the kick up the a*se from 90gr of BP MAKES the soft-lead bullet a perfect fit in the hexagonal bore, but they cost around £30 a hundred - mine cost less than a a £1 a hundred.

The hexagonal bullets are more of a challenge - mine were swaged using a hydraulic Corbin swaging set - cost around $3000 or so - and cost $1.37 each. Hence my recent renewed interest in cylindrical bullets. Dixie Gun works in TN makes cast Whitworth bullets, but remember that 100 of them weig has much as a small boat - mail is costly. Over in The Netherlands a gentleman caled Kranen makes an amazingly complicated four-piece hexagonal mould that looks like something used by the wot-wots - it is also around eu800-1000. Mr Romano in New York makes his own version, but many calls to him have resulted in zero response. Maybe he has a gwaeth about furriners.

tac
Supporter of The Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund

johngalway

Have to say I would love a muzzle loader. Only seen them on DVD's, but they knocked over coyotes no problem.

fish slapped

With you on that one JG would love a muzzle loader (old style) and all the smoke that comes with it

P.S. Welcome Tac, good to have ya!

Grizzly 45

Whats the Cape Meares lighthouse restoration fund Tac??Well obviously it is restoring a lighthouse on Cape Meares..:rolleyes: But the significance behind it??

pedroeibar1

tac foley wrote: »

Sir - nothing could be eaiser! To cast lead bullets [or ball] of any kind, you need -

1. A lead melting pot - usually electrical, but you can use a propane stove and an old saucepan.

2. A GOOD thermometer for hot metal, if you don't have an electrical pot with thermostat to adjust the heat.

3. Suitable bullet mould.

4. A lead ladle [if you don't have a bottom-pour melting pot].

5. Something to use as a flux - bees'wax or a small piece of candle wax.

6. A piece of soft towelling to drop the finished item onto.

AND - safety glasses, stout gloves, a good apron if you like to be real safe, and a lot of fresh air!!

Oh yes, a TOTAL absence of anything WET or damp in the vicintiy of the melting pot. A drop of water falling into the pot turns it into a steam-driven bomb. As a look at the ceiling of my little shed would confirm. Just don't be there when it happens.

Then - you melt the lead, and then clean it up by fluxing it, then pour it/ladle it into the mould, wait a few seconds and Voila!! A brand-new shiny bullet or ball.

I can make about 250 ball an hour for literally pennies - using scrap lead from our air weapons range or the softest lead you can find - usually scrap roof-flashing, althoug this is often not really good. Bullets for my rifles and carbine and handguns take longer and they are usually far bigger [Whitworth bullets weigh in at between 535 and 600gr - each], Minie bullets around 500gr each.

It's really just like casting fishing weights and so on...only the shape is different.

Hope that helps.

tac
Supporter of The Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund

Tac,
You forgot the most important bit - a hobby for the SWMBO, to get her out of the kitchen while all this is going on;)
Rs
P.

pedroeibar1

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Whats the Cape Meares lighthouse restoration fund Tac??Well obviously it is restoring a lighthouse on Cape Meares..:rolleyes: But the significance behind it??

Don't want to go off-topic, but look at http://www.katu.com/news/local/81257532.htm
:eek::eek:l

vixdname

Howya Tac, have been talking to you already and loved the photos you mailed me, they're works of art not firearms !!! anyway welcome aboard !!!!

Grizzly 45

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Don't want to go off-topic, but look at http://www.katu.com/news/local/81257532.htm
:eek::eek:l

Just gives a 404 Error.Page cant be found.

tac foley

Thread drift -

Basically, one night last January, the lighthouse at Cape Meares, Oregon, a national monument and part of the USA's coastal heritage, as well as being a state park all by itself and the oldest lighthouse on the west coast, was shot up by two drunken POS with hunting rifles.

A total of 19 shots from these 'marksmen' irreparably damaged much of the now irreplaceable Fresnel lenses made in Paris France in 1888, and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, around Cape Horn, and up to the location on Oregon's coastline.

Damage was initially estimated to be around $100,000, but the bad news is that true cost of the likely replacement parts - when the company responsible gets back in business - will hit $1M plus.

The two slug-brains are facing a total hit of around $350K fine, each, plus up to nine years jail-time for a combination of felonies including destruction of government property, endangering life at sea, recklessly discharging a firearm in a state park, and just plain anti-social behaviour.

Since we live there some of the year, and enjoy what Oregon has to offer us, we feel obliged to make even our small contribution to helping out defray the costs of this brainless vandalism.

Back to the thread, and thanks for reading.

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund

tac foley

Vixdname - Glajja liked 'em! :=)

More?

If so, please e-mail me again, I have to clear out my address book daily for legal reasons.

...and please feel free to post'em here - sharing is what it's all about, eh?

Best

tac
Supporter of The Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund

Sparks

Just a quick polite interjection, if I might...

tac foley wrote: »

Seems to me that we need a 'hi there, I'm...' thread here, but maybe I missed it out in my keenth to get on the forum, at last.

We don't have one for a rather unfortunate reason - namely that a lot of folks wanted to remain anonymous on here right from the start of the forum, because in the bad old days a public complaint could get your ticket marked by a club or NGB and that was often your sport ruined (I like to think that that happens far less these days than it used to). Not to mention the concerns over personal security and the like (which are regrettably perennial).

We don't have any rule about 'coming out', as it were, and some of us never were anonymous on here anyway, but we generally try to respect that anonymity as much as is possible. I'm not saying such a thread shouldn't be started, you understand, and I'd have no problems with it (I'm all for promoting the sport and it's hard to do that when people are anonymous), I'm just saying that it wouldn't be mandatory and anyone wanting to remain anonymous shouldn't feel they had to divulge their identities here if they don't want to.

tac foley

Ah, right. Anonymity rules, eh?

Well, I 'spose I can understand that, given the - to me - somewhat different approach to the licencing of firearms that currently prevails in the RoI.

In support of your comment I have deleted all personal detail in my profile.

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Sparks

tac foley wrote: »

Anonymity rules, eh?

Well, it's not so much that it rules so much that lots of people want it and in the past it's been a positive thing to have so we respect it. But we also respect folks who don't mind not being anonymous

tac foley

Sparks wrote: »

Well, it's not so much that it rules so much that lots of people want it and in the past it's been a positive thing to have so we respect it. But we also respect folks who don't mind not being anonymous

Too late, friend, I'm now a nobody.

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poulo6.5

Hi tac. I'm only shooting as a full time hobby for the past 5 years but i'v bin interested in shooting and guns etc all my life. I fired my first shotty when I was about 6-7 and I have tagged along with friends shooting when ever I could.
I have asked for and recieved plenty of good advise and support on this site over the last couple of years even before I signed up.

It's nice to have someone with your experience and welth of knowlage on bord

I look forward to Reading your posts.

Welcome abord

tac foley

poulo6.5 wrote: »

Hi tac. I'm only shooting as a full time hobby for the past 5 years but i'v bin interested in shooting and guns etc all my life. I fired my first shotty when I was about 6-7 and I have tagged along with friends shooting when ever I could.
I have asked for and recieved plenty of good advise and support on this site over the last couple of years even before I signed up.

It's nice to have someone with your experience and welth of knowlage on bord

I look forward to Reading your posts.

Welcome abord

Dear Mr Poulo6.5 - thanks for your friendish comment - I'm sure I'll learn as much as I teach here, as there seems to be a wealth of experience with the more modern type and style of firearms. As you have probably guessed, my main interest lies is the older stuff, of which I have a good few, and shoot them all as well. Y'see, older guns have got stories attached - at least, most of mine have. That makes them all the more fascinating to me, and to other old f*rts like me.

Yesterday I was shooting a carbine that was brought back from the Boer war in 1901, with bullets from ammunition that was made in 1898... I know much of the story of the man who owned it for a while, Piet van Huisjen, who carved his name on the butt, and who gave it in on the porch of a farmhouse belonging to the great-grandfather of a friend of mine, and then walked away and disappeared into history.

Nothing can compete with that, for me, anyhow.

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Tackleberrywho

tac foley wrote: »

Dear Mr Poulo6.5 - thanks for your friendish comment - I'm sure I'll learn as much as I teach here, as there seems to be a wealth of experience with the more modern type and style of firearms. As you have probably guessed, my main interest lies is the older stuff, of which I have a good few, and shoot them all as well. Y'see, older guns have got stories attached - at least, most of mine have. That makes them all the more fascinating to me, and to other old f*rts like me.

Yesterday I was shooting a carbine that was brought back from the Boer war in 1901, with bullets from ammunition that was made in 1898... I know much of the story of the man who owned it for a while, Piet van Huisjen, who carved his name on the butt, and who gave it in on the porch of a farmhouse belonging to the great-grandfather of a friend of mine, and then walked away and disappeared into history.

Nothing can compete with that, for me, anyhow.

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I held a snider rifle in my hands, never fired it though. We have a bayonet off a musket in my home house, found in a false roof when my father was knocking down the thatched house he grew up in.

Not many fine firearms in common circulation around where I live, people were too poor.

I have a Grá(love) for a spring field or a garand.
I loved firing the BREN but you would prob call that modern too.

Although I am not really into open sights as my own is not great lol

I really think you should come for the creed moor cup!

tac foley

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

I held a snider rifle in my hands, never fired it though. We have a bayonet off a musket in my home house, found in a false roof when my father was knocking down the thatched house he grew up in.

Not many fine firearms in common circulation around where I live, people were too poor.

I have a Grá(love) for a spring field or a garand.
I loved firing the BREN but you would prob call that modern too.

Although I am not really into open sights as my own is not great lol

I really think you should come for the creed moor cup!

Sir, I didn't say that I have no modern weapons, I simply indicated that I preferred wood and steel to the modern alternatives. Here in UK I actually have two modern[ish] rifles in .308Win, but neither would set your hair on fire. You might have missed that I was a soldier for almost 34 years, too. I certainly have fired most modern weapons on the planet, even stuff that WOULD set your hair on fire, I dare to note.

Apart from the sad and sorry truth that I don't have the funds to afford any of the VERY modern items that I'd dearly like to own - a DSR-1, for instance, or one of David Fox's beautiful Keppeler-actioned bull-pup tactical rifles - I also have the teeny little problem of already having two firearms too many [18] in the county in which I live. The present Chief Constable, about to leave her post very soon, closed the door on owning more than sixteen by insisting on full dealer levels of monitored alarm for anybody wishing to have more almost before her bum hit the chair in her office on Day One. Quite what difference this makes to the currently inept way that the polis deal with theft around here I cannot fathom. As one pointed out, the last thing they would do would be to rush around to our house, after all, the thieves were now armed with a formidable array of weaponry - although mostly without bolts, it has to be said. [Make that 'clubs'.]

In my case, that includes four of those 'horrendously dangerous BP revolvers and single-shot rifles' for which there is no ammunition whatsoever, unless YOU make it. Then there is the little matter of actually knowing what to do to load the things and shoot them without looking like a total gob****e, although what they would do THAT with is questionable. The use of a single shot BP firearm in a hold-up was probably carried out by Dick Turpin. BP is VERY hard to find illegally, and loading a BP gun with modern nitro propellant is more likely to severely damage the shooter rather than the shootee. The last record of a deliberate shooting with a muzzle-loading firearm in EWS was in 1927, BTW.

Even my centre-fire rifles, apart from the .308Win, are in calibres that are not exactly mainstream, even here in UK - 7.5x55 Swiss and 7x57 Mauser. I 'spose my collection of .22 target rifles from 1910 to 1980 count as population-terrifying firearms though.

Roll on the new Chief Constable, I say.

Thankfully, I have a pretty fine collection of firearms over in the USA - most of them 'modern', I have to say. Garands, and Lugers and Radoms and Colts and AK47 clones, as well as Savage and Ruger rifles and carbines....

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PS - Sadly, my chances of going over to the RoI for the Creedmoor Cup are as likely as winning the IHS without the added advantage of buying a ticket.

Tackleberrywho

tac foley wrote: »

Sir, I didn't say that I have no modern weapons, I simply indicated that I preferred wood and steel to the modern alternatives. Here in UK I actually have two modern[ish] rifles in .308Win, but neither would set your hair on fire. You might have missed that I was a soldier for almost 34 years, too. I certainly have fired most modern weapons on the planet, even stuff that WOULD set your hair on fire, I dare to note.

Apart from the sad and sorry truth that I don't have the funds to afford any of the VERY modern items that I'd dearly like to own - a DSR-1, for instance, or one of David Fox's beautiful Keppeler-actioned bull-pup tactical rifles - I also have the teeny little problem of already having two firearms too many [18] in the county in which I live. The present Chief Constable, about to leave her post very soon, closed the door on owning more than sixteen by insisting on full dealer levels of monitored alarm for anybody wishing to have more almost before her bum hit the chair in her office on Day One. Quite what difference this makes to the currently inept way that the polis deal with theft around here I cannot fathom. As one pointed out, the last thing they would do would be to rush around to our house, after all, the thieves were now armed with a formidable array of weaponry - although mostly without bolts, it has to be said. [Make that 'clubs'.]

In my case, that includes four of those 'horrendously dangerous BP revolvers and single-shot rifles' for which there is no ammunition whatsoever, unless YOU make it. Then there is the little matter of actually knowing what to do to load the things and shoot them without looking like a total gob****e, although what they would do THAT with is questionable. The use of a single shot BP firearm in a hold-up was probably carried out by Dick Turpin. BP is VERY hard to find illegally, and loading a BP gun with modern nitro propellant is more likely to severely damage the shooter rather than the shootee. The last record of a deliberate shooting with a muzzle-loading firearm in EWS was in 1927, BTW.

Even my centre-fire rifles, apart from the .308Win, are in calibres that are not exactly mainstream, even here in UK - 7.5x55 Swiss and 7x57 Mauser. I 'spose my collection of .22 target rifles from 1910 to 1980 count as population-terrifying firearms though.

Roll on the new Chief Constable, I say.

Thankfully, I have a pretty fine collection of firearms over in the USA - most of them 'modern', I have to say. Garands, and Lugers and Radoms and Colts and AK47 clones, as well as Savage and Ruger rifles and carbines....

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PS - Sadly, my chances of going over to the RoI for the Creedmoor Cup are as likely as winning the IHS without the added advantage of buying a ticket.

I used to watch Dick Turpin as a kid, but that is another story.

I spent a short while in the Great state (Republic) of Texas, and I had some fun there!
Although I'm glad Ireland has no snakes!

You speak of 16, it's approx half that here. I know of one guy with 8 and he had serious hassle to keep them all.

WallysWorld

It would be savage if we had an Irish equivalent of the American C&R (collectors and relic's licence) over here for guys such as yourself Tac that are into it, covering maybe stuff in unusual or hard to obtain calibers and black powder guns. The way I see it it would allow an induvidual to have more guns than is the norm because of the trade off of it being difficult or nearly impossible to find suitable ammo to feed them.

This is a complete and utter pipe dream by the way!

As for old guns that I've handled, we had many years ago a deactivated (firing pin taken out) Webley RIC service revolver that came down through the family somehow. It's gone out of the house a good few years now, I believe it ended up in Germany where it was repaired and is shooting again.

It's sad that it was gone by the time the pistols were opened up again it would have been amazing to shoot a bit of the family history but hey at least its been fixed and used, better than collecting dust.