This article appearing in the Sept/Oct 2010, #207 of the Fouling Shot was written by Craig Thompson.

It all started when I read an article that Forrest Asmus had written about rebarreling a Marlin Model 1895 to 40-65 WCF. Later I read a second article about the same rifle. I already had a nice Marlin 1895CB in 45-70 that I hunted with, so my original idea was to get another and have the barrel bored and relined to 40-65.

I went to my local dealer and had him get me anoth-er 1895CB. Well once the rifle arrived and I got it home, I was having a difficult time talking myself into reaming a perfectly good and new barrel. So the new 1895CB went into the safe and the idea got keyholed for awhile.

Maybe six months later I still hadn’t done anything with the new rifle and happened to be browsing Gunbroker. I noticed an original Marlin 1895 of 1896 vin-tage in, of all calibers, 40-65 WCF, but the gun just hap-pened to be in Fairbanks Alaska.

Anyway to make a long story short I contacted the dealer selling the rifle and made a deal. In a couple weeks the “new” Marlin 1895 was in my hands, and I didn’t have to sacrifice the other 1895CB.

While the wait for the 40-65 was going on I had my local dealer get me some Starline 40-65 brass, a set of RCBS 40-65 Cowboy dies and a Lyman 403169 mould. Very shortly after they arrived here I had a couple hun-dred bullets cast and lubed for loading. All my bullets were run thru a .408” die and lubed with Thompson’s Blue Angel.

I looked in Mike Venturino’s book about lever actions and started with a load he had listed; the bullet men-tioned above with 24 grains of XMP5744 and primed with a CCI 200 primer.

I ran about 30 cases through the sizer die just to make sure everything was round and then primed, charged and loaded twenty. I put a fairly decent crimp in the crimp groove. When the rifle arrived they went thru the action without problems.

The next day I headed to the range and set up a tar-get at 50 yards. This target had a pretty decent sized black bull as I planned on using the plain old iron sights. After giving the rifle another good scrubbing there at the range that morning, I proceeded to get on paper at 50 yards. Then I went for dead-on at 50 and wasted about 7 rounds.

I then decided to try a three-shot group. By no means did I shoot my best ever group, but for a 110 year old rifle and open sights I thought the two inch group I got was respectable. I then moved my target to 75 yards and shot another group. This one opened up to almost four inches. I decided to limit the old smoke pole to 75 yards or less. To be honest I didn’t bother to try any other loads in the old rifle.

I was set for hunting season of 2006. Well, almost. While looking and waiting for this 40-65 I had run across a really, really nice Marlin 1895 in 38-56. This rifle was built in 1897 and Leroy Merz in Minnesota had it. Well to make a long story short, the rifle appeared on my doorstep about two weeks later, as did a package from Midway with a set of Redding 38-56 dies and some Quality Cartridge brass. I already had plenty of moulds and a sizing die since I also load for a pair of 38-55’s and a 375 Win.

For the 38-56 I had a bit more work to do since I had a couple good moulds to use. On hand I had the already proven RCBS 250 grain GC mould and the Lyman 375449 262 grain GC mould. I also have a Lyman 375248 plain base mould but I kind of prefer to use gas checked bullets. In this rifle as well as the 40-65 all I used was straight WW’s to cast my bullets.

Since I already had bullets cast, sized, checked and lubed I thought I should load a few. To start I tried a dozen of the RCBS bullet with 20 grains XMP5744 and a dozen with the Lyman bullet and the same charge. Then I headed to the range for a test run. Again I started at 50 yards as I was only using iron open sights. The RCBS bullet shot very well at 50; three shots were around an inch. Then I tried three of the Lyman bullets and they went into almost a single ragged hole. To say I was surprised would be an understatement!

Then and there I decided the Lyman bullet and 20 grains of 5744 would be the load. I moved the target out to 75 yards and shot three more which went in about an inch so I was pretty satisfied with this one as well for hunting season.

This article written by John Alexander, appeared in the May/June 2012, #217 issue of the Fouling Shot.

Since the tunnel was finished I have fired thousands of rounds through it and measured the muzzle velocity of a good portion of them with practically no extra work. However, some of the original features had to be modified and a certain amount of ongoing maintenance has been required. A couple of times the learning curve included unexpectedly exciting events.

The first part of the original design that needed modification was my method of stopping the bullets. I originally used ten layers of one and a half inch thick scraps from the house construction. Of course they were of soft spruce or fir but I thought that by shuffling the pieces around as the ones in front were penetrated and by moving the aiming points they would stop a lot of bullets before using up my generous supply of wood scraps. I underestimated the penetrating ability of pointed 85-grain 22 caliber cast bullets at modest velocities.

To reduce the frequency of changing targets I use homemade targets with from ten to twenty aiming points. This has the desirable side effect of spreading the impact points around in the backstop. This undoubtedly extend-ed the life of the backstop lumber but that life was still surprisingly short. Early on I went down to change a target and found that most of the 50 or 60 shots fired on that target had fully penetrated the stack of spruce and splattered against the backup steel plate. The lead fragments had been prevented from bouncing back towards the tar-get by the shredded backstop lumber so the only lead that escaped exited parallel to the plane of the steel plate. There was a narrow line of embedded lead slivers up both walls and across the roof attesting to the value of having the steel plate in place.

I had used large chunks of hardwood for backstop material at my previous outdoor range and knew that an 18-inch diameter chunk of oak, hard maple, or elm would stop a lot of bullets before it needed to be replaced. It wouldn’t be as easy to handle as wood scraps but it would last much longer. I used up several of these with-out incident. Then during one exchange the chunk of oak got away from me while I was lowering it into posi-tion while standing down in the buried shed. There wasn’t much room for evasive action in the restricted space but I did manage to get all my body parts out from under the 150 pound chunk of oak as it crashed down on the target frames with an impressive splintering and flying of broken wood.

OK I thought, that one was now in place but I didn’t look forward to replacing it when the time came. These weighty items could of course be lowered and removed easily with a block and tackle or a chain hoist but there was no sturdy tree limbs overhead to hook a hoist to. I decided to build a miniature overhead bridge crane similar to the big ones that moved things around in a factory where I had once worked. My little crane would be handling light loads so it could be made of pressure treated wood and it wouldn’t have to travel up and down the bay of a factory so the girder could be supported in one place on posts instead of on rails. I calculated that the girder could be a simple 2 by 6. The post bearing most of the weight would be a 4 by 4 and the other end of the girder would be supported by a braced 2 by 4. The smallest low-cost chain hoist I could find had a one-ton capacity. This gross over design is bad engineering, but other than being unhandy to hang on the trolley, it works fine. To support the hoist and move it along the girder I built a trolley of plywood and heavy-duty casters. Although using my crane doesn’t produce as much weight training nor as much excitement as the previous method, it works as planned and the heavy chunks of shot up hardwood can now be easily fetched out and a new chunk lowered gently into place in a manner befit-ting an elderly shooter.

This article written by Gordon Meeder, appeared in the Sept/Oct 2012, #219 issue of the Fouling Shot.

Looking around one will find a lot of old Colt Police Positive revolvers that, to say the least, are well used; bordering on junk. One that I bought a few years back falls into this category. It is hard for me to imagine some-one shooting and neglecting these little revolvers enough to wear them out, but they did. It makes one wonder what stories they could tell. This one was built in 1926. Who knows, maybe Bonnie Parker had it tucked into her bloomers somewhere along the line. That would explain the rust.

I bought it just to get the near perfect original grips to put on a good P.P. that I own. I put the “clunker” in storage in case I needed parts and with the thought I might fix it someday. Someday came.

The ejector spring was broken and the crane bush-ing that holds the spring in place was junk, along with other issues. I bought a new spring and made a new crane bushing. I don’t have a lathe so making the bush-ing was kind of a trick. I won’t go into details. A little judi-cious adjustment with a hammer and a punch resulted in a questionably acceptable resolution to the other issues. I also made a set of crude grips out of white oak to replace the missing originals. They are crude, but they fit my hand better than the originals.

A local commercial caster sells a 100 gr. full wad-cutter. I had bought some a while back to make some light practice loads for my daughter in law to shoot in her Ruger LCR. I thought they would be just right for my new little worn out 38 S+W chambered Colt.

The loading manuals don’t give many loads using newer powders for the 38 S+W., but I had a can of Hodgdon Clays powder sitting on the shelf that I wanted to use up. The little measure that comes with Lee 38 S+W dies throws exactly 2 grains of Clays. That seemed reasonable to me.

Talk about fun to shoot! I hung a one quart liquid detergent bottle rescued from the garbage can in a tree behind the house, stepped back 10 yards or so and proceeded to fill it full of holes. The load is mild, accurate, and well, just fun to shoot. I decided some formal testing was in order.

This "Speaking Frankly" article appeared in the July/Aug 2013, #224 issue of the Fouling Shot.

(Editor’s Note: Frank Washam has graciously agreed to come out of retirement and edit these newly acquired “Franklys.” Thanks Frank!)

One negative among the native Turkey Shoot regu-lars was; that if you had an other than routine type and caliber of rifle, sooner or later they’d think you had an advantage. My favorite Turkey Shoot which had also turned into a trading mart for that added attraction to gun buffs, got a lot of my intense attention.

One day a native, well regarded “cracked shot” Turkey Shoot winner unsheathed a Model 94 Winchester real clunker in 38-55 cal. “for smokeless cartridges.” This one looked like it had been drug around behind a plough in a rocky field, bounced around in the bed of a pickup in company with broken bootleg quart jars, then did at least one free fall down the steep side of Franconia Notch, then laid in the Lost River for at least one summer and winter. (Ed. Note: “like new”)

This junk dealer solemnly assured me that “It shot a lot better than it looked” which was a true Yankee state-ment since “better than it looked” wouldn’t take a heluva lot even if it had a smooth bore 38 cal. gas pipe. “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” he says “Besides that,” the eager seller added, “Only the front six or so inches of this barrel was bad and this was a tight barrel and I put on a carbine stock with the carbine steel butt plate instead of that sharp hay fork and that nice new front blade sight is centered up nice since I sliced the barrel off to about 18 inches or so and made it into a half magazine light, stiff carbine, which is the style now.”

I didn’t ask him how come it had a carbine saddle ring and one solid open wide “V” rear sight in the dove slot, but a good look thru the barrel was a pleasant sur-prise, so I says, “What kinda ammo have you tried in this relic that some basement butcher stuck you with that shoots way high I’ll bet?” He says, “They’s 16 rounds left, goes with the gun, I’ll get ‘em.” It was scruffy HV Winchester ammo, but a fired case looked like the old chamber was smooth and close with a tight action. An unfired load (not a handload) snugged up nice when the lever was up tight. Although half carbine and three quar-ters rifle, if this gun had nothing else, it had character. I knew the guy was no relation to Rockafella so I gave him his first asking price of seven bucks.

Hope springs eternal with casters, so bright and early I’m bellied up to Ma & Pa’s Truck Stop Food Bar the next A.M. contemplating what fools these mortals be putting out seven big bucks for that mongrel dog of all dogs Mod. 94 .38-55 and Will had said, “Don’t bring it in the house.” But I was coops bound with my hand tong tools, assorted primers, a hundred match grade standard .38-55 soft alloy bullets at 258 grains, and enough #80 and Unique for a day.

Just to be sure my day would be made I also had the nifty Swede, scoped 25” barrel 9.5X57 with a beltfull of my standard 375296 wood’s loads. This throat fit tapered load at 1800MV was one of the most consistent cast loads of medium bore class I had for full confidence, and I kept it ready. There were 9.5X57 Swede Sporters. This was a custom 9.5X57 Mannlicher-Schoenauer cal-iber, very nicely done that was a prima cast loader. That rifle and the 9.5X57 Mannlicher-Schoenauer 20 inch car-bine were my show off pair, one scoped or irons and the M.S. with only iron sights. These two class act guns had been the ones that the turkey shooters feared.

Although I had not won anymore than the other fair shots with their Plain Jane common popular caliber rifles, my fancy fusils were noticed, thus the notion that those rifles were the edge for my “consistent good luck.” Will and Gramps both, when they finally let me bring the .38-55 dog of mongrel dogs into the warm shop decided that the carbine receiver with saddle ring was original along with the carbine buttstock, but the heavy octagonal 18” barrel, fore end, and half magazine were salvaged from a long tom rifle and cut to keep the best part of the rear 18” of barrel with old sights such as some one had laying around. Although no doubt this was a bottom line base-ment butcher job I argued that fundamentally it was func-tionally quite practical.

Will ran a .379” diameter round ball thru the barrel a few times and says, “This barrel ain’t awful bad for a fact and might surprise yah.” I didn’t know which way Will meant and Gramps opined, “It might at least shoot a round ball for barn plinking.”

About then I made up my mind I’d get that thing to shoot lead if I had to make it into a straight case .40-55. This was not an original brainstorm. One of our coop’s maestros had a Ballard .38-55 with a clunker barrel and had bored it out, re-rifled it for the .403” cal. popular match bullets which, when rechambered to use a .38-55 solid head case, was then a no taper straight case for easy to get brass and accurate. For smokeless powder utility he used a 16” twist and grooves .004” deep rather than the usual .003” of .38-55 and other popular lead loaders. This rejuvenated .40-55 wild cat Ballard made the .32-40 and .38-55 S.S. buffs sit up and take notice quite often.

Be that as it was, first things first. As a 38-55 was that day’s workout with the first pleasant surprise, the one stiff fixed open rear sight looked like it was supposed to be on with the old standard 38-55 load at maybe 1200 M.V. from this bob tail 18” stiff barrel. Some prior fondler of this ruffian must have had some ideas about rifle shooting at wood’s range for a good sign and this was with standard velocity jacketed factory 255 grain Winchesters for openers. If cast didn’t do it I could always go with Jacs. A few H.V. loads didn’t shoot but a couple inches higher at maybe 1500 M.V. Almost always we could beat the undersize 38-55 jacketed loads with cast in generous cut 38-55 factory pipes and my cast bullets were .380” diameter for this .379” groove diameter which also created a very nice neck fit.

Using #80 for what we knew did 1350 from a 26” rifle with the #375248, inside the coops, where this power was legal versus the slanted armor plate backstop. I held hard with bead centered in the 100 yd. bull at 50 yards. As the bonyfied castaballers know, this first shot is a very hopeful moment that may linger in your memories if right, but mostly that second shot is the main thrill if close to that first one. From my long experience my first cast bul-let shot that memorably pleasant day with the mongrel Mod. 94 I still well recall as being about four inches over the fairly centered standard factory load large group. Not unusual with a lubed lead bullet at about a velocity equal to the jacketed.

Lighting a Lucky Strike whose green had not yet gone to war and hoping for my luck to hold out, I fired #2.(Not #2 as with cannon but my second shot.) My fondest hopes were not fulfilled and I’d rather say, wow, I was in business. But, this shot was in the top half of the jack-eted group, then three more strung in about five inches, but hope unfaded, only about two inches wide. This had to be ignition, not uncommon with old hammer guns and the sear let off was easy, typical of a weak mainspring.

I didn’t fool around. The next five loads differed only via a large pistol cap which lit off #80 and Unique O.K. for such loads at wide low pressure. A two inch group at 50 yards is a 4 M.O.A. act not uncommon to light pipe carbines, but this was a stiff solid octagon barrel that I knew by then wanted to shoot maybe a two minute group if cool like all shots are in the woods or at Turkey Shoots, which was my number one concern.

Unique didn’t solve this one, so with my muzzle pro-tector on the 38 cal. brush and rod with fine steel wool and lap paste, I did 100 more full length passes added to the 100 I’d done priorly which had made the barrel look good although very faint, dark places still showed. Doing this lap job carefully to make sure the brush was turning with the rifling and thinking also about various accuracy cast loading tricks, I suddenly realized a couple of things I’d been doing wrong that day. Gramps had said, “If you’re gonna shoot this contraption single shot only, as yah gotta do at a Turkey Shoot, then load it like a single shot match rifle.” Of course, but in the nonadjustable old nut cracker tool, with mould attached, I’d been seating the standard #375248 with a full close of the handles which seated the bullet to work thru magazines while at the same time put on a crimp very firmly, all O.K. for hunting loads.

You can bet as soon as I did those 100 strokes lap job I’d seat bullets to touch the well rounded over leade and omit the crimp at the same time. To do this uniformly required only the right screw driver shaft from my kit box held between the handles of the tool. Later Will drilled a hole in the handles for a screw adjustable to hold han-dles apart the desired amount with a lock nut. Later I got a Lyman Double Adjustable seater. Following this sec-ond lap treatment nothing but gleam could be seen and the corners where lands joined grooves were as sharp in the angle as the day that this barrel was made. The top edges of the lands weren’t sharp when I got the gun nor was the steep leade, typical of a much shot rifle, so back confidently with five more.

Although I had no index mark on these bullets, a slight mark on one part line side did allow index loading and by then a coopy regular was training his scope on my clean D.S.B. target at 50 yards. I wanted to show him something and at the first shot holding at six-o-clock on the black bull from a dry barrel he says, “X at 12-o-clock.” This was routine with a stiff 38-55 lever gun. Four more fired slow for cool weren’t all X’s but one was and three close. The old coopy says.” Duke, wassa mat-ter? You losing your fine touch suddenly?” He never knew how good I felt about that 1-1/2” center group at fifty yards, holding at bottom of that same size black that the Turkey Shoot used. I don’t know if it was the match loading or the lapping or both, but I am saying to myself, “Turkey Shoot here I come.”

While the old fellah was asking, “What unhel kind of a junk heap this odd looking thing was to get Duke so interested?” Compared to my exotic stuff I usually had, I was loading ten more and I just said, “Special project, sort of a joke thing.” I had to make up my mind then on; should I fool around filing down that rear sight to hold center or go with the six-o-clock hold which I seemed to see pretty good and this gun was to be a surprise joker winner for the Turkey Shoot exclusively, I hoped.

It started out on that winning course right away when the sharpshooter coopy ace says, “Put two targets up at 50 yards Duke, I wanna check my 44-40 Marlin Long Tom with factories, so while I’m at it I’ll give yah a chance ta win a couple of bucks off me with that 38-55.”

This guy kept his sights checked all the time and I knew that Marlin did it good even with “factories” but also I had taken a few bucks from him when he misjudged how that 9.5X57 scoped Swede could do it at 200 yards, not to mention 300 yards with scopes and that had been versus his hot high repute Winchester High wall 40-90 Sharps Straight with a new 5X target scope from bench rest. One thing this good shot never did learn about repeating lever guns was to not shoot fast for money, so I’m only up to my third shot when he’s by then watching my target and hoping like hell I’ll blow one.

“So far we are tied now if you let one shot out of the 10 ring of the next two,” he says in his strange way of try-ing to bug me a bit. That was old time religion around the coop’s contestants so I says, “Wanna count just the best three shots and I know what you did wrong already, so I can save two very accurate rounds of match 38-55’s?” He says, “Shoot, will yah for kryze sake, I’ll be late for dinner the way you’re foolin’ around feeling up that barrel and sippin’ coffee.” I didn’t blow one, he was-n’t late for dinner, but I was and with two bucks in pock-et back at Mom & Pop’s Diner, a big steak and fries then was only 55¢ with no charge for smothered in onions. This included coffee and one piece of pie. In those daze, 2 was like 20 these idiot daze.

That Saturday among the natives at the Turkey Shoot around the fire barrel, I had the most neglected looking old “scrap parts smoker” probably ever drug out around those parts and I hadn’t even done this openly displayed piece the honor of wiping off the last of the rust or re-oiled the dry, dented wood.

The guy that had “dumped that one on Duke” I was sure was then telling his pals also that, “He knew that lemon hit high as hell most of the time and never very close together” and had his same H.V. dull, weather beaten cartridges out in front of my belt easy for all to see with my mackinaw unbuttoned.

Part 2 of 3, of John Alexander's artilce was published in the Mar/Apr 2012, #216 issue of the Fouling Shot.

Once the tunnel had been constructed and backfilled with the shed, target frame and bullet catcher at one end and a shooting bench anchored to the concrete base-ment wall at the other end, the next thing was to learn how to make it work. I was unable to find any informa-tion about a shooting tunnel of this small size. There were probably similar small tunnels somewhere but as far as I find out it was unique and with any unique design, performance is uncertain.

I worried that shooting through such a small tunnel with corrugated sides might affect the bullet’s trajectory. I had read Harold Vaughn’s book Rifle Accuracy Facts and noted his remarks about the effects of tunnels on the bullet’s flight, especially bullets in the transonic range. I was also concerned about the noise. After all we were in an area where shooting was prohibited and I wasn’t the only one living in the house. I was fairly certain the fifty yard tunnel would successfully reduce the noise that escaped the shooting shed. I wasn’t so sure about noise in the house.

I tested the tunnel by firing several groups with high speed 22 long rifle ammunition. The average for the groups was similar to the results I usually got when shooting groups with the same rifle and ammunition out-doors. It appeared that the small tunnel with corrugated sides didn’t do anything to a bullet’s shock wave that degraded accuracy – at least to the shock wave of 22 long rifle bullets.

The sound problem was harder to solve. A 22 rimfire didn’t produce enough noise to be objectionable but when I started shooting my cast bullet loads it was appar-ent that additional work was needed. The fifty yard tun-nel and the wooden target shed absorbed most of the noise emitted from the shed and because our nearest neighbor was over three hundred yards away through the woods this wasn’t going to cause trouble. But at the shooting bench it sounded as if I were shooting inside a large steel tank or at least what I thought it might sound like to shoot inside such a tank.

My first attempt to dampen the sound at the base-ment end was to make a removal bulkhead with a hole for the rifle barrel and line of vision. I hoped that this barrier would keep most of the report in the tunnel. The bulkhead was of three inch thick Styrofoam and tightly fitted to the pipe. It reduced the sound level in the basement but the empty tank tone was still there and still unpleasant.

Written by James Stuart, this article appeared in the Sept/Oct 2009. #201 issue of the Fouling Shot.

While reading the article by Joe Weist in Fouling Shot #187, on the 41 Swiss I got to thinking about the rifle I purchased back about 30 years ago. I was able to find some ammo from a company in Texas and to shoot it.

Well the 41 Swiss bug that Joe got also got to me and I had to have one. Looking around in the gun shows did not turn up anything, so I went to plan B, whatever that was. I went to the internet and typed in 41 Swiss rifles and all kinds of information was there. I also purchased a book on Swiss rifles and did some emailing with Joe.

Being that I spent 43 years in maintenance with the requirement always being to do it cheap, fast and easy got me to thinking. The 41 Swiss is really a 44 caliber. I was thinking about having a barrel made up for my Handi Rifle, but when I called to get cost it was not cheap.

While thinking about the Handi Rifle I came on an idea. As I had just ordered some extra barrels for one of my Handi Rifles from H & R, one being 44 Mag., the thought was, could I rechamber it? I measured the orig-inal 41 Swiss shell I had in my collection and looked up dimensions in the Cartridges of the world book and it looked like it could be done. An e-mail to Joe for his input confirmed it was possible. This would be easy! Since I had ordered the barrels already and delivery was to be 8 to 10 weeks I had time to get moulds, reamer, cases etc. This was going to be easy.

Here is part one of a three part article that appeared first in the Jan/Feb 2012. #215 issue of the Fouling Shot, written by CBA President John Alexander.

Shortly after arriving in Maine we moved into a large old farmhouse on fifty acres of woods and bog. I soon had backstops at fifty and one hundred yards from the back of the barn and a shooting bench in a shed attached to the barn. As was customary on old Maine farms, the barn was connected to the house by a large wood shed with the privy as a side room off the shed(this common arrangement may have had something todo with the winters). This allowed me to walk to my rifle range without even venturing outside, although snow-shoeing to change the targets in the winter was a nui-sance. For twenty years I happily blazed away when the spirit moved me with no more bother than hauling the rifle and ammunition to the barn.

A side benefit of my shooting activities was modification of the local snowmobile routes. When we first moved in, the teenage snowmobile riders had felt free to run across the lawn under the house windows at mid-night and in 1972 snowmobiles were really loud. The local kids may have thought that these new outsiders in town with their ancient VW instead of a proper pickup truck were probably out of place city folks and wouldn’t make a fuss. They might even have thought that they were effete college professors at the local university. However, when word got around that an unusual amount of small arms fire seemed to be coming from the vicinity which could indicate that the folks living there might not be as docile, or even as sane, as originally assumed, the local teenagers found other places to roar around with-out the matter ever being discussed.

A wood burning stove kept the shooting shed warm in the winter making it quite luxurious. A lot of lead was recycled from the backstops over the twenty years, but all good things come to an end. At the end of twenty years our kids were off on their own and the old, drafty, and high maintenance house was much bigger and much more trouble than we needed. We decided to build a new, smaller, and more efficient house five miles down the road on the banks of the Stillwater River in a semi-rural area closer to town. Unfortunately shooting was banned in the area.

However, I had been spoiled by having an at home range for twenty years and was reluctant to give up the convenience. After much measuring, we were able to site the house on the sloping lot so an underground shooting tunnel could be constructed from the basement to a target shed fifty yards away. Our lot was six acresin a worked out and abandoned gravel pit so the soil wasa clean sandy gravel, no good for a garden, or even a lawn, but perfect for construction. I planed to install an 18-inch diameter corrugated polyethylene pipe from the basement to a sunken shed that would hold a target frame and something to catch bullets. The builder and others were dubious, but I thought a civil engineer should be able to design and build such a contraption that would work.

If successful, this minor addition to the house con-struction cost would allow me to do a lot of shooting with-out the thrash of packing up everything and hauling it toan outdoor range. Because my reloading equipment would be set up only a few steps from the shooting bench, I could also “reload at the range” when useful without portable reloading equipment. An additional benefit would be comfort. Although northern Maine has almost perfect weather, this set up offered the prospect of shooting in 60-degree comfort during the rare inclement day.

A hole of the appropriate size shape and height above the basement floor was cast into the basement wall. The subcontractor who installed the leach field dug the trench for the pipe and the hole for the target shed while he was here. The pipe was laid in the trench, coupled together, aligned, and carefully backfilled.

CBA President, John Alexander, wrote this article appearing in the Sept/Oct 2011, #213 issue of the Fouling Shot.

Over the years I have often wondered how picky I should be when inspecting a freshly cast bunch of bul-lets. For various reasons a few will have gross defects that obviously rule out trying to shoot them. On a good day with a good alloy, a good mould, and everything working right almost all the bullets will seem to be perfectby the unaided eye. But they aren’t perfect.

If you examine them under a stereomicroscope at say 20X you will see that many are considerably less than perfect. Should we sort our bullets with the help ofa microscope? Most of the top competitive shooters inthe CBA don’t sort with a microscope and they still man-age to shoot some amazing groups, it seems safe to say that a microscope isn’t needed even though visually “perfect” bullets may not look perfect under magnifica-tion.

So our usual criteria for good or bad bullets is arbi-trarily based on what the human eye can see without aid. Is this arbitrary limit the proper one to determine what bullets should be rejected? If a skilled shooter had poor eyesight and couldn’t see defects as well as the average shooter would that be a disadvantage, I don’t think we know.

Although casting is fun when everything is working smoothly and the bullets are nearly flawless, on some days the cast bullet gods seem to punish us with bullets having rounded edges or wrinkles of various sizes –or both. Even after repeatedly cleaning a mold, turning upthe temperature of the pot, adding tin, fluxing with a magic elixir, and whispering ancient incantations passed down from the Schuetzen shooters in old Bavaria, as well as some more modern expletives, I sometimes windup with a number of bullets with easily visible wrinkles or rounded edges. The advice usually offered is to remeltall such bullets, or at least cull them out to be used onlyfor shooting offhand or for fouling shots.

I like to cast bullets but I like to do some other things with my time even more and after I have spent a coupleof hours casting I am reluctant to throw away a substan-tial fraction of my production even if they don’t look per-fect. I have always wondered how severe a defect has to be before it makes a difference? Logically the stan-dard should depend on what the bullets will be used for and how much precision is needed. If they are to be used for offhand or casual pistol shooting, or in a rifle that only averages three minutes of angle it seems rea-sonable that we should be able to relax our standards a bit compared to the standards needed for competitive benchrest shooting or squirrel hunting.

It has also been argued that the size of the bullet also matters and that defects in small bullets will cause more dispersion than similar defects in larger bullets. This alleged relationship has been cited as a reason why it is considered more difficult to attain good cast bullet accuracy with the 22 bore than with larger calibers. This seems logical but as Ken Mollohan argued in Fouling Shot #212, logic based on faulty assumptions can lead one astray.

Over the years I have occasionally run limited tests comparing “defective” bullets to “good” bullets and have been surprised at how well some of the defective bullets shot in a direct comparison. Many other experienced shooters have observed similar results and are more tolerant about what bullets are good enough for the intended purpose.

Cast bullet shooters, and especially beginning shooters, need some realistic advice about how to judge when a bullet should be rejected. I believe the standard advice that bullets with any visible defects should be remelted is not only arbitrary (as noted in the first three paragraphs) but also often wastes a lot of perfectly good bullets as well as a lot of casting time and effort for no good reason. More importantly, the zero tolerance rule pushed on beginners may cause them to give up casting in frustration when they could be getting good results with less than perfect bullets.

One difficulty in developing better advice for begin-ners is in describing the level of defect. How do you describe what a small or large wrinkle is or how much rounding of edges is enough to make a difference. I have a lot of records of past tests that show that bullets that were “slightly wrinkled”, or had “moderately rounded base edges” or “badly wrinkled” either did or didn’t do as well as the “good” bullets when fired in alternative groups. After a few years those notes aren’t very helpful even to me and they certainly aren’t useful to other shooters. But just because describing the level of defect consistently is difficult doesn’t mean we should give up.