Abe E.S. Corpus SASS #87667

I'm down the road from you in SC. Go to a match before you buy anything. Most retail stores don't stock the types of rifles we use. Those that do are often overpriced.

Post the Henry for sale on non-cowboy listings. Take advantage of the name recognition.

First, welcome. Second, you are not the first person to be befuddled by reading categories in the Handbook. Trust me, it makes more sense “on the ground”. Come to a match. Lastly, he .44 Special is an awesome cartridge. Fixed sight revolvers in .44 Special are good to go for all categories except Frontiersman which requires capguns.

You are not the first to get this mistaken impression from reading the Handbook.

Welcome. It may seem counterintuitive but it’s better NOT to purchase all the gear before getting started. All too often folks end up buying the wrong gear or paying too much. In my area clubs are eager to help new shooters. Some clubs have designated “loaner gear” but more often other shooter step up to lend and share with new folks.

Welcome. I use Red Dot in my cowboy .38 Special and 12 gauge loads (when I’m not loading black powder). I have the same revolvers as you. You don’t realize as much savings reloading shotshells as you do with metallic cartridges due to the high cost of lead shot. If you have a source of reclaimed or homemade shot, you will save money but if you are paying close to $50 per 25 lb bag of new shot, it’s a different story. If you do decide to load 12 gauge, my load is 7/8 oz of 7.8 or size 8 shot, a MEC #25 bushing of Red Dot (I’ve not weighed what it throws), a Claybuster “Lightning” wad in a Winchester AA hull with a Winchester 209 primer. The SASS rules allow larger shot but there’s no reason not to use the smaller shot and my home club requires 7.5 or smaller. A local cowboy gunsmith recommended Winchester shotshell primers for best ignition. My revolvers and rifle are .357 but I load everything in .38 Specials that I have accumulated in bulk. Once fired .38 Special brass is cheap and plentiful. I load my cartridges (topped by a 105 or 125 grain truncated cone flat point bullet) at an overall length of 1.45” and they have fed fine in every .357 rifle I’ve tried them in. There’s a lot of internet hand wringing about chamber fouling from using .38 Special ammo in a .357 Magnum firearm but it’s not caused any issues for me. Federal primers are favored by cowboy shooters since they give reliable ignition with lightened springs. That said my Longhunter tuned revolvers will fire (reportedly hard) CCI primers reliably. I started using Federal magnum primers when the standard small pistol primers were scarce. They work fine. Some folks think they are better with the small charges of fast burning powder. Good luck!

I had a standard model 10/22 that I wanted to upgrade. There’s a good video series on the Fire Mountain Outdoors YouTube channel that included contact info for a fellow who converted my stock barrel to a sleeved, threaded, fluted bull barrel with a Bentz chamber. It was less expensive than an aftermarket barrel and less wasteful. I had already installed a Volquartsen hammer which made a big difference with the trigger pull. I dropped it into a Magpul X22 stock that I caught on sale. It’s still light and handy and shoots much better.

There are also .44 Special New Model Blackhawk Flattops available in a standard plowhandle configuration. For those shopping for a Bisley version there was a used revolver in the Greenville SC Cabelas Gun Library last time I was there.

There are a couple of Buckaroo shooters in my area who are shooting .410 doubles. The hulls don’t shuck very readily. Factory .410 shotshells have a surprising bark and a hefty price tag. I’ve seen handloads made from .444 Marlin cases that seem a little milder. If I were outfitting a Buckaroo who is too small to handle a light loaded 12 gauge double I would try a single shot with a shortened stock.

Another option is to order your revolvers from one of the cowboy gunsmiths with the action work already performed. I bought my New Vaqueros from Longhunter Supply. If you are buying new revolvers anyway this saves you the cost of shipping them out for action work.

Usually they do but a Hornady shell holder will not fit into the ram of my 1980 vintage RCBS Rockchucker.

That’s not correct. The Hornady and Lee bushings accept standard 7/8-14 dies. The bushing then locks into the press.

Welcome. Have you identified a local club?

SASS rules allow Buckaroo shooters to use .22s and small bore shotguns but don't mandate it. Is there a contrary local club rule or state law in play?

Supposedly One Shot will not affect powder or primers if used as directed. For what it’s worth when I load bottleneck rifle cartridges I use powdered mica to lubricate the inside of case necks.

When I started wet tumbling I used “LSD”: Lemishine and Dawn. Dawn is such an effective degreaser that my cases tended to gall in the carbide/nitride sizing dies. Never got one stuck, though. I found that it was sufficient to spray a little One Shot case lube on the clean cases and let them dry. Later I began using ArmorAll Wash n Wax in place of Dawn. It seems to work better.

Scarlett can tell us for sure but Shockley’s Gold may be discontinued, with all the company’s powder now sold as APP. I never understood why they bothered with two different powders. I can attest that APP generates plenty of smoke! I have two Sportsman’s Warehouse stores in my area. I did my best to clean out their remaining stock of Black MZ. I pretty much use it for shotshells.

I believe it is considered a Semi-replica of a Marlin 1894 which satisfies the category requirement of a post 1880 design.

The term "transported" is not defined in the SHB but I have understood it as referring to carrying and moving outside of the "firing line", including long guns in a cart. Note that there are exceptions not written in the SHB for long guns in cases, scabbards and enclosed carts. To my understanding there is no penalty for violating this particular rule. There is a long established interpretation that there is no penalty for sweeping yourself so "no call" if you are looking into the bores of your long guns in your cart. I also agree with Hollifer A. Dollar's interpretation that "sweeping" applies to a firearm in a Shooter's hands, or at least within the Shooter's control.

Lots of folks wear lace up boots. Just about any all leather shoe would be legal. There are only two specialized categories that require “cowboy boots”. Get to a local match and talk to folks. Lots of good clubs in Florida.

One thought on Ruger Blackhawks. They are legal in the “Open Age” category, in all age based categories and in B-Western. Those categories probably represent the majority of shooters. That said, there are categories that require fixed sight revolvers, including Duelist, Gunfighter, Classic, and the Frontier Cartridge categories. When I got started ten years ago, I passed up the opportunity to buy a pair of 50th Anniversary .357 Blackhawks. I paid a good bit more to acquire Ruger New Vaqueros. I was shooting in an age based category for several years, thinking that perhaps I should have bought the Blackhawks. Later on, though, I began experimenting with other shooting styles and moved to Gunfighter. A little later I decided to try black powder. I was able to move to those categories because I had chosen fixed sight revolvers. If a new shooter owns Blackhawks, I say “run what you have”. Similarly if a new shooter finds a deal on Blackhawks, they can be great for the sport. With all such choices just be informed.

A word about black powder shooting. Some folks think that means cap and ball revolvers. Fact is, back in the mid to late 1800s all ammunition was charged with black powder. Most modern cartridge firearms (the AR-15 may be an exception) will work fine with black powder cartridges. You don’t need separate sets of guns to shoot black powder. That said, the Frontier Cartridge categories do have some restrictions on firearms (for example, revolvers must have fixed sights).

If the spring loaded plunger on the base pin is sticking, it cannot do its job of pushing the transfer bar to the rear and the T-bar will snag on the firing pin as you are cocking the hammer.

There are also Bisley Blackhawks, some built on the larger cylinder frame, but the “Flattop” variant uses the same cylinder frame of the New Vaquero. I have one in .44 Special; that may be the only chambering available.

The .44 Special is a great cartridge. As a black powder cartridge I think it would do a little better in the rifle than the .45 Colt. If you wanted a milder BP load in the pistols using .44 Russian cases would be ideal. Don't make the mistake that most new shooters make, thinking they need to accumulate all the gear before coming out. Get to a local match now!