1888 Grade 2 Hammer Won Today:

[Mike of the Mountain]

Speaking of cleaning up a gun after shooting black powder, I have a funny story. At the Vintage Cup up at Dover Furnace, I shot the black powder event. It was 50 targets out on the course. That's how I like to shoot that event. It gives the gun time to cool down and you don't have to deal with too much smoke obscuring targets. After the day's shooting was completed, Susan and I went back to our hotel room. I figured I should somehow clean the barrels so I started running the hot water in the bath. I then ran water through the barrels and proceeded to set them into the hot water in the tub. Well, not thinking what the result would be seeing as I never cleaned black powder out of a gun in a bathtub, I looked on with a mixture of amusement and horror as the tub transformed into what looked like a drain oil storage tank!! No amount of scrubbing the tub would remove the film. Had to call housekeeping. When the maid showed up she darn near fell over!! "What happened here??" she shrieked. I proceeded to sheepishly tell her. She used a green 3M scrubby and glass cleaner and got the tub looking like new! Needless to say I gave her a big tip and never, ever again cleaned black powder from a gun in a bathtub!! Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.