BLACK POWDER: A SPECIAL .50-70 MATCH

BLACK POWDER

Shooting a black powder .50-70 match is just like the old times.

A SPECIAL .50-70 MATCH

Club's informal black powder cartridge matches a good way to get started in BPCR shooting, competition.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY MIKE NESBITT

It should be no secret that the .50-70 is one of my favorite black powder cartridges. Reasons for this can certainly include its history, being our country’s first centerfire military cartridge, along with its fine performance as well as the interesting variety of single-shot rifles that were made for it.

I’m not alone in having such admiration for the old .50-70; there are actually a bunch of us with these feelings. So it should be no surprise that our club, the Black River Buffalo Runners (part of the Capitol City Rifle & Pistol Club near Olympia, Washington), annually holds a special .50-70 match.

This started just three years ago and for that debut, we had only three shooters show up with .50-70-caliber rifles. There were more shooters than that, of course, because other black powder cartridge rifles are also invited. However, those shooters using other calibers do follow the .50-70 shooters to the prize table.

The idea grew and at our second .50-70 match, we enjoyed having six shooters trying for top score, and that was while using only four rifles. Top score was shot by Jerry Mayo, who was shooting my .50-70 rolling block. Second place was taken by “Doc” Ritter, who was shooting his dad’s rolling block. I took third place and “Loco Jeff” Ritter took fourth, while using the rifles that had already placed first and second. The two other shooters, Allen

Author Mike Nesbitt’s “little” .50-70 by C. Sharps Arms with a 26-inch barrel.

The .50-70 cartridge with grease groove bullet, like the old Army load.

Cunniff and Bob DeLisle, both used their .50-70 Sharps rifles.

Like Brownie Nash of the Great Basin Sharp Shooters says, “Never lend your rifle to another shooter in a match; the borrower will always outshoot you.”

FOR OUR THIRD year, the .50-70 match ballooned up to 10 shooters, all using their “Big .50s” in friendly competition. (Yes, a Big .50 should really be a .50-90, but the .50-70s were also often referred to as such by the buffalo hunters.) That was an excellent lineup and the firing line was loaded with four rifles from C. Sharps Arms, three Remington rolling blocks, two old Springfield trapdoors and one ’74 Shiloh Sharps. In addition to that, we had one shooter, Wes Davis, using his C. Sharps Arms ’74 rifle in .45-70 caliber. Seeing our .50-70 match grow is rewarding and that all adds to the fun.

Our course of fire is rather simple, using just two targets. Both are bull’seyes, one at 100 yards and the other at 200 yards. Ten shots are fired at each target, fired from the sitting position while resting the heavy rifles over

Jerry Mayo’s new .50-70, a custom Remington rolling block. cross-sticks.

While the targets are simple, each shooter has habits that can add variety to the match. For instance, shooting black powder cartridges generally requires some kind of fouling control. Several shooters wipe the bore between shots and that is especially true for shooting paper-patched bullets with no lube disc under the bullet. (That lube keeps the fouling soft for the following shot.) Others, like me, use lubricated grooved bullets and use a blow tube between shots to keep the fouling soft. Both ways work quite well. One more point to make about our course of fire is that we have no time limit; our matches aren’t timed.

The loads used can have a lot of variety too, even though we are primarily talking about just one cartridge, the .50-70. Last year I shot this match using paper-patched bullets. This year my shooting was done with grooved bullets, cast from Accurate Molds’ No. 52-450L2. That’s a 450-grain bullet very similar to Lyman’s No. 515141, but with larger grease grooves to hold more lubricant. For fuel in my loads, 65 grains of Olde Eynsford 2F powder goes under the bullets, and between the bullet and the powder there was a .030-inch fiber “veggie” wad from John Walters, “the tin-wad man.” I’ve found that to be a good allaround load for my .50-70s.

ALLEN CUNNIFF, MY Matthew Quigley Buffalo Rifle Match shooting partner, used a 555-grain paper-patched bullet, also from an Accurate mold, over 69 grains of Swiss 2F powder in his .50-70 with the 30-inch barrel. That’s a good-performing load, for sure,

Here’s some of the gang: (standing) Curt Lokovsek, “Loco” Jeff Ritter, Tom Witt, Jerry Mayo, Wes Davis, Bob DeLisle and Phil Wiebe; (kneeling) Mike Nesbitt and Allen Cunniff.

and Allen was our top shooter in this match, shooting the high scores at both 100 and 200 yards. Phil Wiebe was shooting the same paper-patched bullets out of his new Shiloh Business Rifle in .50-70, but Phil hasn’t “talked to” that rifle enough yet to get better scores; it’s too new. Bob DeLisle also used paper-patched bullets, cast from an older Ballard mold. Bob’s sight settings were off for 200 yards and he sent three bullets over the target, then clipped the edge of the paper with his fourth shot. After a proper sight adjustment, Bob put five of his next six shots into the 10-ring, getting 59-3X with those well-aimed shots.

Several of our shooters do their own spotting, checking their hits with a spotting scope between shots. I favor shooting with a partner who spots for me while I shoot, then I spot for them while they shoot. This year I again teamed up with Jerry Mayo, and Tom Witt joined us.

Tom and I shot while Jerry spotted both of our targets, then one of us would spot for Jerry.

Tom was shooting another of my .50-70 rifles (while his is being made). He used my heavy Sharps with the 32-inch barrel. That is actually my most accurate .50-70 and I’m simply lucky that he didn’t outshoot me with it again. (In a previous Old West Centerfires match, Tom did outshoot me by two points.) One other shooter used a borrowed rifle; Curt Lokovsek borrowed Loco Jeff’s heavy .50-70 rolling block. Curt outshot Loco Jeff by eight points and Jeff says that will never happen again.

Jerry was shooting his fine new .50-70 rolling block that was recently rebuilt by C. Sharps Arms with a custom barrel by Jim Carpenter. Jerry needs to “talk to” his rifle a little more too, but his shooting with that gun keeps getting better.

See the sidebar for the full list of scores. At our matches all shooters receive awards, usually shootingrelated products provided by C. Sharps Arms and several others, as well as the club. (I won some buffalo hotdogs!) The top shooters are simply called to the prize table first, but there is always

Nesbitt and DeLisle congratulate each other on their first place tie in the after-match.

.50-70 MATCH RESULTS

PLACE/NAME RIFLE/CARTRIDGE 100-YARD 200-YARD TOTAL

1st Allen Cunniff 1874 C. Sharps .50-70 88 95-X 183-X 2nd Mike Nesbitt 1874 C. Sharps .50-70 82-2X 86-X 168-3X 3rd Tom Witt 1874 C. Sharps .50-70 75 90 165 4th Curt Lokovsek Remington Rolling Block .50-70 82-3X 77 159-3X 5th “Loco” Jeff Ritter Remington Rolling Block .50-70 74 77 151 6th Jerry Mayo Remington Rolling Block .50-70 69 73 142 7th Bob DeLisle 1874 C. Sharps .50-70 79 59-3X 138-3X 8th Phil Wiebe 1874 Shiloh Sharps .50-70 50 77-X 127-X 9th Jeff “Doc” Ritter Springfield Trapdoor .50-70 37 68 105 10th Tom Herman Springfield Trapdoor .50-70 36 36 72

SPECIAL .45-70 CLASS

1st Wes Davis 1874 C. Sharps .45-70 77 86 163

AFTER-MATCH RESULTS

PLACE/NAME CARTRIDGE

T-1st Mike Nesbitt .44-40 T-1st Bob DeLisle .32-20 T-3rd Tom Witt .44-40 T-3rd Allen Cunniff .44-40 5th Phil Wiebe .44-40 6th Jerry Mayo .44-40 7th Dan Johnson .44-40

50-YARD 100-YARD TOTAL

5 hits 5 hits 10 5 5 10 4 5 9 4 5 9 3 4 7 3 3 6 1 3 4 plenty for everybody.

To add a little more fun to this match, we had a short after-match using our lever-action “camp guns” for 10 more shots. We shot five shots each at a “bucket” at 50 yards, offhand, and another five shots at an octagon gong placed at 100 yards, sitting. Seven shooters joined in this fun. Bob tied with me for first place, so we split the pot rather than continuing to shoot until one of us missed. See sidebar for these scores too.

Shooting in an informal black powder cartridge match like this is a very good way to get started in BPCR (black powder cartridge rifle) shooting. We’ve had a number of spectators who just came to watch and are now shooting with us. Maybe it’s the “boom” of the Big .50s that helps to bring them back again. 

COMPANY SPOTLIGHT

With roots all the way back to 1941 and a history that includes tours of duty in several wars, the Woodman’s Pal today is manufactured by Skyline Toolworks LLC.

SWISS ENGINEERING, PENNSYLVANIA PRIDE GO INTO ‘VERSATILE TOOL’

Woodman’s Pal is an ‘all-in-one land management tool’ for anyone who needs to clear brush and more.

PHOTOS BY SKYLINE TOOLWORKS LLC

The Woodman’s Pal has a long and storied history dating back to 1941, when Frederick Ehrsam, a Swiss national who settled in Pennsylvania, brought it to market.

Ehrsam, an experienced engineer, artist and woodsman, had recognized the need for an “all-in-one” land management tool – one that would work on everything from clearing brush and blazing trails to trimming and pruning trees. With its lightweight, balanced and compact design, the Woodman’s Pal soon gained popularity with agriculture, horticulture and land management professionals alike.

Although the product was initially designed for civilian use, the Woodman’s Pal also got the attention of the US military. It was procured for the US Army Signal Corps and eventually became standard-issue as a combat and survival tool for GIs in the Pacific Theater. By the end of the Korean War, over 250,000 units had been procured. During the Vietnam War and Desert Storm, the Woodman’s Pal was primarily issued as a survival tool for pilots.

The quality and effectiveness of the Woodman’s Pal spans decades and generations. Indeed, that is why Pennsylvania-based and family-run

The tool features a .110-inch-thick spring steel blade, Amish-handcrafted wood handle and a premium leather sheath.

company Skyline Toolworks LLC – which also boasts products such as the immensely popular Clipdraw – bought the trademark in 1995.

“We did not want to see a product we’ve loved simply disappear,” their website explains. “That is why we have chosen to bring the Woodman’s Pal back to market and make some improvements along the way.”

Craftsmen start with .110-inch-thick 1074/1075 spring steel blades and forge them in fire to 1,500 degrees. The blades are then given a protective powder coating and hand-sharpened to perfection. Amish-handcrafted wood handles and premium leather sheaths complete the look of this must-have tool.

“We guarantee you will be happy with the Woodman’s Pal, from the blade, handle and sheath to reprints of manuals provided to GIs during World War II and Lansky sharpening stone,” says the website. “The box itself has been upgraded to make a great gift and unboxing experience for everyone.”

The Woodman’s Pal comes with a lifetime warranty, so the versatile tool will not only serve you well for many, many years to come, but it will also become a cherished family heirloom.  Editor’s note: For more information, visit woodmanspal.com.