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Back in the day when I had time, I used to shoot my trapdoors quite a bit. My 1879 Carbine is about the most fun plinking gun there is. I used to cast the Lyman 405 gr bullet and put 14gr of Unique behind it. Gave, as I recall, about 1400 fps. Black powder loads are a hoot too. I used to not do that much because of the cleanup paranoia. I used to treat it like shooting corrosive surplus as in dismantle everything, scrub in hot water, etc. lest my vintage rifle disappear in a crumbled wad of rust. In the ensuing decades, I went through a period of messing with flintlocks and realized that BP isn't nearly as nasty as chlorate primed ammo. If and when I get time to play with the trapdoors again, I'll probably play with BP in it more. I never fired commercial ammo in mine since, at the time anyway, everything had jacketed bullets and I didn't want the wear and tear on the bore. Besides, casting is fun. Bore sizes can vary quite a bit. A friend had one with a nice bore but the first time out it was literally lobbing a 30 ft wide pattern at 100 yards. We slugged the bore and it was something like .468" Might give musket accuracy with round balls LOL.

I've never had extraction problems. Open the breech and the empty flies into the air. I think those problems from the Indian wars era were due to the ammunition of the day.
Trapdoors are huge fun, enjoy.
 
I don't have one but have always wanted one. I have started looking for one about a year ago seriously but i cannot find the "good condition shooters for $350-500" that everyone talks about. I have decided instead for my BP rifle fix to load and shoot BP in one of my $120.00 MN rifles. They are a hoot to shoot with BP from what i have read. Thinking about pulling down the surplus ammo I have, loading with BP and the original bullet and shooting it. Also have some .32 wadcutter lead bullets that I am thinking of loading too. But if anyone knows of a good condition trapdoor shooter for $350-500.00 I am still interested in one.
 
I'm glad to hear there's another Trapdoor shooter out there. If you plan to shoot real blackpowder (or even falsie blackpowder) then consider checking out Black Powder Cartridge Rifle competition. Tri County shoots monthly at 200 yards and Nisqually Sportsmen shoot several times a year out to 500+ yards (traditional silhouette). I have my Great Grandfather's and I still shoot it a bit, though I went to a "modern" rolling block for competition.
In black powder, they like heavy bullets. 530 grains is good.
 
Check out Shooting Supplies|Over 10,000 Shooting Supplies, Black Powder Cartridge Rifle|Cowboy Guns|Reloading for anything black powder cartridge related. Forget about most what you know about loading smokeless center fire when loading for BPCR. It's a different ball game if you want consistent loads and accuracy. It took me three years of struggling and frustrated until I flew to Texas and was mentored on how to load for and shoot BPCR by the load developer at Goex powder over three days. That was a worthwhile trip!!!
 

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