Argentino M1879 Rolling Block. Is it worth restoring?

[Patrick Chadwick]

Claven2, I know your arguments are valid, but I don't want to put Joel off completely by drowning him in complexity. A couple of weeks ago he just wanted to know whether he should "give it a try or run for my life".

He has now been led down that delightful garden path which shows you that you can do a lot more than you think, but it also costs a bit more than you expected, and the fat end with old bangers comes with the care and feeding - when you discover that dies, cases and moulds etc cost more than the rifle.

I find your thin-band bullets a very good idea, and am already thinking how I could try it out, but was that an off-the-shelf mould? Or a custom job? And would you care to tell Joel what you paid for those Martini cases - it might put him off getting one!

So maybe I am keeping it deliberately a litte bit Yes/No without a lot of "maybe, if you do this and buy that and adapt the other". When I started with BP I heard so many conflicting opinions that it took me a long time to sieve out the gold from the dross. Joel is rocketing in weeks up a learning curve that took me years, showing some real pack-rat initiative in his work, and producing excellent results. Let's feed him the tricky stuff slowly, I think he's hooked now...


Er... Joel, if you're reading this...don't let differing opinions stop you turning that RB into a whizz-bang shooter! How's the "boning up" coming along?

As Kipling wrote:
"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!"