44-77 Sharps paper patched load

[Eric Johanen]

    Merrill, WI. Gong match was very good yesterday. Conditions were great with just a bit of wind to contend with. I tried something different and shot sitting with cross sticks. Need practice with this as I was not completely comfortable. I shot on the largest target at each range to get zero's. Shot the 440 gr. Brook's bullet with 74.0 grains of OE 2 fg and the grease column. Lowest notch on the staff at 200 yards resulted in pretty good hits.(1 through 4 on the target). 6 O'clock hold apple on post. Moving to 300 yards, set my slider on 300 and was shooting way over the target. Moving down on successive shots I got good hits with the slider bottomed out. (5 through 8). I brought up too much front sight on shot #7. For 400 yards I set my slider back to 300 yard mark and it shot over by quite a bit. Worked down to just a whisker under the foot of the 200 yard mark and started hitting. ( 9 and 10 ). Shot a few more with nice hits. Then I shot 2 rounds using the same load with the Brook's 480 gr. bullets Kurt was kind enough to send me. ( 11 and 12 ). Wind picked up a bit and these landed slightly right of center. I held a favor right, about the width of the sight blade and into the target about 1/3'rd of the target height. Called it a day and am pleased with the results. Very doable with the Lawrence rear and Hartford front sights. The bronze blade on the front was very easy to see. No glare and it showed up as gold in the sunlight. Nice! I did not try the 500 yard target and will get to that one on the next match in September. Tried with no fouling control and it was just too low humidity for that to work. Blow tube was not much better and left a hard crust on the muzzle. Wiping with 1 damp and 1 dry patch worked very well and I used it for the rest of the shots. The 44-77 shoots pretty darn flat and spotters noted that it got down range pretty darn quick. Needed very little elevation adjustment from 200 to 400 yards. A bit surprising! This will no doubt be a great shooter. Oh, and did I say how nice these sights are to see and work with!