By Mike Nesbitt | Contributing Editor
After completing some very satisfactory target work and sighting-in with my new Cimarron Model 1873 Short Rifle in .38-40, which was reported previously here and here, it was time to try the rifle on the black powder trail.
This would accomplish two things; it would give me the experience of shooting with this rifle “in the woods” from the offhand position (most all shooting so far had been from the bench), and it would let me know if I wanted to use this rifle in an up-coming Lever-Gun Match. But before talking about that, let me tell you about two changes that were made, one in the ammunition and the other in the rifle, itself.
The most minor of those two changes was a little “tweak” in the powder charge, which was raised from 33 ½ grains of Swiss 2Fg powder all the way up to 34 grains of the same powder. That slight change was made just to give the bullets a “pat on the back” or a “kick in the fanny” to get them on their way with just a little more emphasis, but, of course, the muzzle report changed very little. I’ll be running some of those loads over the chronograph later to see if any real difference can be detected. At this time, I will say that those loads shot very well and I will be using the 34-grain loading again.
I will say that the load worked very well and a good “lube star” was on the barrel’s muzzle which shows how the bullet had plenty of that all-important lubricant in its grooves. Also, when the rifle was cleaned after shooting twenty-two rounds without wiping the bore in between any of those shots, the first patch (wetted with Three Rivers Black Powder Solvent) came out almost un-marked. That is almost clean. Even so, the barrel was wiped again with a second cleaning patch, which was very clean, before being oiled and readied for either being put in the gun rack or taken to the range for more shooting.
And those twenty-two shots were fired on a warm and dry morning. That wasn’t as warm or as dry as out in the desert country but it was dry nonetheless. This adds more to the point of the black powder ammo being very clean burning.
The other change is much more significant. A lighter hammer spring as well as a lighter lever safety spring were installed. The lighter hammer spring was desired because reducing the tension on the hammer will also reduce the trigger pull. Getting a lighter trigger pull was certainly wanted because, as the gun was delivered, the trigger was far heavier than what I like. Even so, I did not check the trigger’s weight with a scale, it was simply too heavy. And getting the new hammer spring in place also reduced the trigger pull to a nice and acceptable level.
Likewise, the lever safety spring, which pushed a trigger block into place behind the trigger if the lever is not completely closed, was stronger than it needed to be. With the factory lever safety spring, the lever had to be held closed rather tightly while firing the gun. The new spring does its job very well and certainly makes the rifle more comfortable to use.
Both of these new springs were obtained from Online Outpost which is a very good stop for finding cowboy action shooting gun parts. (Check them out at onlineoutpost.net.) The Light Duty Hammer spring is priced at $35.99 and the Lever Safety spring is another $9.99 but I’ll say they are certainly worth having. And buying new springs is a more positive way of improving the action and handling of the rifle than trying to reduce the tension of the original springs, a better and quicker fix. My friend Mike Holeman installed the springs for me.
Hitting ‘The Trail’
The .38-40 Model ’73 was used with those new springs installed for the first time on the trail, where our “Meat Hunt” is held during Buffalo Camp. To say the rifle performed well would be putting it mildly. I have no groups to show for this shooting, of course, because the targets were all gongs which were set out at unspecified distances, much like a hunting situation. But believe me, I “made meat” on that trip down the trail.
Only one picture was taken while we were on the trail, I was accompanied by Mike Holeman and Jerry Johnson who each carried their .44-40 rifles, and that was when Mike took a picture “over my shoulder” as I shot at the bear silhouette. That bear is full size, maybe for a small or medium sized black bear, and it is a full 70 yards away, between two trees. In the picture, the bear can be seen (painted white for visibility) just to the left of the smoke from the rifle’s muzzle. And that shot was a good hit.
Shooting on the trail-walk with this .38-40 was good enough that it convinced me to use this rifle, just four days later, at our club’s Lever-Gun Match. This particular match was not an aggregate match, where scores are tallied-up at the end of the year for awards. Instead, it was what we call a “fun match.” If it had been an aggregate match, I would have used my .44-40 with the 30-inch barrel just because that’s the rifle I’ve used exclusively for the aggregate and I want to maintain my good standing, perhaps in Second place. But the fun match would be a very good event for the new .38-40 to be used, its first shots fired in competition.
And another new item gets introduced here because when I got home from shooting on the trail, a new bullet mold from Accurate Molds was sitting in my mailbox. This is for mold number 40-185C, a 185-grain plain-base bullet that looks very much like the bullets I favor for my .44-40s, designed for black powder shooting with one large lube groove.
This new mold is a double cavity with aluminum blocks and that was fitted as quickly as possible to RCBS mold handles and the lead pot was filled with an alloy for revolver bullets. Casting followed as soon as the lead was ready. A good batch of bullets were cast and some of those were loaded, just as soon as they were cool, in the .38-40 cases after being sized to .400” and lubed with Vigilante bullet lube. The powder charge used remained the same, 34 grains of Swiss 2Fg powder.
Accurate Molds is easily my favorite source for bullet molds and I do encourage you to visit their website at accuratemolds.com. They have a number of other designs for the .38-40 and I picked 40-185C because it is slightly heavier, just 5 grains, than the standard bullets. Of course, Accurate Molds has more than just black powder designs, their catalog of available bullet designs has 35 full pages, with approximately 150 bullets per page. And if you want a special design, like I occasionally have, they will make it at a standard price. A very good source for bullet molds.
A few loads with those new bullets were tried in the .38-40 Short Rifle before the Lever-Gun Match was held, just to see how they’d perform. Needless to say, they shot the best of all, so far. My favorite small bullseye target, printed on yellow paper, was posted at just 25 yards and the shooting began. After five shots, the target was looked at and that small bullseye held all five bullet holes. That was very nice to see.
Lever-Gun Match
Next, it was time to shoot the Lever-Gun Match. As said before, this was a fun match and the match director, Allen Cunniff, made the choice of targets. We’d begin with a “fox” posted at 25 yards for ten shots, offhand. You might say, that was just the distance I had practiced for and with the .38-40 Short Rifle my score was a 96-2X on that “foxy” target. My initial thought was, “That’s not too bad, for a beginner…”
Bob DeLisle, shooting a Model ’92 Winchester in .32-20 caliber, had the high score on that target, a 96-4X.
Following that, we posted a 6-bullseye target at 50 yards, where we’d shoot five of those bullseyes with two shots each, for a ten-shot target and a possible of 100 points. I’ll need an excuse now and I’ll put most of the blame on sun glare off of the front sight. I simply could not see that front sight clearly, although I certainly tried. And the shooting at this target was from the sitting position while resting the rifle over cross-sticks. With a such a good rest, I should have kept my shots in the black but that just didn’t happen. My score on the 50-yard target was a solid 71-X.
Let me give credit to a better shooter again; Jerry Mayo peppered that 6-bullseye target quite nicely and his score was a 92-X, shot with a ’66 replica in .44-40.
The third and final target for this Lever-Gun Match was a single bullseye buffalo target which we posted at 75 yards. This was also shot from the sitting position over cross-sticks. I had not tried this new .38-40 at any distance beyond 50 yards but I used the same sight picture that I would use with my .44-40 and “gave it a good shot.” Again, the glare on the front sight cost me dearly, the sight simply could not be placed on the target with consistency. Even so, I did get a positive score, simply because I didn’t lose any points. My score at 75 yards was a modest 60 out of the 100 points possible.
The high scoring shooter on this target was Allen Cunniff, using his iron framed Henry copy in .44-40 and shooting the impressive score of 98-3X. There is plenty of competition in our Lever-Gun Matches.
My scores were still pretty good, at least I think so. My total for the day put me in 5th place with the .38-40. When I picked my prize, there was still some “meat” on the prize table, so I got a large summer sausage and that makes my new .38-40 a “meat maker.” Rather than having such a trophy mounted, I’ll be enjoying that with some good cheese.
Now this Cimarron ’73 Short Rifle Deluxe in .38-40 is a fully accepted member of my family. In the first of these three articles I talked about getting it and taking it out of the box. That was just before the “breaking-in” took place, by wiping the bore between shots at the beginning, which gets the barrel “seasoned” with lube for being shot with black powder, as well as getting the Lyman tang sight mounted on the wrist. Replacing the hammer and the lever safety springs are recommended just as much as the bullet molds from Accurate Molds. Of course, Swiss 2Fg black powder is recommended too. The shooting improved and the group sizes were shrinking with each of my trips to the range while using this new rifle. More shooting will be done, certainly, and I do expect my scores to rise.
