Edward R S Canby, SASS#59971

I suspect she will serve her sentence at the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in Grants.

3,000 Sheriff's Protest Sale One concern is that some agencies have foreign procurement restrictions.

I do. I lay the brass out in the sun as soon as I drain the water/vinegar solution (as mentioned by CC). This is often at a match away from home. I place the brass in plastic trays under my travel trailer on rainy days. Sometimes the trays are under my gun cart in my pickup truck as I drive home. The brass gets tumbled later - often weeks later. Don't leave your brass wet for many days with spent primers in place. They can corrode in place and be difficult to remove. I'm not sure one can tumble wet brass in walnut media. I think it needs to be a dry process.

Real black powder and the subs all produce much hotter flames than smokeless powder. These hot flames interact with petroleum-based lubes making them gummy. This can bind your firearms, especially revolvers. Thoroughly degrease your firearms and then re-lube with a black powder compatible lube like Ballistol. Borebutter is great on base pins. Some other things to consider: 1) APP fouling will build up on the face of your revolver cylinders, perhaps causing them to bind during a match. Be prepared to clean this off during a match. Ordinary water cleans well. 2) Wash your brass soon after shooting. APP fouling can tarnish brass. 3) The base of plastic wads will partially melt when you fire your shotgun. Remove it by spraying window cleaner down the bore. Wait a few minutes then push a wadded paper towel down the bore with a rod. The plastic should be pushed out. It often looks like a black snake skin. 4) Any shotgun primer works OK with APP. I currently use Cheddite 209s. 5) Be prepared for heat damage to the star crimp of your AA hulls. I toss my hulls after one firing with black powder or the subs. I often load mine several times with smokeless powder and then a final loading with black powder. None of this is difficult. But having revolvers with cylinders that won't turn or shotgun shells that won't hold shot makes for a bad day.

Here is APP's cartridge loading instructions: http://www.americanpioneerpowder.com/loading.html. Don't fill cases full of APP and then compress it. I would not bother using a filler with cowboy specials but certainly would with the 45 Colts. (There is a smoke standard for SASS black powder ammo that your loads need to meet.) Cream of wheat, foam backer rod and tumbling media are common fillers. If your SG loads lack knockdown power try TGT-12 wads. Welcome to the Darkside. Do you know how to lube your firearms for shooting APP?

Mine took months. I don't remember how many but it was not quick. The buckle was lovely and worth the wait.

I have a pair Ruger Old Model Vaqueros in 44 mag I shoot 44 Specials. These are loaded with APP and never Pyrodex. I have a beater Stoeger I shoot Pyrodex in and only at local matches where I can immediately clean it thoroughly as I arrive home. I bought a bunch of Pyrodex from WalMart for $10/bottle years ago and will buy no more.

My local club is hosting the State Championship in September. The club officers discussed the match handbook last night. Sponsors will get ad space in the handbook. We expect ads will more than pay for the handbook. I keep handbooks from all the matches I attend and use them to develop stages when it's my turn to be match director. We now use a printer in Amarillo since none of our locals wanted to work with us.

I bought two for my wife directly from Cody. There were no issues with the rifles as received. The main spring on one broke after twenty years of heavy use. That's not an issue with the short stroke - just metal fatigue.

This is my cleaner for black powder fouling: I lube with Ballistol after the firearm dries.

My recycler is just three miles from my house so I don't burn up much fuel driving there. They swirl a magnet around in the spent primers. If anything sticks they won't take the scrap. I don't get much for the scrap but don't like tossing material that can be recycled. I usually sell scrap aluminum at the same time.

I have an uncut BSS I use for cowboy clays side matches. The weight is useful for these events. It is a nice shotgun. I've handled Old #4's guns and would buy one of his if I needed another.

I shoot what my rifles cycle the best. I shoot 357s in one '92 Rossi, my wife's '73 Uberti, my '73 Miroku and a '94 Marlin all because they hold ten 357s and these cycle best in these rifles. My wife has a '73 Uberti carbine that won't hold ten 357s but will hold ten long-loaded 38 Specials that cycle well so that it what we feed it. Finally, I have a '94 Marlin chambered only for 38 Special only so that is what it gets. Buy some factory ammo and find out what feeds well in your rifles. Borrow some ammo from fellow shooters and see how they feed. (You don't have to fire the ammo.) 38 Specials loaded long with TC or RNFP bullets often cycle well. Avoid semi-wadcutters as they often feed poorly and avoid round nose bullets (I'll avoid the long reason why). 125 grain bullets are quite popular. Hi-Tek coated bullets are becoming standard. My primary caster quit selling uncoated bullets due to low demand. Once-fired 38 Special brass is available on auction sites. Avoid nickel-plated brass. We can also tell you what headstamps to avoid (there are several). Come back to the Wire with your loading questions. There is lots of sound advice available.

NR, the per round cost of plinking .22 ammo is on par with the cost of small pistol primers. When loading 38s one has to add the cost of powder and bullets. .22s are cheaper but as you stated, shooting your main match guns is the best practice. However, dry firing is valuable practice too and can be done at home.

I have a pair of Cimmaron Plinkerton .22s I sometimes use to teach new shooters how to operate single action revolvers. However, they are sufficiently different from my main match revolvers that I don't practice with them. My wife on the other hand shoots .32 Ruger Single Sixes and practices with a pair of .22 Ruger Single Sixes (with action jobs by Long Hunter). At Cal State in 2023 she won the ladies .22 revolver side match with her "practice guns." She also practices with a Browning BL-22 rifle and won a side match with it at the 4-Corners Regional a few years ago. Practice with .22s is great preparation for some side matches. There's no time at the progressive loader cranking out ammo and we don't pick up our spent brass.

American Pioneer Powder in Whitewater, CO blew up a few years back too. Manufacturing explosives and energetic materials is a hazardous business and most facilities eventually have accidents. Many operations are done remotely. Uncle Sam wants a domestic source of black powder as it is a part of some military munitions.

Four times in six years according to an article from 2004 I read. No wonder Hodgdon gave up the business.

What is your intended use? Long range or CAS main match ammo?

When my father's trucking business went bankrupt my mother took a job to supplement the family's income and had no time to cook. My siblings and I ate many TV dinners that were easy to prepare. I liked the Salisbury Steak (a true mystery meat). I don't eat TV dinners now but do buy some healthier frozen entries for our travel trailer when on the road for matches. There are a few that do not have excessive salt.

I am an officer of a local SASS club and a larger, separate club. I comment on the situation at each club separately. SASS Club: There is limited or no cell reception at the club range with any carrier. In case of an emergency we tell match directors to drive a quarter mile to the range office and have them call for help. Our number one request to the range is to get cell coverage. We cannot process match fees onsite. We have an active club website and Facebook page. These are accessed regularly but cannot accept payments for monthly or annual matches. They have good location information and match schedules. Larger Club: We changed from mechanical locks to a key swipe system years ago. This decreased the administrative burden for the club and prevented duplicate keys being cut for non-members. It also allows quickly terminating access for rogue members. We are on our third website. We've had to change because previous software became obsolete and some hosts had poor security. We now renew annual memberships online and do not allow paper renewals. The admin burden of 1,500 paper renewals was too great and most members prefer online renewal. I found the renewal process clumsy but workable if one followed instructions carefully. It was not intuitive. Some matches are now registering shooters and reporting scores Practiscore. This reduced the admin burden for the match director and got scores posted days earlier.

I started this thread because primers are a frequent topic of discussion on the Wire. A change in ownership of production facilities should be of interest. See also this article from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Here is statement from the article: A source in the retail side of the Vista universe said that Czechoslovak Group wants the ammunition making capacity for the war in Ukraine. A Reuters article on Monday reinforced that opinion. It said, "Czech-based CSG has seen its revenue and profits rise since Russia's invasion of Ukraine as demand for heavy military equipment and ammunition to ship to Ukraine soared." The sky isn't falling and our ammo factories aren't being moved to Europe. However, CSG could ship enough ammo to Ukraine to change the supply situation in the US.

See this Bloomberg article. A member of the House Homeland Security Committee is requesting a national security review of the sale of Vista Outdoors ammo businesses to a Czech firm. The Czech firm would then control “nearly 70% of production capacity for primers in the Western world.” As a handloader this sale concerns me. I doubt there are national security concerns for a shortage of primers to handloaders. Some of us might be shooting .22s again.

SD, the producers of these videos are SASS members and often visit this Wire. If the OP wants a video file and not an internet link I'm sure he will ask for one. GD and JPR have already offered video files.

Not necessarily so! See this article from the National Institute of Health. While written for health care professionals it is clear that eating ultra-spicy peppers can cause a hellish experience lasting days.

Shamrock Sadie made this video. We posted it on our SASS Club's website to help with our recruitment. It is professional quality and features many black powder shooters.