(For the beginning of this article go to First Shots: Part One---Ed.)
Then the moment is upon us. I stand to the left and behind Steve as he begins the loading litany familiar to black powder shooters for hundreds of years. First the cock of the flintlock n he pours a stream of black powder from his George Cureton powder horn into a volumetric measure, in this case a brass tube, closed at one end, and sized to hold 35 grains of FFFg. Restoppering the horn and letting it swing down to hang at his side he pours the charge from the measure into the muzzle of the Hatfield. Then the measure too is dropped to hang from its braintan deer hide lanyard attached to the front strap of his shooting pouch. From his shooting pouch he draws a greased patch and a .350 round ball. He places the patch over the bore and centers the round ball over it, sprue cut up. Then withdrawing the ramrod from its channel he chokes up on it to start the ball in the barrel. When it is below the muzzle he continues pushing it down until it sits atop the powder charge. Then, with a light flicking motion, he tosses the ramrod down upon the ball three or four times to insure it is firmly seated atop the powder with no air space below. The he withdraws the "wiping stick," as the old timers used to call what we now refer to as a ramrod, and replaces it below the Hatfield's barrel. With it in place he swings the rifle up to where he can get at the lock. Then he takes a small priming horn of his own manufacture out of his hunting pouch, also his own design, and pours a small amount of FFFFg powder into the waiting pan. Snapping the frizzen closed he then draws the hammer back to full cock.
In a moment he draws the rifle to his shoulder, sets the double trigger and takes a bead on a largish pine cone we set up about 25 yards distant.
"Fire in the hole," he says and squeezes the front trigger to begin the 350 year old process of flintlock ignition. Cock falls. Flint strikes frizzen, forcing it open and shaving minute bits of white hot iron off to fall into the priming pan. The sparks ignite the fine powder there and the combustion proceeds through the small hole drilled into the barrel to touch off the main powder charge. It is the characteristic "ka-whoosh" of the flintlock as it looses its projectile down the barrel and sends it on its way to the target.
The double flash, first of pan then of main charge, takes me a bit by surprise. Not because it is so noisy but because it is so quiet. I am used to the cacophony of the rifle match with tens of rifles going of in an almost continuous barrage of supersonic cracks. Yes, the Hatfield's load does push the ball to supersonic speed but is seems somehow a gentler and more graceful means. Plus there is a cloud of thick, white smoke surrounding the pan and another, larger cloud in front of the muzzle almost instantly blown into dissipation by the slight breeze that wafts through the forest.
Then the pine cone explodes. And so does a grin on Steve's face.
"There. That's not too hard, is it?" His grin gets a little broader.
Now it's my turn.
I pull the percussion hammer back to half cock and prepare to charge the barrel. Then I set the butt of the rifle on my boot toe, not wanting to scratch its new polished brass butt piece and draw the rifle close, keeping the muzzle away from my face as I have been taught. Instead of a sized powder measure I have an adjustable one made of brass with an attached funnel for pouring the charge into the barrel. I have never used one before but I know I'll need to figure out just how much powder to use to obtain the best compromise between muzzle energy and economy. The old timers had quite a few maxims for determining how much powder to use. One says a grain of powder per caliber, thus a .45 like mine should take 45 grains of powder. Another says place the proper size ball in the slightly cupped palm of your hand and pour powder over the ball until it is just covered. A third is slightly more subjective. It says to use the smallest amount of powder needed to make the rifle "crack." While they did not know it at the time the "crack" of a rifle is the projectile breaking the sound barrier and producing the sonic boom now usually associated with jet planes. This was perhaps the soundest advice, no pun intended, for a supersonic projectile's energy is far greater than one of sub-sonic velocity. So one would truly get the maximum muzzle energy for the least amount of powder, not a small concern during those times when the bulk of the black powder used in North America was of European manufacture.
Me, I'm using the data in the Important Loading and Shooting Information pamphlet that Pedersoli shipped in the box with my new rifle. Well almost. It says to use 38 grains of FFg and I've set my adjustable measure for 40 grains.
So I pull out the plug of my de-luxe powder horn, obtained from Dixie Gun Works for $15.00, with my teeth and pour powder into the measure. I must be a bit nervous because I fill it up to overflowing and hope Steve doesn't notice. If he did he didn't say anything even though he is watching me intently. A good friend. I'm not sure if he's just making sure I do things right or eyeing me to see if he should duck behind a tree before the explosion.
I lift the measure to the muzzle and insert the funnel tip into the barrel, pouring the powder down. Then I replace the measure in my shooting bag and reach for the plastic 35mm film canister which I loaded earlier with plenty of Wonder Lube soaked patches. With my right thumb I flip the lid open, catching it between my index and middle finger and pull out a greased patch. I'm not quite sure how I did it but I manage to snap the lid back on and return the canister to my shooting bag. I now scrounge around for the bullet pouch I so laboriously copied from the Mark Baker video tape and squeeze out a single .440 Speer swaged round ball. The patch covers muzzle, ball is centered over patch and I exchange the bullet pouch for my short starter. Yeah, I know, most of this stuff isn't period correct but I'm just trying to get through this experience, not try out for an interpreters position at Colonial Williamsburg.
I use the little stub sticking out of the short starter's round maple handle and push down on the soft lead sphere. Hmmm. It's harder to start than I imagined. A lot harder. I find out later that this is because we modern shooters tend to use a much tighter patch and ball combination than they did in the eighteenth century. We aren't really worried about repelling the hostiles and thus tend to take more time in loading our rifles. It also makes for a better gas seal and increased accuracy.
I finally get it in the muzzle and switch to the longer shaft on the short starter. It is still a bit of a push to get it to go down but it's easier than the initial seating. Once the short starter handle touches the muzzle I remove it from the barrel, replace it in my pouch and pull out my "wiping stick" to finish the job. It's much easier now. I can feel it when it bottoms out against the powder charge. I try to copy Steve's flicking motion and toss the ramrod down on top of the ball three or four times. Feeling that I've done the best I know how to do, that and the fact that Steve hasn't screamed at me yet, I return the ramrod to its channel and dig once more in my pouch, this time for my capper.
I place a cap over the nipple and tug the capper to free it. Placing it back in my pouch I thumb the hammer to full cock, shoulder the rifle and point it at the stump about 25 yards in front of me. I want to keep the first ball out of my new rifle as a souvenir so knowing where it's going to go is fairly important.
I pull back on the rear trigger to set the front one. When my sight picture looks good I place my finger against the front trigger and squeeze back ever so slightly. The rifle goes off almost immediately with the instantaneous ignition we are all used to with our cartridge firearms but that amazed shooters when it was patented by the Reverend Alexander John Forsythe, a Scottish minister, in 1807. I am surprised at the lack of a "kick." Never being fond of firearms possessed of a stout recoil I find the caplock delivers more of a shove to the shoulder that the sharp jolt of the .30-06 when it goes off. This is probably directly attributed to the der. I don't care. This rifle is fun to shoot!
We spend the remainder of the morning and early afternoon repeating the rituals, load following load until all the targets we placed were either knocked down or collected for display to an admiring spouse.
Once a couple and their dogs came walking through the forest well down from our position and behind it, their presence announced long before they were in view by their loud conversation and the rooting through the underbrush of their dogs. We stopped firing until we determined their path was at an oblique angle upwards and behind us. They must not have seen us or heard our firing earlier because when we resumed there came excited shouts of "Hey! There's someone in the woods!" Yes brother, quite possibly many more than you know."
We decided then to call it a day and leaned our now unloaded rifles against a tree, hanging our powderhorns over the rifles so that their straps covered the muzzles to keep any stray pine needles out of the bores. The couple and their dogs were now quickmarching out of the trees headed back to their new SUV and the safety of a quiet home in the city. I don't think they ever saw us or knew where we were.
Steve and I now turned our attention to the stump where I placed my first ever shot from my new rifle. The track it made entering the dry wood was plainly visible and I drew out my knife to begin digging it out. I asked Steve if he would try and find one of my patches so I could take a look at it and also so I could keep it as another souvenir of this day. He found one of my characteristic "pillow ticking" patches about 20 yards from the downed log where we had sent some pine cones. It was perfect. There were no scorch marks on it that might indicate a too-heavy charge nor was it cut by the rifling, a sign that the patch might be too thick for the ball.
Then I reached the ball and freed it from the surrounding wood, turning it over in my hand marveling at how it had flattened yet retained most of its mass. I dropped it and the patch into another Altoids tin and dropped it into my haversack.
We spend a few minutes checking the area for anything we might have left and, convinced we were leaving our shooting range clean, headed back to Steve's Mustang.
We were both pretty tired when we got back to the car and I for one was glad to get in and sit down. The ride back to the cabin was fairly quiet. We told each other how much fun it had been and Steve said I had "done good." That made me feel pretty good. I knew I had discovered something that I would be doing for a long time to come and quietly reflected on the many happy hours to come. I think Steve was quiet because he knew how much work was still in front of us. We still had to clean the days shooting out of our rifles.
The caplock rifle pictured at the top of this article is the same model as the one I used that day.---Ed.