In an earlier posting I had asked about 2 rifles that a friend had asked me to check for him, see it here.

http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=3178672

I was able to spend a little time at the range yesterday playing with the rifles to see what was going on.

First, the TC New Englander 54. I had spent some time cleaning it up for himas it was quite dirty and there was corrosion in the bore. I ended up polishing the bore with some JB's for about 50 to 75 strokes which cleaned most of the corrosion out but still left the slight pitting in the barrel, everything else looked to be in pretty good shape. I started off with 60gr of Goex 3F just to make sure the gun would fire, it did just as it should. What I found was, as was mentioned in the previous post, that the nipple had been peened and mushroomed enough to where the cap would not seat properly and it took 2 hammer falls to get it to fire. I don't understand why he was having 3 to 5 second hang fires with the gun, I didn't experience even one hang fire, just caps not seating correctly. I'm going to call this problem solved.

I did try a few RB's with 90gr of powder and had a 1" group at 25 yards and about a 2.5" group at 50 yards. I don't particularly like the sights on the gun, I think I could have done better with something else, I was having a lot of problems with my focus through my bifocal glasses at 50 yards. Maybe it wasn't the sights after all.

Next was the 1853 Enfield 58. I mainly wanted to verify it was shooting 8" low as he had indicated. He had supplied his normal projectile which isa 555gr Minnie. I loaded up the standard 60gr load for the rifle, just 3F instead of 2F. and took aim and shot at 25 yards. I had a nice big hole 8" from the point of aim, only it was above the dot not below it. This of course is a whole different problem than the original. I have already ordered the replacement slide that was missing from the rear sight, now I have to figure out where to get a taller front sight since the rear sight is already at it's lowest setting. The front sight is soldered to the barrel so I may have him take it to a gunsmith for that work, I'm not set up to do it.

Other than that it did shoot pretty well with about a 3" group at 50 yards with me holding well below the dot. This gun was also quite dirty and needs a new nipple. The one on the gun has rusted in place, I could not get it to budge. I need to find a new one before I get agressive and use a vicelock to get it out. Once these problems are cleared up it should be a good shooting gun, with proper maintenance.

I did run a shot each over my chrony and the TC turned in just over 1600fps with 90gr and a .530 ball. The Enfield with that big slug still managed right at 1050fps with only 60gr. Not too bad.

I would have had pictures but the camer batteries were dead, all 3 of them. I guess I need to get on to the kids for just swapping batteries and not recharging the others.