Robin's blog

Robin's blog on taming the Baker rifle

My wallet finally caught up with the price and I got my Baker rifle. Wife wanted to save all the spare cash when we sold the house, like the good squirrel she is, but I insisted on a new gun investment. Cost Ł6750 on sale or return and had a cracked stock. I moaned and the dealer said he would fix it, then said he would give me my money back, then said he would give me more than my money back because it was now worth Ł9000 and there was a queue waiting to see if it was sold. Good investment these Bakers, possible due to that Sharpe's Rifles series on TV.

I took it to the rifle range and blazed away intermitently. Two hours later I'd managed to put a misearable 5 holes in the 100 yard target. It must do better than that so I'm starting this blog as a sort of Baker diary, I'm going to shoot it second Sunday every month and record the changes and the results.

I'm reading "Baker's Remarks on the Rifle" which may be part of the problem. I'm shooting a .612" patched ball because Baker says 20 balls to the pound, (the mould I bought does them slightly under the precise .614" in his conversion table), and I'm shooting a hot load because Baker designed his quarter turn rifling for 300 yards without stripping the ball in the rifling. It should work dang it.

Whatever, welcome to my Baker rifle blog, click on the date(s) below for range reports. If you want to mail me click here Robin's email.