Boom stick questions. Point me in the right direction.

dean1484 said:

llysgennad said:

In reply to dean1484 :

I have a Winchester (no relation) 26 stick box from Tractor Supply, it's very well made, fits behind a door. Less than 600 bucks, but you need several strong friends to move it in.

I will look in to that.  

I moved a 400 lb safe into my house from my pickup truck by sliding it off the tailgate onto a few 2 x 4's and used a refrigerator hand truck to get it into the  final location in the house.   Interestingly enough I had recently moved into the house and two of the very strong movers carried our 400 lb refrigerator into the house by themselves.  One guy actually picked up by himself but could not walk with it that way.

   I remembered that incident, plus realized if my 5'-8" 155 lb self could do this by myself I needed to bolt the safe to the slab.  So hammer drill time.  If you have a good drill bit for concrete the whole job is 20 minutes.  You do need to drill through the bottom of the safe with a bit made for steel then switch to the concrete drill bit.  I used the threaded bolts designed for anchoring into concrete. They sell them at Home Depot and are colored blue. 

I tried the Redhead kind with the expanding sleeve but was unsatisfied with the results so ended up using the threaded bolt design.

Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:

Anyone see some cheap 32acp? I've seen some with stupid shipping but nothing great

Very hard to find, and not cheap.  Located some on g-broker, a little while back.   Now on the look out for some more .35 Rem.  I usually end up  reloading "unique" stuff.

In reply to Dirtydog (Forum Supporter) :

I'm probably gonna end up reloading it.

I'm not even a fan of 32acp but I found a Grail gun for a great price and it's even in the much rarer 32acp lol

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

That is a awful lot of work with such a little cartridge. Not that I haven't thought about it... Do you need brass?

matthewmcl said:

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

That is a awful lot of work with such a little cartridge. Not that I haven't thought about it... Do you need brass?

I don't even have the dies yet but if you've got extra , absolutely.

I was able to retrieve about half of the 50rd box I've been able to find

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

I have a little over 200 pieces and enough other things to reload that I actually have dies for. When you find dies, send me a PM and I will give you as much of the brass as you want for postage.

matthewmcl said:

In reply to Antihero (Forum Supporter) :

I have a little over 200 pieces and enough other things to reload that I actually have dies for. When you find dies, send me a PM and I will give you as much of the brass as you want for postage.

Thank you very much

Gotta love a car forum where people share watch info and pics and give you free brass for your semi rare calibers too

Slot car guy that wants to race real cars but fails said:

dean1484 said:

So ummm ya a little off topic but my boom stick box is a bit to full and I need to expand. Any recommendations for something that can secure say more than 20 sticks ( looking ahead as I tend not to sell things). and a small collection of mini boom sticks? 

When you have that maybe you should consider a secure gun room.  If you have the space.

I am going to put my new box in a good size closet in a central location in the house that is not really used for anything. I like that it will be behind a door that I could also lock. As for amo I have a second real safe in the house that I already use for this. This thing is not large enough for a full size boom stick but is perfect for amo and. The dam thing is so heavy that it was not moved by the previous owner. 

New things underway

because I like things to be difficult and finicky, I went with a flint over a percussion. 33.5" barrel, beechwood(?) .50 cal. Due to masochism, I'll be making my own powder with supplies from skylighters. And casting my own balls after the first 100 run out. And hunting local flint. I don't think I could make this harder on myself, but I'm super excited. 

Looks like fun - I've been meaning to get my 54 percussion out. 
 

Next actions are to replace the damaged ejector in my 10/22 and then get the right moa scope mount and scope bought.  Cringing a bit as it takes as much money as I have in the gun to get into the minimum amount of scope for competition.  After that  I just need to do some swanky threaded inserts to mount a decent bipod.

Hoping to get out to the 22NRL match distance shoots in the spring.

Played around on their range this summer.  It was nutty ringing the steels at 350yards with a 22.

Progress to report. Wood is finished and oiled. I took it to 400 and gave several heavy coats of linseed oil over about 4 days. Brass was wet sanded to 600, and I think I'll leave it there for now. It's shiny, but you can still see the direction I was sanding. Should show use pretty well which is what I want. 

I bought the birchwood casey 3-part cold bluing kit at ace. Followed the destructions exactly and used the included degreaser and recommended cold water to clean the barrel before applying the bluing fluid. Not happy with the results. The water was too difficult to dry properly and the finish was not very uniform and there were a couple spots that flashed despite a couple good coats of fluid and an oil wipe. That was last night. This evening I used a scotch pad to remove the blue and rust and this time I thoroughly wiped it down with isopropyl alcohol until the rags were coming away clean. Much better results. Instructions say to let cure overnight so assembly will wait. 

Up next, making powder. I ordered some English flints to get started, and I need to finish putting my possibles bag together. And if y'all are curious, no, I won't be dressing period correct. 

Today was the day. What a giggle. Maybe once I learn not to flinch I can actually hit something. 

Step 1: Standard dryfire safety rules.

Step 2: Hold your rifle on target.

Step 3:  Finger press (no need to cock the action), and softly say the word, "bang," while keeping your eyes open and the gun on target.

It seems odd, but it helps your brain build the connection between the concept of the bang and nothing really going on worth worrying about. Loud noise and recoil teach us to flinch. No noise and no recoil teach us not to.

I am jealous of the fun you are having.

In reply to matthewmcl :

I put it on paper at 45y twice, admittedly from a dead rest. But I couldn't end the day without shooting offhand. 

How slowly it all happens with flintlock is a tad weird.

In reply to barefootskater5000 :

You look like you're having fun!

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

Well, I measured my ingredients and started the machine, outside and away from any dwelling. By my estimates and eyeballing, two bags of marbles and 8oz is just right for this tumbler. Granulating on Saturday. Hopefully I can test the powder next week. The days are starting to get longer..

Homemade black powder sounds like it deserves a thread of its own...

In reply to stroker :

I can do that I suppose. There's not much to show for pictures yet. I'll see about starting one this weekend when the process is a little more hands on. 

barefootskater5000 said:

In reply to stroker :

I can do that I suppose. There's not much to show for pictures yet. I'll see about starting one this weekend when the process is a little more hands on. 

Here's a second person interested. Your description of using marbles in some sort of tumbler made me realize that I have no idea how black powder is made. 

Rather than start another thread for my adventures in the rabbit hole that is flint shooting, I'll just use this thread. 
 

Let's talk about rocks

The Traditions kit I got was supposed to include 2 agate flints but there weren't any, and likely because they're on back order like everything else these days. Agate "flints" are machine cut and just like everything else have a mixed reputation online. If you look on midway or muzzle-loaders.com or most other online suppliers this is about your only option. 

Technically, flint is a form of chert, which is apparently a rather large family of rock. Depending on who you talk to, we do not have actual flint in the US, but several types of perfectly functional chert. Now, in today's world you can order basically anything you want. Trackofthewolf.com is a great resource for a bunch of traditional shooting supplies, a bit higher priced for most things, but they have a great reputation and my experience has been that they deserve it. They supply hand knapped English flints in a variety of sizes. These work very well in my rifle and they are easy to maintain. 
 

Now, I had assumed that with the abundance of interesting geology in my area that finding flint would be as easy as learning to identify the stuff in the wild and dragging a few lbs home for shaping. This is not the case. The stuff is super common in the south, and all through the eastern part of the country. Arkansas has they're own highly regarded white chert that is apparently only found there. But all along the Appalachians and the blue mountains, GA, NC, TN, the stuff is common. Not out here in rock country though. It exists, but in small quantities of poor quality and in remote locations. I have two professional geologists looking into it for me and so far the best I can find is "there is some, but it's north of Beryl" which is more village than town and nearly 2 hours away.. Suffice to say, I was wrong. 
 

The desire to supply myself is still super high though. Powder, shot, all of it if I can. So. Homework. Commercial "flints" are agate. We have that. Apparently anything about 7 or higher on the mohs hardness scale will work if it can be shaped properly. Quartz is 7ish, agate, jasper, we have options. 
I have a fist sized agate from a local spot that I'll try to cut (lots of rock hounds around here with lapidary saws) and see how that works. I want to try jasper and even petrified wood if I can find a suitable piece. 

Sorry for the rambling post, but I'm learning and excited to share in case anyone else wants to try. 

Another question! 
I decided that since I don't carry I don't really have a reason to own a subcompact 9. So I no longer own one. This frees up gun budget for something better suited to home defense. In that vein, I'm in the market for a pump action. Likely 12ga, and high priority on dependable.  
I'm leaning towards a benelli nova, possibly a supernova. Not fond of mossbergs, and I've heard the Remmy 870s aren't what they used to be. open to suggestions. The ability to take 3.5" shells is a big plus, 4+1 or 5+1, 20" max barrel length. 

DP-12 is really appealing to me for a pump action.   I also looked in to some Beretta's a few years back but from what I recall they offered only semi-auto shotties.