armi Jager Kentucky .45

[Peter Dunkley]

Hi I have been looking at one of these muzzle loaders. It looks as if he barrel cant be easily removed for cleaning. So how do you clean the barrel please.

[Peter Dunkley]

Hi anyone know offhand the legality of keeping a .45 percussion smoothbore rifle with a 28 inch barrel on a shotgun licence please. I am sure I can find the legislation if I care to wade through yards of bumf. hoping someone will know!

[DesG]

Perfectly legal. They shoot well at twenty five yards as well. A number of club members have them as it's so much easier than getting a variation on a FAC. I have a flintlock Baker (rifle) AKA Sharpe rifle smoothbore in .6" held on SGC.

It is legal to shoot single ball through it as well although opinions differ!

[Peter Dunkley]

Thanks for that .There are some balls available with the gun.

[steve medlock]

I have a couple of these on SGC and so can be shot 'off range' . They can be great fun to shoot at shorter ranges as long as you don't expect too much accuracy. Just clean out the barrel with a jag and wet patch and then wire brush when the patches start to look a bit cleaner. Remove nipple each time and clean that and the communication. You can put a tube on the nipple and pour boiling water down the barrel but there really isn't the need for that.

Steve.

[Peter Dunkley]

Hi. the balls which come with the gun are cast and a bit rough. Also the seem they will be a very tight fit. I have not miked them up! do you not use patches with this bore ".45" ? also what is your loading sequence. I have seen utubes of powder then ball then wad. Others load powder wad then ball. I do shoot a lot of black powder but 12g cartridge , this will be my first rifle.

[DesG]

Basically anything you stuff down the front on top of powder will come back out when you fire it. The Brown bess of waterloo fame was .75 calibre but the soldiers often (usually) dropped a .6” ball on top of the powder charge as it didn’t need ramming and was fast to load. Lots of the gases just came out past the ball (windage) but the ball still popped out with enough force to do nasty things to the french columns out to 100 yards or so.

Patches really come into their own with rifles where the patch grips the rifling to spin the ball.

A loose ball will need something on top if you shoot downhill or it will just roll back out.

Wad on top of powder is a six pint oft repeated discussion which will never be decided.

Try what you’ve got and try some .435 or so with cotton patch. Whatever works for you is the way to go. If you can’t scrounge a selection of balls pm me and i’ll send you some.

It’s fun to experiment!

[Peter Dunkley]

Thats a very fine offer thanks, I just might take you up on it. I will first try the balls i have first. I do aim to shoot mostly No 7 shot. A .410 load. Be fun to break some clays with it. What I will ask is are these guns still made? I cant tell the date from the proof marks on this one I have just bought. Looks as if it was made yesterday.
Thanks again.

[DesG]

Thats a very fine offer thanks, I just might take you up on it. I will first try the balls i have first. I do aim to shoot mostly No 7 shot. A .410 load. Be fun to break some clays with it. What I will ask is are these guns still made? I cant tell the date from the proof marks on this one I have just bought. Looks as if it was made yesterday.
Thanks again.

I couldn't say but there are certainly plenty out there.

[Peter Dunkley]

Had a good look online. Looks as if the company ceased trading around 1993.