When shooting at a CAS match, you have other duties to perform besides just loading and shooting your guns. You're assigned to a "posse" and must complete other tasks between shooting. Things like spotting for the shooter, picking up brass and bringing it to the shooter after he or she has shot. Things like that. Everyone has to pitch in.
You want to complete your loading and unloading duties in a timely manor, so you can help out with posse duties. In an effort to do that, I have come up with a few little do-dads to hang on my gun belt, and make loading a cap & ball gun go faster. Here's what I have come up with so far.
Loading a C&B gun is slow by nature. So a good capper speeds up the process quite a bit. I like the Polish Capper for this duty. I made a molded pouch for it, so it doesn't fly out while I'm running around.
You have to remove the wedge frequently on a Colt, so I made this little brass hammer for that task. It's a piece of 1/2" brass rod with a deer antler for a handle. It works great. A little tap on the wedge and it comes right loose. It also knocks it right back into place, and since it's soft brass, it doesn't mar the gun. It also has it's own molded leather pouch.
You also have to have your badge on and a knife is mandatory. So I made a sheath to match for the knife, and a badge holder for my belt. I hate having that thing pinned to my shirt.
Next on my list to make is, a cartridge box. it only needs to hold 10 rounds so it can be pretty small. I use paper cartridges because they're much faster than loose powder and ball. Plus, I don't have to carry a flask or other measure up to the line. One less thing to carry and keep track of. I'm going to get to work on it this afternoon.
