A few weeks ago I was on a break at the Ambush at Indian Creek (a 3-day Cowboy shoot put on by the River Junction Shootist Society in Donegal, PA). I was standing around with a couple of other black powder shooters talking about black powder shooting. Fun wasn't part of the discussion, because it's a given that black powder shooters have the most fun! We were talking about strategies for shooting a stage that keeps our times down. As part of the discussion, we talked about wind (or the lack of it), the smoke, moving around to be able to see, memorizing target locations so you don't have to see, and other topics. It was interesting enough that I decided to round up all the ideas I could and compile them for other black powder shooters.

The first obvious problem that black powder shooters have to deal with is…smoke. The loads we shoot put out large quantities of white smoke. On a day when there is no breeze and the humidity is high (as is often the case here in the East), the smoke can pile up and the targets disappear in a cloud of white. When the targets vanish, the problem with shooting a fast stage becomes: missed targets. As each miss adds five seconds to your time, you want to minimize the number of missed targets.

So, if there isn't any breeze, how do you deal with the smoke? The easiest thing to do is to move. SASS follows the basketball traveling rule. As long as you keep one foot planted and maintain muzzle control, you can move around. The first thing I try to do is to move down. I start standing as tall as I can and as the targets become obscured, get lower and lower until I am in a crouch as low as I can get. If that doesn't do it, there are two other things to try. The first is to just wait for the smoke to clear enough that you can see again. I reserve this for the most extreme cases. The second technique requires a much higher degree of concentration. Before the starting the stage, take a moment to memorize target locations. As the targets become obscured, shift your vision to where you know the next target is. Bring your sights in line with your vision and fire. If you remembered the target location correctly, you'll hear a clang. This is particularly useful on stages where you have to dump a number of shots. Just keep your eyes focused on a tight spot on the target, bring your sights in line with your vision and fire. As long as you don't change the point at which you are focused, you'll hit the target every time.

The next scenario is when there is a little bit of a breeze. For the sake of example, the breeze is blowing today from left to right, but very gently. The stage description gives the shooter discretion as to target order. The general order that most of us will use is to shoot the targets from left to right. The problem is that the smoke is blowing to the right. By the time you get to the last two targets, you can't see them. So, what's a shooter to do? Shoot the targets from right to left. This way the smoke is piling up where you have already shot, leaving the targets that haven't been engaged, clear.

Some other suggestions are:
· When the shooting order is left up to the shooter - Instead of double or triple tapping targets, single tap sweeps or "staggering" the engaged target may leave the targets less obscured by smoke.
· Look for the target stands and use these to help located the targets.
· Look for straight lines, or even curves through the smoke. These don't appear in nature and will be the target.

There are some other things that you can do that don't have anything to do with how you shoot the stage. These are equipment related. The first is to make sure that you have enough lube in your rounds. If there isn't, actions can get fouled and stiff, and accuracy can drop off quickly. This is especially important for straight walled cartridges (i.e. 45 Colt, 44 Magnum and Special, 38 Magnum and Special, etc.) as they don't seal off the chamber nearly as well as the bottlenecked cartridges (44 WCF, 38 WCF, etc.), allowing more fouling to blowback into the action. With enough lube, this fouling will stay soft and be less likely to bind up a gun.

If you have enough lube in your cartridges, and are still having trouble with stiff and bind actions, you may need to do some further load development. I find that magnum primers and a very strong crimp dramatically reduce fouling problems. I also have found that Starline brass doesn't expand enough to seal the chamber, resulting in more fouling problems. I have separated my Starline brass out for smokeless loads only.

The last things that can contribute to binding actions are burrs and machining marks left on mating surfaces. In my Uberti 1866 rifle, I had trouble with the lifter binding until I noticed that the powder residue was sticking to the machining marks between the receiver and the lifter. I disassembled the rifle and, using a small fine stone, I slowly stoned away the marks and ridges left by the machining. After this, the problems went away. If you are not sure that you want to make modifications like this yourself, have a competent gunsmith do action jobs on the guns you are having trouble with.

The final problem that I have had is shells sticking in the chambers of my SxS shotgun. They never stick with smokeless loads, just with BP loads. I asked a gunsmith to "limber up" my shotgun. One of the things that he did was to polish the chambers of the shotgun. Since I have had this done, the problem has been dramatically reduced. If it does happen, I keep a bore mop with me and clean the chambers between stages.

These are just some of the things that I have found that have helped me to shoot faster times with black powder. I hope that you try out some of these and that they work for you too.


Doc Shapiro is the author of Black Powder Loading for Cowboy Action Shooting. For more information, see his web page at: http://jnshapiro.home.mindspring.com/BPLoad.html, or via e-mail at: jspublications@mindspring.com.