Black Powder Rifles...

[aleale13]

i've been looking into getting a bp rifle, i already shoot a Le Page .44 doing some competitions. i haven't got a lot of funds and looking about i've found two possibilities that may be some fun to shoot at the club. i was wondering if anyone has had any time on these two rifles or anyone can inform me of any info good or bad? the two rifles in question are:

Ardesa Persuit LT .50

and

Ardesa Deerhunter Rifle Percussion .45

both can be found and purchased from Mr Krank...

http://www.henrykrank.com/index.php?...oducts_id=7133
http://www.henrykrank.com/index.php?...oducts_id=6873

thanks for any info, all the best.

[Livefast123]

Funnily enough a club member turned up with his new Pursuit .50 today, very nice looking rifle and looks a breeze to clean with the removable breach plug.

He was using 80 grains of black and and ramming some sort of tank projectile down the muzzle. I think the muzzle blast was seen and felt in the next county! He seems to think the max load is 160 grains which I guess would be useful if hunting a bear.......

Looked great fun and am seriously thinking of getting one.

[tacfoley]

The tank-like projectile is called a sabot. They cannot be homemade, only bought and they are not cheap.

This style of rifle is called an in-line muzzle-loader, and bears absolutely no similarities to traditional muzzle-loading firearms, apart from the fact that they both use BP - and, of course, any of the subs.

So apart from leisure/club shooting/plinking, there is nowhere that you would be able to shoot it here in UK in any form of competition - the MLAGB is for tradional BP long and hand arms, not for inventions of the 1980's.

You might try and convince your FEO that it is a suitable firearm for the taking of deer, but they are not exactly long-range shooters - so good luck on that.

The Ardesa percussion carbine is a nice little brush gun and general fun gun. Just as much fun can be had a lot cheaper with a s/h Parker-Hale Musketoon, which is at least totally made in England, and is a perfect repication of an original artillery carbine of the WoNA era. Mine was bought new in 1972, and is a great little shooter with not a lot of powder - 45gr of FFg works well at 50m.

My local gun dealer has half a dozen of them - all at around £200 - 250 mark. I'd be happy to own any of them.

tac

[gtpkeeper]

so which did you get aleale13 ???
ied like to get a bp rifle too, but only have use of a 25m range with a .45 cal max

[aleale13]

currently neither as funding has been an issue, but looking more towards the deer hunter in .45

[gtpkeeper]

thats kool hope you get one, held ardsea ranger .45 think was 225, felt good,