Being retired myself for many years (and loving every day of it) I will just continue on with the day to day. I keep the house up, work in the yard when it is not covered in snow, shovel the roofs when they're covered in snow, shovel out the yard, hike the woods cur 20+ face cord of wood, split and stack all that, and shoot my rifles almost every day.

Today the temperature is -11ºs and that's not windchill. Not too strong of awind so I will try to shoot this afternoon. I really like shooting when it is real cold. The rifles act different, the smoke from the rifles hangs in the air so nice, and the woods crack BOOM! when the rifle goes off.

Yesterday I shot a .54 caliber Lyman Flintlock trying some powders and sabots of all things. Wind chill was -22ºs and I have to admit, it really go to me yesterday. I was only shooting at 50 yards (since my bench rest if froze solid to the ground at that distance).



Not real fun to sit outside, but at least it was sunny, but there was a nasty cross wind. In fact the second group shows a little sign of that wind, to the right.

I started with 90 grains of Kik 3f powder and some 250 grain XTP sabots. They have the red arrows to them. I was not real happy with them but wanted to try them anyway in the rifle. They loaded real easy, but I think I need to work on the powder charge. That group is far too spread out.

Then to make sure the rifle was not at fault, I changed flints and shot 90 grains of Goex 2f with patched roundball. That is the rifle's bread and butter load. I was real pleased with that group. Those are the blue arrows. This Lyman Trade Rifle flintlock .54 caliber will really throw roundball well.