Looking over the rack for a noise maker, I decided I had not shot my old Traditions Woodsman Hawkins with the 1-66 barrel. This is a very accurate roundball rifle.
I looked in my notes and saw it likes 90 grains of 3f black powder, a wad and a pillow tick patch and ball. I just happened to have casted a bunch of roundball and had all the other stuff to boot. I also decided to see if it still shot Buffalo Bullet Company 245 grain Ball-et as well as it used to. My notes also said a true 6 o'clock hold at 50 yards, so that's where I set up the target.
This rifle behaved like a real lady today. Shot after shot it just kept sliding them into the black piece of tape. Although the powder was reallyfowling out the barrel for some reason today. I actually had to swab the barrel on a number of occasions.
I then swabbed the barrel very clean (and got it too wet) and decided to shoot some ball-et. I also saw in my notebook that with ball-et it only wanted 70 grains of 3f powder. So I loaded up.
The first shot was a night mare. I had got the bore too damp and must not have dried it properly. It misfired on three caps. So I finally stood there, capped it, and just pulled up and shot down range at the cardboard. You can see a small hit at about two o'clock almost off the cardboard.
Knowing now we were back in business, I then held the same hold as before and it seemed to hit right where the front sight was resting more or less. But the group was pretty good actually.
Then for kicks, I took two shots off hand no rest at the center of the target. I hit high. Looks like I need to practice more off hand shooting. Actually I do very little of that these days and should practice more and more of it.
Over all, when the patch was just damp and I swabbed then two dry patches, the rifle fired perfect. It was just as I remembered it. A real roundball rifle... And a great, legal, and safe way to celebrate the 4th of July.
Traditions Hawkins Woodsman
