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Well, we took the plunge this morning and went out - out of the local area that is - for the first time since the first week in June of last year. It was a 75 mile drive to the arms and militaria dealer advertising a very rare Pritchett rifle, named for the man who invented not only the form of rifling he used, but the smooth-sided and paper-patched bullet named after him.

It was even better than I'd hoped - light to handle like a good shotgun and a lovely 'pointer', it would have been a wonderful skirmishing rifle, or, over in Europe, and in a more sporting nature, a prize Battue gun. That 500gr bullet would easily put most boar wheels-up.

The bore, he said, looked 'alright'. To me, it was as near perfect as it was possible to be, given that it was made in 1858, the year that Pritchett, who was by then the Guildmaster of the Worshipful Company of Gunmakers, moved his premises out of St James, and into more roomy real estate nearby. It has a hook breach to aid post-shooting clean-up, and the tightest and 'clickiest' lock I've ever encountered. I'll try and find out some more about it, bearing in mind that its history is lost beyond any hope of recovery now.

I fully intend to add it on to my firearms certificate ASAP, as I have been granted another two .577 and a single .451 rifle. Loads, he suggests, are best between 60 and 70gr of Swiss Fg, and if using a Minié, with the base cavity filled with a plug made from car-body filler. right now, having paid a small fortune for this lovely rifle, I'm too poor to buy a proper Pritchett mould...


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Hopefully, I'll be getting to shoot it soon - as soon as I've filled in the bases of a couple of dozen Minié bullets, that is.
 
Hold on.................................................................................................................................measuremeasuremeasuremeasuremeasure..........

Thirty-one and three-fourths inches to the flash-hole, Sir.

On my Firearms Certificate renewal form I asked for two .577cal rifles and one .451cal rifle. One of the .577 will be my Québec Garrison Artillery short rifle, and the second with be this one. The .451cal will be the buy-back of my Whitworth rifle from the guy who bought it off me a few years back.

Sadly, here in UK, that is the only way that you can shoot an antique gun in your possession. although anybody over 18 without a criminal record can buy one without any documentation of any kind.

To do it legally, you must -

First join a club that shoots BP arms at all - not all do, not having the facilities either indoors or out.

After six months of being a noob, and with the say-so of the club committee, you are made a FULL member of the club.

Only THEN can you apply for a Firearms Certificate [FAC] for the guns you want to own and shoot. The legal-speak 'good reason for possession of a live-firing firearm' is for the purpose of target shooting. And that alone, in my case.

That process can take up to six to eight months initially, but only two to three on renewal after five years. A BP permit is free, but only if you already have an FAC with BP firearms on it.

Authorisation for the guns you want is down there in black and white on the FAC. Mine came back, amazingly, with the three extra long guns I'd asked for - I almost passed out with the shock of it, TBH. Before, I used to get asked to dispose of one to get one....

'A new sweep cleans bloomly', they say.... ;)
 
Last Edited:
tac.
Your fire arms are great and I hope you'll enjoy them for a long time, but I'm
totally over whelmed by the restrictions your government has placed on you
and your enjoyment of them. Keep your powder dry.
 
I've never heard anyone say that.

Well, I was referring not necessarily to one person, but to the newly integrated methodology employed by the recently-formed tri-county police force of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Now all firearms matters are administered in one location, using a commonly held-set of requirements and standards, rather than individual forces relying on their own interpretations of the Government's guidelines on legal firearms ownership.

For those of us who obey the multiplicity of laws regarding the legal ownership of firearms, this is like polishing a t*rd. No matter how brightly it may shine, underneath it remains what it is - a set of laws designed in the end to prevent you from having legally-held firearms in your possession.

We suck it up, or give it up.

That's really it.

[This post is also available in Welsh or Irish - both languages being represented in the UK]
 
Well, I was referring not necessarily to one person, but to the newly integrated methodology employed by the recently-formed tri-county police force of Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Now all firearms matters are administered in one location, using a commonly held-set of requirements and standards, rather than individual forces relying on their own interpretations of the Government's guidelines on legal firearms ownership.

For those of us who obey the multiplicity of laws regarding the legal ownership of firearms, this is like polishing a t*rd. No matter how brightly it may shine, underneath it remains what it is - a set of laws designed in the end to prevent you from having legally-held firearms in your possession.

We suck it up, or give it up.

That's really it.

[This post is also available in Welsh or Irish - both languages being represented in the UK]

Bureaucracy feeding upon itself, never a pretty sight. Did all the civil servants get new snappy sounding titles and business cards?

This post is also available in sarcasm, irony, political incorrectness or near gibberish, all part of my repertoire
 
Well, after much futzing around, I've been put onto a gentleman in the NE of England who has a mighty collection of Mr Corbin's swaging dies, and the urge to use them to earn money. He makes a HUGE range of swaged lead bullets for dozens of calibres, which includes .577cal - in particular a Pritchett-style smoothsider of the kind that I'm looking for - like this -

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He obviously doesn't know me well, if at all, as he has put a few in the mail for me to try - for free - I just pay him the shipping, whatever that might be. 'course, we have to ascertain that they'll actually fit my rifle, but as he opines that they DO fit 99.999% of ALL Enfield-style rifles, Parker-Hales included, I am optimistic.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding, comme on dit, and I'll let you know more when they turn up. I've a feeling that they are not going to be cheap, but certainly cheaper than getting them from the US, where they work out at around $1.70 each.......................................
 
YAY!!!! I mentioned in my post above, a gentleman who lives in Doncaster, Yorkshire, who makes a large range of swaged bullets from Dave Corbin's exemplary dies and presses as well as his own. I've just received the freebies to see how they go in the Pritchett rifle above. Having just got them, I called him up, and we spent maybe 3/4 hour yacking about the kind of stuff that two old farts of muzzleloading generally talk about. They are a good close fit with about 0.001" clearance - just right. :)

So here they are -
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Way too beautiful to shoot, but a man has to do what a man has to do.....maybe tomorrow. :)

60 - 70gr of Swiss FFg will likely do - after all, I'm not trying to blow the backstop into the next county. I'll be making a little video for youtube - tac's guns - in case there is any interest here.

Malcolm, the bullet maker, is of the opinion that this may be the one and only rifle that Pritchett actually made and put his name to....wow!! The clues are in the straight cut crown -
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and the additional dimensions of the last nine inches of barrel with the flat, necessitating the relieving of the diameter for the positioning of the rear sight -
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It reads - ' R T PRITCHETT 86 St JAMES St LONDON

I also like the little cartouche P where the barrel joins the tang -
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Yes, I know that the ramrod is a replacement, but you can't have everything......

Watch this space!!
 
I know that some here have an interest in history that happened outside America and before the Civil War, so here is a background piece to an important part of that war, which saw much use of the so-called 'English cartridge' loaded with a smooth-sided and paper-patched bullet designed by the maker of this rifle - Robert Taylor Pritchett.


I've previously posted stills of this lovely rifle, but in this little movie you can see details that the stills don't show - the barrel-maker's code just ahead of the bolster, and the cartouched P on the underneath of the wrist, as well as a long number of unknown provenance on the rear tang of the trigger guard.

You'll notice that the ramrod is a replacement - I'm still looking for one with more age and mana than this one.

Shooting it so far has been interesting. At 60gr of Swiss version of 2Fg, five out of ten of the 580gr swaged bullet key-holed. Same at 65gr, but at seventy only two went in at an angle. Upping it to 75gr I had just one, but weighing in at just seven pounds, it was starting to make itself felt, recoil-wise. No doubt by the time it gets to 90gr all signs of keyholing will have gone, but so, unfortunately, will my shoulder. I'm going to ask my friendly bullet maker to make one very slightly bigger, that WILL expand enough, or smaller, so I can PP it.

Watch this space.
 

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