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Yesterday I competed in a Cowboy Action Shoot. I had loaded some 38-40 cartridges with Black Powder for use in an 1889 Marlin and a 1873 Winchester I use with the holly black. But yesterday I only had my Uberti 1866 "Race Gun" with me. The Black Powder cartridges were primed with Winchester primers which the light hammer fall of my 1866 would not set off. (This Uberti must use Federal primers which have been near impossible to source lately)
So today I took the 1892 that I’d bought this week to the range to fire off these soft hit rounds.
Now if you remember in a previous post, the 1892 with smokeless loads was going through the target sideways. The rifling in the last 2" of barrel, near the muzzle is nonexistent. I couldn’t hit a 24" X 24" target from 25 yards.
But these Black Powder loads were not only stabilized, they were quite accurate. About a 5" group at 25 yards!
Amazing how Black Powder will obturate the bullet and force it to fill the bore where smokeless will not.
I ordered a liner for the rifle and I’m still going to reline the bore as I think I can wring much more accuracy out of this old gal.
That is definitely an improvement. Still, as you say, you can definitely tighten up those groups still. The 38 W.C.F. was not always bang on in groove diameter. Yours might be a few thou over spec. I would wager that if you used soft cast bullets (if you aren’t already using them, and sized the cast bullets to .001 over your groove diameter, you would get 5" groups or less at 100 yards with the bore as is. I say this on the basis of having gotten similar accuracy out of sewer pipe ’73s on different occasions, using a similar strategy. Still, once you get that liner in, you should have a tack driver. I’ll look forward to a range report with the new liner.
I agree…If it was a collectable, I’d shoot is as you describe. But I want to use it in Cowboy Action Shooting and for a bit more accurate plinking so a liner she will get.
I’m using 1-20 alloy and the bullets are easily .001" over groove, but the last 2" of bore at the muzzle is nonexistent. I can drop a bullet right down the bore….And the chamber is a real mess. very deep pitting and the throat is terribly corroded..
That is why I could buy this rifle for $400!
I used to shoot a lot of Muzzle loader. And with my best Green Mountain Target barrels and their real deep grooves (.010) and slow twist (1-72") for us with round balls I had to foul the barrel with at least 2 dirty rounds to get the best accuracy out of the rifle. Once that was done it would shoot with a damp (moose milk lube) patch 25+ rounds before I thought I should swab the bore.
Its possible that with your little model 92 the mess BP makes of the bore is helping to tighten it up.
rbertalotto said
m using 1-20 alloy and the bullets are easily .001" over groove, but the last 2" of bore at the muzzle is nonexistent. I can drop a bullet right down the bore….And the chamber is a real mess. very deep pitting and the throat is terribly corroded..
Sounds like you’ve done all the right things. That rifle could definitely use a liner. I’ll look forward to the post-liner installation range report.
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