New Caps and Black powder!

I am very happy to announce that my package has finally arrived and we now have a kilo of FG Black powder made by Holy Smoke as well as some RWS top hats. ( I have heard that they are hotter burning), so I hope that the combination of the FG powder as apposed to FFG Sanadex and the hotter burning caps will stop the horrible hang fires that I have been having. Only now to find a black powder club in the far north to New Zealand to test it out:)

Bore Size

72 Cal Kodiak Express and the 4 Bore Comparrison

Some videos from Saturday 14/01/2017

Some videos from Saturday 14/01/2017

Dennis With 400gr Sanadex and a round 4 bore ball

Dex with the 4 bore!!

Some big hits from the 4 Bore and Kodiak

Below is a collection of a few photos from the day that shows just how brutal these rifles can be. The biggest problem is that you get so addicted to the recoil its scary!

Dexter shooting a good 200gr load with a round ball. Spectacular flame! You cannot see the flame with the naked eye, so these images were taken from a slow motion video. 

Dennis getting smacked with a 400gr load with a round ball. This is a great pic of the plume of smoke.

Wade with a very impressive fireball! 350gr Sanadex with a 1600gr Conical.

 800gr Conical with 180gr sanadex powder gives you enough of a smack for the rifle to run up. Awesome shot with Wade's Pedersoli Kodiak Express Double.

A day at the range 14/01/2017

So the boys went to the range for the first time in a few years! We took a couple of toys to play with, namely: Hollis and Sons 4 Bore, Kodiak Express 72 cal Double, and an old 1861 Navy 577.

Below is a pic of all the guys on the range. Left to right, Wade, Dennis, Ed, Dexter.

Here are some pics of the rifles through out the day.

These are finer art than any oil painting that I have ever seen

Wade Twilley Shooting the 4 Bore 2012

My good friend Wade Twilley is as addicted to recoil as I am! Below is a video of wade firing the 4 Bore way back in 2012!.

This is a fantastic example of the 4 Bore two step.

Recovered 4 Bore Conical Bullet

I thought that I would add a picture of what the 1600gr conical looks like after it has been fired with 300gr Sanadex powder into a sand bank travelling at 1250fps. Note: this lead conical does not have any tin added! I do not have a scale that goes over 1000gr just yet but I can believe that the weight retention will be very close to 100%.

I cannot wait to do the same test on large game one day.

My 4 Bore

I have a Hollis and Sons 4 Bore Black Powder Muzzleloading rifle. It has Damascus octagonal barrels and is truly a lovely item. Most certainly my most prized possession! We have been shooting the rifle for about four years now and have done some amazing things with it.

This video is from way back in 2012 when we first fired the 4 bore. It was a long road to get that far as the rifle did not have any bullet molds or anything. We had to get a round ball mold and a conical mold made for the rifle. This took forever!

Once they were made, we had to find some powder for her and all we could get was a very fast burning local powder called Sanadex. Our firs load was a small 150gr of Sanadex with a patched round ball. This did not last long and before we knew it we were shooting the same round ball with 400gr of Sanadex powder which sent the ball at a whopping 1400fps.

Not bad for a first day with a new toy!
Since then we have fired over 50 shots with the rifle, using both round balls and conicals. Big recoil is what we love doing the most. Anyone who has a muzzleloading 4 bore, please comment here so that we can start talking about these fantastic beasts of the past!