Car News

What an interesting couple of coincidences.  I too am duly ordained (Methodist).  I don't know if any other clergy are still active in CAR-PGa except for one Salvation Army, but in the past we have had Friends, Lutheran, and a rabbinical seminarian.  Let me know, off-list if necessary, the details.  It is sometimes useful when attacked by those insisting one must follow their theology or be Satanists.   Going to car-pga.org and filling out a membership form would let us be able to cite this.  The same goes for any other active non-members and also lurkers, clergy or lay.

I also have to cast my own bullets.  In fact, before each shot, I must measure and pour the powder, patch and ram the bullet, go to half-cock and measure and pour the primer, close the frizzen, go to full-cock, and only then am I ready to aim and fire.   One can't just go to the gun show and buy cartridges for a Manceaux à Paris .53 cal. carbine.  With my Fils à Langres 32-guage double barrel, after the powder, there is a wasp nest back wad, pour the shot (the shot flask measures that), add a wad of newsprint for the front wad, and prime as usual.  At least I can buy the shot.  In short, this is what the writers of the Second Amendment were talking about - flintlocks.   For someone in practice, this takes about a half minute, 20 seconds for the more "modern" caplock (1830s-1860s).  Gamers note this fact in playing gunpowder periods.

Even more remarkable, to melt the lead, I use a Gilbert lead figure casting pot.  These were once sold as toys for children to cast their own lead figures (adult supervision recommended for those under 12)!  I wonder what Consumer Products Safety Commission would say to that.  Gilbert was also known for the Erector Sets and the S gauge American Flyer toy trains.  

I have remelted defective figures and their sprues and runners, and I never heard them scream either, nor found accounts of it in any reputable source.  The remarkable thing is how many otherwise rational people actually believed this back in the mid-1980s - or maybe still do.

Paul Cardwell