16 Ga Shotguns, Old Side-by-Sides, Muzzleloader Builds & Cleaning For Accuracy

This is the summer we celebrate 250 years of America. I remember riding in a parade in Kalama, Washington, with my uncle Jack in a Model T Ford 50 years ago and I also remember becoming intensely interested in the Revolutionary War, the age of the mountain man and the American Indian. All of that fed into my fascination with firearms. In this episode we talk about side-by-side shotguns and reloading for the 16 gauge. And we talk about why muzzleloading now. And how to get into building blackpowder guns. And because all guns shoot better when they're clean, we finish by talking about cleaning for accuracy with Marcus from Modern Spartan Systems. At the end we talk about IP28 and the so-called Peace Act. 

Here's a link to a good flintlock accessories kit: https: //muzzle-loaders.com/products/muzzleloaders-flintlock-ultimate-kit-mz1785?sca_ref=1638627.C47uXJ1f9J

Here's a link to possibles bags from Muzzle-loaders dot com: https://muzzle-loaders.com/products/muzzle-loaders-leather-possibles-bag-muzzleloaders-shooting-bag-mz1202?sca_ref=1638627.C47uXJ1f9J

And here's a link to Modern Spartan Systems https://modernspartansystems.com/product/shooters-kit-plus

If you buy one of their kits use the code GARYLEWISOUTDOORS

If you want to support free speech and good hunting content on the Information Superhighway, look for our books and wildlife forage blends at https://www.garylewisoutdoors.com/Shop/

This episode is sponsored by West Coast Floats, of Philomath, Oregon, made in the USA since 1982 for steelhead and salmon fishermen. Visit https://westcoastfloats.com/

Our TV sponsors include: Nosler, Warne Scope Mounts, Carson, Pro-Cure Bait Scents, Spring Pilot, The Dalles Area Chamber of Commerce, TS&S Madras Ford, Bailey Seed and Smartz.

Watch select episodes of Frontier Unlimited on our network of affiliates around the U.S. or click https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gary+lewis+outdoors+frontier+unlimited

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And now, here's Gary Lewis. Next, next on Fox. But I undersold him when I said he was cogent. He's far beyond cogent. In fact, I think he's better than he's ever been. Intellectually, um, analytically, a seriously overweight person.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

And you have found a podcast called Gary Lewis Outdoorsman. We talk about big game hunting around the West and around the world. And today it's episode number 249. In this week, where we celebrate the founding of the country, the Declaration of Independence. 250 years. I remember the Bicentennial celebration. 50 years ago, Kalama, Washington, riding in a Model T pickup with my Uncle Jack, my Uncle John, throwing candy in the parades. And the thing that was so great about the Bicentennial was how it made people reflect on the founding of the country. And I hope we do the same thing this time, 250 years after the Declaration of Independence. What I remember back in 1976, I was nine years old. I remember people were interested in the founding of the country. They were interested in the Revolutionary War. And I became intensely interested in the Revolutionary War myself. And the era of the mountain men, I became interested in muzzle loaders. And I was I was young, you know, I was nine years old, but the people around me were also becoming interested in that to a degree that had not been seen before. And so there were mountain men rendezvous that developed, and there were reenactments of Civil War battles, of revolutionary war battles, a lot of that stuff, a lot of interest around the bicentennial. And today, if that sort of thing interests you, go to go look it up, go go read books, read the founding documents, and then dive in on some of this stuff, study some of this stuff. Um, for me, I like to have my hands on that means and has meant to me in the past. Build a muzzle loader. Um, you can go to muzzle loaders.com, that's muzzle-loaders.com. Look at their kit offerings. It's a great way to get started, a great way to get into the sport. And I would suggest a flintlock build. Or if you don't want to hunt with a flintlock, then do a percussion rifle build or build one of the handguns that are available in a kit. That's a good way to get started. I was talking with a friend of mine who is a Navy SEAL, and he told me that he is building a handgun kit right now, and that it's going to be, um, I believe this is going to be a gift for somebody in the SEAL team. So, anyway, that was fun to look at the pictures of his project in process. One of the things that happens when you're building a muzzle loader is that you encounter a problem. Every single project is going to have some little issue that you've got to overcome. And so this is a good time to go get help from somebody else. And that might be a gunsmith that you have as an acquaintance, and you can take the gun to them and say, okay, what's going on here? What am I missing? And they'll say, Oh, you need to take off this little bit of metal here, or you remove this little bit of wood, or you're going to have to add something back in here, and that might be epoxy. There's always a different way of looking at it. On a couple of my projects, I would take the project to my dad, and and dad would, with different eyes, he would look at it and he'd say, Oh, well, here's what I see here. Or it would be to my friend Bill Lewis, and Bill would say, Oh, this is what you've got to do here. And Bill would always find 180 degrees different solution to the problem than than I was going to come up with. That kind of thing makes you a better gunsmith. It makes you, it gives you problem-solving skills that you wouldn't have had otherwise, and it brings you into contact with other people. It shows how they would solve the problems. And then collectively, we all learn more about this thing that we like about firearms and about the history of firearms and how that lines up with the history of this country and this uniquely American experience. I've been writing about side-by-side shotguns a lot lately. What I did over the past several years, I've got rid of all my modern shotguns, and now I'm only hunting antique side-by-sides. And so along the way, I ended up with a number of 16-gauge shotguns. And so because the 16 gauge is not as popular as it once was, it is harder to find ammunition. So my friend Matthew McFarland has the most complete reloading room I've ever seen. And he invited me to come over a few times and taught me what I needed to know about reloading for a 16-gauge shotgun. So fascinating. One of them is 126 years old. Um, another one's 113 years old, another one is 105 years old. And these guns are going back in the field. I'm using the ammunition that's appropriate for the age and the steel of the gun. The last turkey I shot was with a Western Arms 16-gauge shotgun with a hand loaded 16-gauge vintage turkey load of number five bismuth. It did the job. And what I found out while I was preparing that gun and then shooting it afterwards also is that the barrels aren't regulated. So they they don't shoot the same place right to left barrel. So okay, now I know that I can shoot the left barrel and it's gonna be right on, and the right barrel is gonna shoot off to the um off to the right, or maybe it was off to the left. I have to go back and look at my notes. That's another thing. If you want to really get good at something, take notes, keep a journal. You wouldn't believe all the things that I journal. And maybe that's for a different podcast. But another thing, another way to celebrate 250 years of America is go on a bison hunt. And there's different ways to accomplish that. You can search online, but there's places around the West where there's private herds of bison. And you can go instead of buying a half of a beef or a side of beef, you can go shoot your own bison, butcher it yourself, skin it yourself. Or uh on at some of these places they'll skin it for you, and they will butcher it for you, and you bring the meat home and you and the head, and you get to enjoy that same experience and and relive that same experience that our ancestors enjoyed along the Oregon Trail, and you get to eat the same this meat that the Blackfoot called real meat, and that kept them and and those other tribes on the plains alive. So it can keep you alive. So we're we're planning one of those trips in November. Looking forward to that. Hoping to have somebody on the podcast to talk about that pretty soon, maybe, maybe in the next episode. Uh, rifles I'm using this year. This year it'll be the 4570, the 27 nozzler. Probably gonna get this old custom mauser back in the field that uh came my way a few years ago. It's a 270, and it seems to want to shoot 130 grain partitions. Maybe the 130 grain solid base would be a good choice for it. So that those are the three guns I'm planning to use. The uh perhaps the 6'5 Creedmore, and uh we'll put that into use on uh coyote hunt coming up. This is a good time to be hunting coyotes, especially if you're gonna be hunting antelope. If you can get out and scout for antelope and then hunt coyotes at the same time, you're not going to mess up your future antelope by hunting coyotes. You're only going to improve it by taking some of these predators off the landscape that harassed them. One of my friends, he had an antelope tag one year. In the month before the season, he killed 21 coyotes while scouting for his antelope. That kind of thing makes a difference because it takes away some of the predators that are killing pronghorn fawns and the elk calves and the mule deer fawns out there. And if you can take out a number of coyotes off of the landscape where you're going to be hunting, that only improves it. You're not going to change the antelope's pattern by shooting a coyote now and then or by calling coyotes in and shooting them. Last night I took out my 4570. I realized I had been shooting it a lot, hadn't cleaned it. And so I took out my shooter kit plus from Modern Spartan Systems, and it comes with carbon destroyer, copper lead destroyer, Spartan Accuracy Grease, Spartan Accuracy Oil, and Crystal Clear, which is a great product for keeping your scope objective lens clean. You know how you store the gun in a corner and then the dust piles up on the objective lens, then this is a good way to clean that. You guys look at your lenses, your scope lenses. If you think, oh man, I need a new scope, just clean it. I talked to a lady who did marketing for one of the major optics manufacturers, and she said the number one thing that people complain about is that their optics have degraded, and then they'll send in the scope. And both lenses are filthy, dirty, and they didn't clean their scope lenses. So anyway, that's the first thing to look at, guys. So anyway, this is a shooter kit plus from modern Spartan Systems, and this is a great kit for cleaning a lever action gun with a scope on it. So I use all of these products, and I've cleaned the rifle and I'm get getting it ready for a hunt next month. It is that time of year already. We got bear season starts here in Oregon, August 1st. And so I as I'm cleaning the gun, I'm thinking, oh yeah, we talked about this a couple of years ago on the podcast. Let's revisit that conversation. If you uh want to see what I'm talking about, you go to modernspartansystems.com and then click on shop and then click on the shooter kit plus. And and then if you want to buy that, um there's you can you enter a coupon code and get 10% off and just the coupon code is Gary Lewis Outdoors. Just all one word, just type in Gary Lewis Outdoors, and then uh order the Shooter Kit Plus. Otherwise, you know, if you want consistency, you want accuracy out of your firearms, clean them, have a system for each gun, and and that's what I've come to learn is that every gun has its own way that it wants to be cleaned. Marcus Kahn, I've been using your products, the modern Spartan systems and carbon destroyer, copper lead destroyer, and the Spartan Accuracy Oil. First thing I did was I took two handguns and two rifles to the range. The thing that was most interesting to me was I had this Ruger 1022 semi-automatic rifle. I use it a lot. It will shoot 200, 300 rounds through a rifle in a day on it, you know, any given day. And so this gun can get pretty dirty. What I did was I used the carbon destroyer. I cleaned it. I I ran a patch through with the carbon destroyer, and I let it sit in the barrel about three minutes or so, and then wiped the barrel, cleaned, used the carbon destroyer again, tried to clean the surfaces of you know, the moving parts as much as I could, and then patch with accuracy oil in and let that sit, and then wipe that clear, then put some more in, and then shot it clear. Describing, you know, the way I did that, would you would you modify my approach in any way?

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Well, it's not like you're doing it on the range, so it's not like you did a you know pretty decent job. There's no real wrong ways to use our products. I'd just say there's like, you know, the the optimum way to get the most results. And your your cleaners I came also out of like a coating, specialty coatings industry, and still work with uh a very unique specialty coatings put in the gun industry. But we always like to look at things like surface frusts, all right? So you want to get all the contaminants off and make the surface as good as possible. So you're exactly right by using carbon destroyer, and if you use copper lead, you let the chemistry do a lot of the work. So you patch it in kind of medium, depends how dirty it is, but you know, uh at least a medium amount and let the chemistry do the work and then kind of agitate it, scrub it, and then uh, you know, clean it. And then, you know, depending on how dirty it is to do that a few times with that carbon destroyer will rip carbon out. It was uh designed to replace the high VL solvents, um, used to clean the gun ports and the engines of club jets. So it's a really powerful product, even though it's a green safe product. It'll even remove Cosmoline. So anyhow, you're you sound like you did it, you let it sit in there, and then you cleaned as much as you can, and then they patched in the uh accuracy oil, and everything but the barrel, one general decent application is good. The oil is carrier for the molecules. So the oil part is not the lubricating part, it's the carrier part, and the molecules will bond onto the metal from there. And so in the barrel, you want to do a one-time conditioning where you're doing about five total applications. So you spend, you shoot a couple rounds, put more in, shoot a couple rounds. And if you get a baseline on there, you should generally, especially like in a factory barrel, you should see improvement for sure in like velocity and standard deviation, spread rate, things like that will tighten up. And a lot of times the shot groups will will tighten up. So sounds like you did a really good job for doing it at the range. So it kind of depends, you know, what kind of results you're seeing. But once once you get that, those molecules on there and you're getting 90% reduction in friction, that that's where all the magic happens.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

The Ruger 1022, I was shooting it at 25 yards, you know, it being a rim fire and you know, shorter range gun. I was shooting it 25 yards. I got three shots in about three-quarters of an inch and kind of a clover leaf pattern. And I thought, man, that's not really good. That was with the dirty barrel. That kind of accuracy translates to a lot of missed shots at 100 yards. So then after cleaning, I fired three or four shots and they were all in the same hole. And I thought, okay, that's how I feel like I can shoot. But every bullet went in the same hole. And it just reinforced what I already knew is that I would rather shoot a clean gun than a dirty gun.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Right, right, right, right. Yeah, contaminants mess up the inside the barrel how the bullet comes out, you know. So you remember them out, and then you add that super slickness to it. Yeah, it's just make like making the gun barrel that much better. But yeah, clean get a dirty gun, you know, there's a lot of different things that can happen, but your accuracy, you know, especially at a distance, is magnified out. So you're exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

All this cleaning that I was doing, I was doing at the range. So I would shoot the guns dirty and shoot them clean to the range on Sunday. And this was a seven millimeter Remington Magnum in an old tang screw Ruger Model 77 with a carbon fiber barrel. Now, this barrel was built for me in Vancouver, Washington by John Beagle, and I knew that this was a dirty barrel when I took it to the range. I shot three rounds dirty. I fired a one round out of the cold barrel and then three rounds spaced 45 seconds apart and got a three-shot group that was like an inch and a half to almost spread out to two inches. I'm using a scope that's a three to nine scope, so not as precise as I would like to be. Then I cleaned the barrel, and admittedly, I probably have 50 or 60 rounds through this barrel in the life of it. So it's not as bad as a lot of barrels that we might encounter. But when I shot it, again, I shot and got under an inch. I think I was about three-quarters of an inch at 100 yards, and was very satisfied with that. Switched to my hunting ammo and shot another three-shot group of the 168-grain nozzle or long-range Acubon. And so super satisfied with the results there. And I I know that having a clean barrel gets me back to the accuracy potential of this rifle. That's gonna be my backup gun.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

That sounds like you you'd make all my sniper buddies proud, doing a good job of uh detailing everything. And you're right, ammo, the ammo definitely plays an impact on that. And I would say that the clean gun is very important. And where the products come in, again, and uh the the primary thing once you clean it out is getting those molecules and the accuracy oil onto all the metal and cutting that friction by 90%. If you change, if you get 90% of the friction out of a barrel, that's gonna cause the impact that you're talking. And they're not permanent molecules, but they're very stable long-term molecules. You'd have to grind it out to get everything out. You know, in the future. But what you'll what you're seeing is that improved accuracy is really just because you're taking it's it's like you're enhancing your tool. You're enhancing the metal in the gun and particularly in in the barrel. And so those those shot groups that are tightening up, it has to do a function of cleaning the barrel. But if you did the same thing, you just cleaned the barrel with our stuff or other stuff. I mean, our stuff I think cleans much better than most things on the market. At least the feedback we get is they love carbon destroyer copper lead too. But um but anyhow, it's really setting that friction down inside inside the gun, inside the barrel that's gonna really make the big difference. And it also was important, and then knowing you're hunting, you're not shooting a lot of rounds, but it keeps that barrel clean, meaning that it's a low stick surface. So the contaminants that want to bond into the metal, varnish it in into the little nooks and cre crevices inside the micro cores of the metal, they can't do it. It's like trying to cook an egg on Teflon. It'll cook on there, but it's gonna come right off. Keeps that gun cleaner longer so your your stability in your shooting or your can that accuracy is a big deal. And also you're you're an organ I'm I guess and you're gonna get some cold weather and hot weather and mix like that. The same thing with that product because it's not the oil doing the lube risk becoming like a dry lube makes it immune to the things that might mess up your hunting or shooting or long distance shooting or home defense shooting. Nothing can stick stuff don't stick to it. So sand doesn't bother it just kind of pushes off and temperature doesn't bother it. Even like extreme cold we've been at 58 below zero in Alaska and they couldn't believe that the guns would shoot like that. And had some guys doing testing and trying to freeze barrels and yeah so your reliability is a a big factor and I think the chemistry just enhances the entire performance of your gun. Like you're and you're seeing it from your results in in your shock groups, especially when you're putting in good good ammo. The crystal clear is our optics cleaner it's gentle but it works really well. It's got a polymer system.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

All our chemistry is green meaning it's either biodegradable or inert like you don't drink this stuff but it's very safe to work with so your starter pack it comes with carbon destroyer copper lead destroyer spartan accuracy oil crystal clear and the Spartan accuracy grease how can people find you they can go to www dot modernspartan systems dot com and just go on the website.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

There's actually a lot of good information on there and videos and testimonials.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

So that was modernspartan systems dot com and then if you want that shooter's kit plus just your uh coupon code GaryLewisOutdoors and so we've been talking about freedom today we've been talking about the founding of the country and I think this is a good time to talk about IP28 which is an attack on our freedom here in Oregon. And you might have heard that Oregon is looking to ban hunting in the state uh through the initiative petition process and that doesn't even tell the half of it because what IP 28 does it's called the Peace Act it would criminalize hunting fishing trapping and farming it would also criminalize the scientific research that is wrapped around animal use and education research and wildlife management tribal rights would also be affected so the Oregon tribes will not be exempted from this thing. Treaty protections would be jeopardized for the Warm Springs people, the Clatsup, the Coquel, Northern Paiutes and Shoshones, the Klamaths, the Modox, the Malalas, anybody who has treaty rights here in Oregon, those treaty rights would be jeopardized for under IP 28. All licensed hunting would be classified as animal abuse. Sport and commercial fishing would be criminalized statewide. Legal trapping including pest and wildlife management would become illegal. You would not be able to trap the mice in your house. Raising animals for food, dairy, eggs, fiber would constitute animal abuse if you have a chicken house and chickens that lay eggs, then you might as well turn that into a little mushroom farm. That's the way that they want you to look at it scientific research tribal rights. So who would be affected by this? Not just the hunters that's 330,000 plus licensed hunters in their families families like ours where we eat 99% wild meat from the forest and 5000 plus licensed anglers that doesn't include the the rest of the people that call themselves fishermen but that don't buy their licenses every year. That's probably a million people 37,000 farms and ranches that employ over 80,000 workers. If you're saying well where am I going to get my milk from that your milk is going to have to come from out of state. Your eggs will have to come from out of state. Your steak will have to come from out of state you'll still be able to go to the restaurant and buy a hamburger that hamburger is going to have to come in from out of state and you say well this will never pass in Oregon. And you say well Oregonians are smarter than that. Well yeah maybe but we have only been pumping our own gas for three years while the rest of the country has been pumping their gas for a lot longer. We're not real smart people. And in fact we have this initiative petition process that um has been used to take away our rights regularly as long as I've been a participant and watching the process. So don't take anything for granted don't think well we're we're smarter than that because we obviously are not smarter than that. And um we've been making lots of mistakes and and it's real easy to show you examples of how dumb we are here in Oregon. And with that I would like to say thank you for listening to the podcast. If you want some good reading material and you haven't read it already I would say read Bob Nosler Born Ballistic I'm super proud of this book. Enjoy this book as a business book and as a a hunting book and it gives a glimpse back into the past and shows a way forward into the future I like it. I think you'll like it. Go to GaryLewisoutdoors.com for that book for our other books you can also find the Bob Nozzler ballistic going or born ballistic book at nozzler.com you can find it on Amazon and you can ask for it at the bookstore this episode was sponsored by West Coast Floats of Philometh Oregon made in the USA since 1982 for steelhead and salmon fishermen visit westcoastfloats.com that's what we're gonna be using up in Alaska in September if you want to support free speech and good hunting content on the information superhighway look for our books and wildlife forage blends at GaryLewisoutdoors.com TV sponsors include nozzler warren scope mounts Carson Procure Bait sense spring pilot the Dallas area chamber of commerce thomas and sales Thomas Sales and Service Madras Ford Bailey Seed and Smarts you can watch select episodes of Frontier Unlimited on our network of affiliates around the United States or click YouTube and search Gary Lewis Outdoors Frontier Unlimited you got it hey catch you on the next one be too sweaty