We've been busy this summer!

poorjack

Corporal
Joined
Jul 17, 2015
Location
NC
This is Civil War weapons related so please bear with me, read to the and and you'll see why I've posted it in this section of the forum. Also note the STICKY at the top.

Like I've said before, I shoot with the North South Skirmish Association. Last winter, a small group of us were discussing the state of black powder shooting sports, chili recipes and the 2nd Amendment and how the youth of today aren't getting much positive exposure to black powder shooting sports. We decided to see what we could do about it. We contacted the BSA since that was the youth organization we were most familiar with. We got NRA/NMLRA Muzzleloading Instructor certifications. The normal instructor ratings are fairly common, rifle pistol, shotgun. A muzzleloading certification is not common. What we found was that, of the people holding muzzleloading instructor certifications, almost NONE are active muzzleloading shooters or competitors. We got corp support from several companies, Schutzen donated powder and caps, S&S and Lodgewood gave material support for the firearms, NSSA member Pat "PJ" Kelly donated 5 Zouave muskets and NSSA member Jim Rogers has been doing speaking engagements with SCV and any honorarium or donation goes towards lead. NSSA members Jim Rogers and Dave Miller have been casting minies.

We go to a local, well known Scout camp in NC where we work one day each week. Our mornings and afternoons are spent in the Mountain Man primitive camp teaching the Rifle Shooting Merit Badge. The camp guns have their issues, so it's a good thing we brought 5 muskets complete with ammo! All 5 were dialed in prior to starting our weekly visits and the worst is about a 3moa shooter, so the muskets are all very capable. In the merit badge sessions, we get to stress positive 2nd Amendment values, black powder firearms safety and handling, and muzzleloading marksmanship, of course with Civil War muskets! When we get to the shooting part, Scouts often have had no training at all in offhand shooting. It's not unusual to take a Scout who can't hit a barn from inside the horse stall, to center punching targets with muskets in about an hour. It's just a matter of some personal, quality instruction. Then it's time for the "Cracker Challenge", targets become Ritz crackers suspended on wire at 25yds. That's an 8moa target and the Scouts take their new skills with the muskets and have a blast whacking crackers with minies. Often an inpromptu match starts between them complete with score keeping and smack talking, great fun. At that point, we're assisting and monitoring safety and keeping score for them. Our evening is spent in the main camp where we conduct an open shoot for the Scouts in the main camp giving them the opportunity to shoot a Civil War musket with live ammo at steel gongs. In those open shoots, more than one gong has been knocked off the chains by a minie ball.

The results of our work- there's about 100 Scouts this summer who've learned that a Civil War era musket (even if it's a "Zouave") can be quite accurate. There's lots more that know about the sport of black powder musket shooting competition. We've gotten to instruct in the history of firearms development during the Civil War. The kids have been extremely curious about Sharps, Smiths, Gallaghers, Henrys, and revolvers even though we are only allowed by BSA regulations to use them as visual aids. After the merit badge sessions most Scouts go "relic" hunting in the backstop and take home spent minies as souvenirs.

A couple pix-

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Great job you are doing with those kids. Thanks for all you do to help the sport live on.
 
Awesome stuff you've got going there, I'd love to do that with my council up here. I've done the standard NRA Rifle & Shotgun Instructor myself, but missed my first chance to do the NRA BP Instructor. My council is doing Mountain Man black powder, but I'd love to give the scouts a primer on Skirmish style shooting from the N-SSA.

I'd be interested in hearing more about your program, I like the sound of what you've put together.

I've got a question or two that I may ask in a private conversation :smile:
 
Well, we chose to assist the BSA first since most of our little band are already familiar with it. My boys Eagled about 20yr ago and I was an Asst Scoutmaster. Camp Raven Knob is well known in Scouting circles as one of the best in the Southeast US and those in our group who know about Scouting know about that camp. We're already fielding requests to teach the Rifle Shooting Merit Badge this fall with muzzleloaders and conduct more troop shoots. Other youth orgs we've researched have similar shortages in expert muzzleloading instructors and by expert I mean instructors who are active shooters and competitors in muzzleloading rather than someone who just went to the class.

At Camp Raven Knob in our little program this summer, we worked with kids from Florida, to Tennessee, to West Viriginia to Maryland and one kid from Serbia on an exchange program. That kid was a crack shot with a musket and won the Cracker Challenge for the day.
 
I would like to stress though, this would not have been possible without support from-

Schutzen Energetics- powder and caps
Pat "PJ" Kelly, NSSA Palmetto Sharpshooters- 5 bore matched Zouaves
S&S- Phil is a Scouter himself and has assisted in keeping the Zouaves up and running
Lodgewood- Dave put "skirmish" sights on the Zouaves that had factory ones

Going forward, there are others we will be talking to as this will probably get expanded. So far, this has been a bunch of work for the group to keep things moving forward and our team supplied and ready for the next sessions. Every session gets an internal critique and we look for ways to improve what we're doing. Just to get to the "table", all of the above folks had to be on board. Then we had to secure enough lead and make minies. We had to get certified and then confer with the camp staff as to how to best utilize what we were bringing to the table. It's all been worth it though.
 
Nice topic....Get the Scouts to rent them a bus and take them up to Winchester for the Fall Nationals when your team goes there to participate. I shot with the N-SSA for three years in the late 80's.....great stuff........All at Ft. Shenandoah......
 
Nice topic....Get the Scouts to rent them a bus and take them up to Winchester for the Fall Nationals when your team goes there to participate. I shot with the N-SSA for three years in the late 80's.....great stuff........All at Ft. Shenandoah......
I've been toying with the idea of starting an N-SSA Venture Crew, join at 14 and start with the BB gun team, get those fundamentals down, and when you are old enough get on the Musket Team and break clays! Would be a hoot! I'm in the perfect area for it.
 
The example you set for these boys (now some girls?) in training them is invaluable. Former Scout and Asst. Scoutmaster myself.

On another tack, revisionist historians insist CW rifles were not a significant factor in battle, despite that entrenching was de riguer after mid-war. Their reasoning: common soldier was not trained in effective riflery given only a week for it typically. Here you tell us these greenhorn boys are hitting crackers the same day. I think the post-modern writers bogus. The rifle was a huge factor in the CW.
 
On another tack, revisionist historians insist CW rifles were not a significant factor in battle, despite that entrenching was de riguer after mid-war. Their reasoning: common soldier was not trained in effective riflery given only a week for it typically. Here you tell us these greenhorn boys are hitting crackers the same day. I think the post-modern writers bogus. The rifle was a huge factor in the CW.
You make a great point, although that kind of goes beyond the scope of this thread, but you could probably make a great thread out of that on it's own!
 
Just one positive experience like this will offset years of brainwashing that many youngsters are subjected to in a variety of environments. That's why dirt excavated from the installation of my new septic system will be put to good use as a musket ball backstop behind the church : )
 
So glad you are doing this. So, when do you start teaching the Girl Scouts these same skills??
 
A summer truly well spent! Thanks to you and your friends for taking this worthy project on and thank you for sharing it with us!
 
The results of our work- there's about 100 Scouts this summer who've learned that a Civil War era musket (even if it's a "Zouave") can be quite accurate.

Most Excellent!! Thanks for the photos, too.
I enjoy teaching others to shoot my muzzle loaders. However, most of the time, I'm too afraid to let a Beginner load it. I'm sure you went through a rigorous training and watched every step of the loading process. I think that is great. I remember my days at the gun range at Boy Scout summer camp plinking with .22's. I wasn't learning or obtaining a merit badge but just enjoying the range---which was a new thing for a country boy who plinked at rabid turtles on the Tallahatchie River.

A few weeks ago, I took a high school guy out to shoot my Ruger .44 pistol. He knew how to shoot but had never seen a BP pistol. I did eventually let him load it.

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The younger me near Midland, TX, back in the 1980's.
 
There is a process that is taught in the Muzzleloading Instructor class. It's mostly relevant ONLY to patched round balls. We demonstrated loading first to each session. Then we asked if they were comfortable doing it and if they were, we let them with us watching and gently correcting as they went. The Scouts caught on very quickly and within 4 or 5 shots, we were able to just monitor what they did at the loading table. Of interest to those who shoot live, dominant eye can be an issue. I've known it for a long time and I've had to work with my dad who is 85 and didn't know he was cross dominant until I was trying to figure out a grouping problem. Even then, I happened to notice how he was looking at an object and the angle of his head made me wonder and sure enough, he is. I had one Scout who was right handed. He shot shotguns right handed, both eyes open with no problem. With a rifle, he was struggling to hit the largeest of our targets. I took him aside and asked about eye dominance and he swore he was right eye dominant. We checked and he wasn't. He was so cross dominant that it took getting him to shoot left handed before he started hitting stuff.

As a former, recovering reenactor :roflmao:, I can say we viewed the Zouave as the weird uncle kept locked in the closet. Now that I shoot live rounds, it's a very serviceable, accurate sturdy musket. For our purposes, PJ Kelly and I decided that we needed a set of as nearly matched as possible guns to simplify ammo supply and parts if (and when) one broke. So far, only one has developed problems and since we have only one more Tuesday to go, it's not an issue. The bores are all right at 580 and we are shooting minies that cast right at 579 with 45gr 3f Schutzen. We're also using Schutzen caps. Lube is plain 60/40 Beeswax/lard. I know others have their pet lubes, but read the next paragraph very carefully.

An interesting thing found during the last 3 sessions, if the load is right, you can shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot without wiping. In the last three open shoots from the moment I started counting shots fired in the gun I was servicing, 48 shots no wiping. Next Tuesday open shoot, 53 shots no wiping. Last Tuesday, 43 shots with no wiping and in every case, very little decline in accuracy. Get the load balanced right and the ammo will perform like Minie designed. From now on, for me to even consider a lube for competition, not only will the accuracy have to be there, it's going to have to run like the load for those Zouaves.

A few more pix-

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I like this last photo. The Scout I was working with was having a hard time with the craptastic plastic camp guns. Knowing their guns had issues, I had brought along my round ball gun. It's a Thompson White Mountain Carbine and it's a confirmed Cracker Killer. This Scout is headed for the military after graduation. His marksmanship improved to the point where he whacked crackers with either my round baller or the musket.
 
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