Replica Hawksley Flask from Veteran Arms

I just received this copper Hawksley flask replica today from Veteran Arms. Shown with my Zouave or Peace flask for scale on the left. The originals were made in England in the 19th Century.

Closeup of the adjustable valve. It's marked in drams. One dram = 27.348 grains. I will leave it at the smallest setting of 2-1/2 drams and dispense into a separate powder measure, for safety's sake. If you pour the powder into the gun directly from the flask, you risk of having it go off like a bomb in front of your face if there is a spark down the bore.

A nice feature of the Hawksley-style flasks is that the entire valve assembly unscrews for filling, which is nicer than the American-style flasks that fill through the pour opening, requiring you to use a funnel and hold open the valve. I filled the new flask with some Scheutzen 2Fg. I'm not sure of the capacity, probably about a half pound, but it should hold enough for a woods walk or day of shooting at the range.

New .54 Caliber Barrel for my Cabela's Hawken Rifle

Two years ago I took a very large doe in Tioga County, PA with my left handed .50 Cabela's (Investarm) Hawken. The ball was loaded over 70g grains of 3Fg black powder and impacted at about 55 yards. It was a high chest cavity broadside shot with the ball impacting a few inches behind the right shoulder. It made a mess of the chest cavity but the deer ran, which is normal. What I wasn't happy with was the minimal blood trail, which was difficult to follow with the forest floor covered in leaves. A complete pass-through would've have let more blood out faster and made the blood trail easier to follow.

I thought about experimenting with conicals like a Hornady Great Plains or Lee REAL bullet, but then I saw that muzzle-loaders.com carries replacement barrels for this rifle in .54 caliber. They sell it as the Bridger Hawken. Since I like shooting patched round balls I decided to get the larger caliber barrel.

It came well packed and included a replacement tang, which I didn't use. The barrel came with sights and a nipple. The gun as it now looks:

Monday I took it to my club and zeroed the sights for 50 yards. Like my Investarm Gemmer Hawken, it likes a .530 patched ball on top of 80 grains of 2Fg Scheutzen black powder. I used CCI No.11 caps for ignition.

The first two shots were in one hole at the bottom right. After some sight adjustments I put 6 rounds into the group in the center. POA was 6:00 on the bullseye. This is an SR-1 target. The black is 8" in diameter. Of note is that the barrel doesn't seem sensitive to lube. Most of my shots were lubed with Mr. Flintlock, since that allows me to shoot many rounds without swabbing. However, I also shot some rounds lubed with Track of the Wolf's Mink Oil Tallow, which I'll use when hunting. The 6 shot group I circled was 3 shots with Mr. Flintlock and 3 with Mink Oil Tallow.

I recovered about half the patches I used. None showed signs of burnout or cuts. The edge fraying is normal for fired patches, IME.

I lost count of how many rounds I shot but it was around 25 - 30. I shot my last 5 offhand at 50 yards. By this time I was tired and the recoil was getting to me, but this would still put a deer in the freezer.

Speaking of deer, this fawn was hanging out at the range. I took this from about 100 yards with my iPhone 12 before I started shooting. He moved to another part of the property while I was shooting but I saw him nearby on my way out.

Hopefully I'll get to connect with a deer during the October anterless-only season. While I'm not expecting any deer I shoot to drop on the spot, I'm hopeful that the larger, heavier ball will create an exit wound that causes the animal to bleed out more and sooner, for a more humane kill and less tracking.

Guns for Jews

On the eve of the Holocaust in 1939, the world Jewish population stood at about 16 - 17 million. By 1945, it was 10 - 11 million.

In 2024, it's at about 15.7 million. In 80 years we still haven't recovered the numbers lost due to the Nazis. 

We currently make up about 0.2% of the world's population and about 2.4% of the population in the United States.

Antisemitic trope is that the Jews control the world. Just going by the numbers this is laughable, smooth-brained thinking. Sure, we're prominent in many fields, but that's due to our culture which emphasizes learning and hard work. There are plenty of Jewish losers, too.

If the events of the past 11 months have taught us anything, we are a very small part of the world and that a vast number of people don't like us and don't want us defending ourselves. Thus, Israel must become independently able to defend itself. Likewise, Jews in the United States must embrace their Second Amendment rights so they can defend themselves against modern day Nazis, especially those being imported wholesale by the Democrats from assorted third world countries.

If you're a Jewish American looking to get equipped to defend yourself, check out my ebook "Guns For Jews" to help you get started. Get arms and training.

Finally Shot the Gemmer Hawken

Back in January I got a .54 caliber flint Investarm Gemmer Hawken. It's the current version of the Lyman Great Plains Rifle that was sold for almost 50 years here in the US. I bought this rifle for a couple reasons. First, I wanted something a bit shorter than my longrifle for hunting. Second, I wanted the power of a .54. The deer we hunt up in Tioga get big and I would really like a complete pass-through to maximize blood trails. The huge doe I shot in 2022 stopped the .50 caliber ball I shot and the blood trail was very hard to follow. Bigger holes and two of them mean more blood out and air in, so hopefully blood trails will be a lot shorter.

Anyway, life got in the way and I didn't not shoot he rifle until today.

This is my first five shots, fired off the bench, from 50 yards. My point of aim was 6:00 on the top bullseye. As expected, it shot low because these rifles come with an extra tall front sight.

The lowest shot was the first, with the rest clustered into a couple inches. This is about as good as I can shoot from the bench with open iron sights, even with a cartridge gun, much less a flintlock. I'm quite happy with the group.

The load consisted of:

• Hornady .530" round ball
• 0.018" ticking patches lubed with October Country's Bumbling Bear Grease
• 80 grains of Scheutzen 2Fg black powder

Ignition was perfect the whole day. As long as I got spark there were no flashes in the pan and ignition was quick. I had to reverse the agate flint that came with the gun after 5 shots, and it last another 5 after that. I then replaced it with a real flint.

To raise the point of impact I needed to shorten the front sight. The file I had with me was too fine to remove enough metal in a reasonable amount of time so after awhile I gave up on it. After I got home I took the barrel out to my shop where I had a coarser file and took some off the top of the front sight.

If you know the sight radius of your gun, the distance to the target, and how much you need to move the point of impact, you can use this formula to determine how much to move an adjustable sight or file a fixed sight:

(Sight radius / Distance to target) (POI change needed) = Adjustment needed

All units must be the same. E.g., my rifle has a sight radius of 21.125" and 50 yards = 1800 inches. I needed to remove a bit over a tenth of an inch from the front sight to bring up the point of impact.

Something I noticed is that with this powder charge, ball size, and patch/lube combination, I can load a second shot without wiping but it's tough. After I get it zeroed I'll try with a liquid lube to see if that makes it easier. But I may look into a thinner patch for reloads while hunting, or bring a jag and patches wet with rubbing alcohol in my shooting patch when hunting. 

Tomorrow I'm planning to get together with a friend for some shooting and I'm bringing the Gemmer Hawken. Hunting season is coming up soon so I want to verify the zero get some practice in.

Thoughts on the Crowdstrike Outage

By now you're probably aware of the massive outages caused by a bug in Crowdstrike. The bug is the result of an update pushed out overnight, which caused Windows systems to become unusable. Unfortunately, Crowdstrike is very widely used by large corporations so the impact is immediate and widespread. A Symantec Enterprise Antivirus update had a similar effect about 12 years ago, but this one is much more widespread.

We are lucky that only Windows systems were directly affected. Crowdstrike also makes endpoint protection software for Mac and Linux. We use it on everything. Several of my coworkers who use Windows were dead in the water this morning. The fix was to reboot into safe mode and delete the affected file. PCs with Bitlocker disk encryption enabled needed a recovery key from IT. I use a Mac so I wasn't directly impacted but because user authentication servers run on Windows I had trouble accessing some systems.

This could have been a lot worse. If this had affected Linux systems, it potentially could have taken out DNS and NTP servers, and the Cisco Network Registrar systems used to provision cable modems. That would have killed voice, video, and Internet service for any customer's device which rebooted. Recovery would have been greatly impeded because IT personnel wouldn't be able to communicate or get the fix easily.

AIUI, it's taken out several airlines, shipping companies, banks, and various point of sale systems.

It's a perfect example of the dangers of IT software monoculture where one bug can take out a huge swath of systems.

Consider it a sign to increase preparations for grid (power and Internet) collapse.

Prime Day Deal on Frankford Arsenal Hand Priming Tool

It's Prime Day at Amazon and something that's on sale is the Frankford Arsenal Hand Priming Tool. I bought one a couple months ago and have primed at least 500 cases with it. Compared with the Lee Hand Priming Tool I used for years, the FA is much better built, robust, and also allows adjusting the primer seating depth.

Using the Lee tool I'd usually lose 1 or 2 primers out of 100 due to them seating sideways. I haven't lost one primer yet with the Frankford Arsenal tool.

Normally it's priced at $79.99 but for Prime Day it's $59.99. It's worth it at the normal price. The Prime Day price is a great deal.

Guns for Jews v3.1 is now live

My ebook, Guns for Jews v3.1 is now live. Compared with the earlier versions it is greatly expanded including additional gun recommendations, discussion of ammunition, child proofing your guns and safe storage, and much more.

Get it here and please share:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qR9S2erlML7xpfHhcx1yjpRKWk41U7If/view?usp=sharing