Something I find funny about the lube I use on the 200 grain Saeco tapered bullets in that rifle. I made some Emmeritt's lube which is almost invisible when applied to the bullets. So I added like ¼ of a green crayon to give it color. Now one can see the lube in the grooves without straining his eyes, it is a faintly green color.
Prior to the crayon the lube had that nice honey smell due to the beeswax. The other day when shooting at an indoor range, when the rifle was shot there was a distinct crayon smell. Just that little bit of crayon in a pint or so of lube was enough to give it that smell. Also, this rifle shoots very well with that lube, the bore is shiny with no signs of fouling after 50 rounds. Using the same lube in my Uberti 1873 in 357 mag, I always have crusty powder fouling after 50 rounds, and so that rifle is cleaned after every range outing. No leading, just powder fouling. I guess I'll have to find a different lube for use in the 357 mag, or maybe change up the choice of powder to something else.
--Shot a 1" group using fixed ammo at 100 yards with it, using my Fecker scope! I already know it shoots better breach seated, but there wasn't room to use all the accessories etc. at the range to verify. That's not bad for a 112 year old rifle shooting plain based bullets from a shaky rest. I was happy.
Another nice thing about shooting cast bullets... practically non existent barrel wear. I remember 20+ years ago reading an article in a Precision Shooting or Handloader magazine of a test someone did with a revolver, in which the author measured barrel wear between two revolvers, one with cast bullets the other with jacketed bullets. The jacketed bullet barrel wore out with some number, I don't remember, but the cast bullet barrel had no measurable wear at that number of bullets. I've read of Pope barreled Stevens rifles with over 10,000 rounds through them with less than ½ of .001" wear at the muzzles.
So, LAH, I reckon your little pistol there will go for a million rounds if you keep shooting cast.
