.44-77 and paper patch?

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,

Just that Kirk and I worked out the final details and assuming he has no trouble getting the Krieger blank he needs it should be in process shortly I would think.
Of course changing barrels nullifies any numbers I had for bore and groove and therefore nothing can move forward on any molds until I have the rifle. I would think that I'd have it in a month or so which would put it in that 5-6 months that was expected.

Winter has a way of taking the urgency out of shooting and load development. Right now I'm having trouble just keeping the main trails open and getting the ice out of my gutters on the house. Winter hit us hard the last day of our deer gun season with 18" of wet heavy snow followed by subzero temperatures. Then we got another 9" of snow yesterday! To make matters worse the ground was not frozen when the snow came so you can get stuck in the mud under the snow just as easy as the snow itself. I've spent more days moving snow around the past two weeks than not.

Next weekend I'll start trying to open up my range so I can do some shooting when the .44-77 gets here. That stretch from mid January into February can be rather brutal. We've already got just about as much snow on the ground this year in mid December as we had by the end of February last year. At least it's back in the 20s now and I can work outside, it wasn't so easy a few days ago when the high was 5 degrees! With wind chills in the -20s I could only have my gloves off for a few minutes and my fingers would get so cold I couldn't get them warmed up again unless I went in the house. We haven't seen the sun for more than a few hours in the past two weeks. Things will start to get better in about 4 months.

I'm sure it will take a while to get my .44-77 up and running, but I'll start shooting matches with it as soon as I can. There are only two matches next year that I will for sure shoot my .45-70 Hepburn, The Cup and the State Championship. Everything else I hope to shoot with the .44-77 if it's at all up to the challenge. It's got to be at least down to a 2-minute rifle I would think, but that should be fairly easy to get. I don't see being able to shoot beyond 200 yards until sometime in May, but if it will shoot into 4 inches or less at 200 I can work with that.