Hunting Forum

I apologize now if i ramble a bit. I'll try to give all info i can think of. I've had my ml for roughly 12 yrs now, and up until the last week, I've never truly taken the time time fiddle around with it. Couple hours here and there. It's a traditions buckbuster. 1:48 twist, sidehammer with a musket nipple on it.  I've found over the past few years, that sabots won't work from my rifle and having a surplus of lead, i make my own round balls. This year, I've made the decision that I'm going to figure this thing out! I put a new scope on my wife's rifle this year, so I decided to put her old scope on my ml.

In 12 yrs I've gone though 3 pounds of powder. I've tried 1 pd each of bp, pyrodex, shockey's gold and now use Hodgdon pyrodex select premium powder. So far it's the best I've found. Fast reliable ignitions and not 1 hangfire like i was getting constantly with shockey's. the problem i am having is this, at 50 yds, the best group i can produce is roughly 5". I can shoot 2 shots in a row that the holes touch, but the 3rd may go 5-6" in any direction. Usually left, but i've seen low, high, and right as well. Not good at all. My reloading process is as follows; 1 run wet patch down barrel  2 run dry patch down barrel  3 run lube patch down barrel 4 load pwder and patch/ball 5 shoot and repeat. I understand that the rifle shoots differantly clean or dirty, so, I'm trying to have a clean barrel every shot.

I started out using 85g of powder, all over the place. Cut back to 60g and got better grouping. Cut back to 50g and was getting better than 60g, but I'm still getting wild shots here and there. The best grouping has come with 50g of powder.

Am I just expecting too much in accuracy for what i'm shooting? does spru placement matter? I've tried to keep spru as the "tip" as much as possible.

Thank you very much in advance for any help you all can give me    

I do not have your make or model of rifle but do have a ritual somewhat similar to yours on reloading, EXCEPT for #3. Why do you run a lube patch before loading it is not necessary and could be some of your problems. A 50 grain load is getting on the light side for deer hunting. Have you experimented with different thickness of patches? Have you experimented with different patch lubes as both of these can have an effect on accuracy. I have a traditions buckskinner that has a very tight barrel and have accuracy problems with it too as well as finding a projectile that I can load into it. I too experience the occasional hangfire/misfire with it. I finally gave up on mine and it sits for now. Yes most folks that shoot round balls with the spru put it at the front.

the reason i run the lubed patch is i want to simulate a cleaned for storage barrel. I don't want to have to foul my barrel load it, hunt for the day then remove the load , clean and repeat process. finding different patch's in my area is not easy. most places sell 1 brand. i have used TC prelubed patch's and right now i have cva prelubed. The hangfire has not been an issue at all since i bought the premium powder. with the shockey's gold, i had to remove the nipple after every 3rd shot or there probably would not be a fourth. this hodgdon select has not hung up on me at all and very clean. after 4 shots, i removes the nipple and put it right back in as there was little fouling. Shot a dozen more times, and removed only to find i wasted my time taking it back out. other than a little residue outside, the hole in the nipple was clear. Another thought, I have not tried maxie balls. would those help at all?

You dont mention what size balls you are using with it .I have a 58 cal Hawkins that I was having similar problems with .Talked to a guy here and he told me to quit using the 535 balls and go down to the 530 s .After making that change I now shoot 80 gr. pyrodex and can put three shots touching each other .That is with a 0.10 patch .Dont know if this will help you but it did me .If you are making your own balls I would think about finding some thinner patch's if you can find them .And I do shoot lubed patches .

I'm using a Lee mold producing .490 balls. I had some .010 patch's, but as i said, patch's aren't an easy find. after traveling to several different stores, i had to settle for .015. wasn't happy about it, but that's all i could find. was half tempted to cut up old bed sheeting and see how that works! lol

if there not cold bore shots you ball will drift some also. i would try shooting once let the gun cool and shoot again to see what your group looks like. as long as the 1st is on target your probly in good shape i dont know anyone who has shot more than once at game, by the time your reloaded the game is long gone if you missed your first shot.

I suspect its your patches. Exam your fired patches, especially the ones where a flier occurred. Prelubed patches deteriorate over time. If your fired patches are shredded, torn, burned through, etc your accuracy will suffer. You may have some that are coming apart. No telling how long they sat in the store before you bought them.

You don't need to buy premade patches. Go to a fabric store and buy a yard of cotton "drill". It's usually about .018" and has a good tight weave. You can cut 1000 patches for the price of 100 store bought. Apply your own lube as you go.

For a lot more in depth info try http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com. It's a traditional only group so no discussion of inlines , sabots etc., but if you're trying to get a side lock working with PRB it's worth checking out.

Thanks Guy's!
@ zgrimshaw, You just met your first person then! 2 yrs ago I must have found the stupidest deer who met the unluckiest hunter. lol i shot, missed, reloaded and missed again before that deer was out of there.

@ Rock, I picked up a couple of the spent patch's and noticed some fraying around the edge. I did not notice any abnormal burning. Just a slight discoloration. .018 will not work for me. I cannot even get that size in the bore without use of a hammer (no, i didn't try hammering them in) lol .015 requires that i have to hit the ball starter. It's not just set the patch n ball on the bore and a firm push sets the round in the barrel. perhaps i should find a site that i can purchase .010 patch's and start the process over.

Maxie balls is what I tried in my 1 in 48 flint lock that has a tight bore . Shoots them better than round balls after experimenting with loads and patch thickness . Use 75 gr. real bp with them in a 50 cal.

as to patchs what i have done in the past is go a big sewing store and take a micrometer with you find the 100% cotton mic. it when you fine what you want take it home and cut it up been doing that for years just my way j.t.o.

I am still confused as to why you lube the barrel on reloading. You do know that when you do that and then push the bullet down the barrel you are pushing the lube down to the powder too. Before I shoot for the first time I use alcohol and swab the barrel and use two dry patches and then load the rifle. That is the way I hunt and so that is the way I sight in. I swab between shots with alcohol and two dry patches also. I am not sure that what you are doing is affecting your accuracy but it could contaminate your powder and cause a misfire or hangfire.

Thanks again all buddy of mine has some maxi hunters I'm going to try out today. see how they work for me.

Something PA RIDGE RUNNER said either just use a dry patch and no lube .The lube could be effecting your shooting .I dry patch mine no lube .

If it were me shooting your rifle, this is what I would do...

Prior to loading... get the lube out of the barrel. There is no need for it there. I hope it is not a bore butter. Take the barrel off the rifle, take the barrel outside. Pour boiling water down the barrel (with the nipple removed). Let the water melt all the lube, gunk, etc.. and flush it out the barrel. Wear leather gloves. Barrels get hot.

After the rifle has cooled... put the barrel back in the stock. Now push a patch with Isopropyl alcohol on it to the bottom of the breech and swab the barrel. After that, a couple dry patches. Now push a dry patch to the bottom of the breech of your UNLOADED rifle. with the patch on that jag down there.. put a musket cap on the nipple that you replaced and fire that musket cap off. Pull that patch and check for burn marks. If there are none.. that means your fire channel is clogged. Do it again, dry patch on a jag, bottom of breech, musket cap... fire. Pull it check for burn marks. When you see burn marks.. fire one more cap off. But aim the muzzle downward as something that moves easy. A leaf, a scrap of paper, anything. When you fire that musket cap without a patch in the barrel.. see if that item moves. This means you are getting good fire through the chamber and you are now ready to load.

You do not need to lube the barrel. Just load the barrel as normal. Powder, and then patched ball. Now shoot the thing on the range. Here is where you can do a couple things... if the next round is HARD TO LOAD swab the barrel after that with a patch LIGHTLY dampened with alcohol. Work that patch in short strokes down and then back up the barrel. After that let the rifle sit for two or three minutes.. Now load it again.

I know that people hate hunting all day, then having to shoot the rifle off and clean it that night. Well that's what I do. Some people that want to leave the rifle loaded need to be very concerned with moisture and where they are storing that rifle for the night.. LOADED. If you hunt cold climates as I do... if you bring a cold rifle into a warm house.. well ever wear glasses and come in from the cold and enter a warm house? They fog. So does your barrel insides. So if you do not want to unload the rifle, you need to keep it the same temperature as where you were hunting.. or very gradually warm that rifle up. Also, before you put the rifle up for the night, swab the bore with a dry patch or two, to get any moisture that might be in there. Then with a VERY LIGHTLY gun oil patch, swab the bore down to the projectile. This will make sure it don't rust. But a light amount of oil. We don't want to put lots of oil down the bore on a loaded rifle as it will kill the charge. And remove the musket cap. Also if the rifle is loaded.. I tie a red bandanna through the trigger guard. This tells me and everyone else, this rifle is loaded. Leave it alone.

I simple unload, clean it, and start over in the morning.

On the range.. start your testing with 70 grains. Shoot three shot groups at 25 yards. Adjust your powder charge up 5 grains at a time until you get get a really tight group. This normally happens around 80-100 grains of powder. But I have one rifle that likes 110 grains of powder. When you find that magic group.. then back up and shoot at longer distances. Too often I see people load a rifle and shoot at 50 or 100 yards and then can't figure out why they get 5 inch groups. well that might be normal for that load at that distance. Also because of the distance, it is hard to judge what the load is doing. I have even shot at 13 yards. And if your dead on at 13 yards you will be real close at 100 yards. You have to learn the rifle.

Remember if it is hard to load.. swab the bore. You can use alcohol, spit, water, Windex, any house hold cleaner, but don't saturate the patch. If you think you used too wet of a patch.. dry patch and even pop a cap and check for fire.

A 1-48 twist will shoot roundball, conical bullets like maxiball, great plains conicals, and REAL conicals. The trick is lower the powder charge when shooting big lead. It will also shoot sabots. Use a tight fitting sabot and like 80 grains of powder. Because of the moderate twist try shorter bullets like the 240 grain XTP or 250 grain XTP. They tend to work better. I like a 200 and 240 grain XTP in my 1-48 twist rifles. I have a Lyman Trade rifle that loves a 240 grain sabot. But remember, some rifles just don't like certain projectiles. So there is no guarantee.

If you want great patches for the rifle. Go to a fabric store and ask them for 100% cotton pillow tick. They might ask you .. red or blue stripe. It don't matter they all mic at about .018 thickness. That makes a .490 ball nice and snug. As for lube.. patch lubes come in all kinds. I use moose milk. I have used olive oil, liquid wrench, spit, and yes, even bore butter. I make my own at home. If you'd like a good lube recipe, PM me and I would be glad to send you mine. If you find the patches are being blown apart.. put a wad between the powder and the patch. No wad... use 20 grain of corn meal. Be sure and tap the rifle on the ground to level the powder before sending down the corn meal.

These are just things that work for me. Good luck.

I knew I'd be coming to the right place asking for advice here. Thank you all

@ PA, the purpose of running s lightly lubed patch down the barrel was to simulate a barrel that had been readied for storage. Not a heavily lubed patch, just a light coating of bore butter.

@ cayugad Why don't you like bore butter? I must ask the purpose of the chemical patch's such as alcohol or windex. Doesn't that strip the "seasoning" out of the barrel? I have done everything i can do to NOT do that. I actually got so frustrated with the rate of fouling, that i seasoned the barrel like you would a cast iron pan. I removed the barrel, swabbed it with crisco, and baked it for an hour at 350 deg. This drastically cut down on the fouling and made the rifle 100% easier to load. I use water only. No soap, and absolutely no chemicals of any type. Everything else makes sense to me. Unloading daily would not bother me if i was using a projectile that i made myself as i could simply remold it and use again. But, when it's costing me over $1+ just to ruin the projectile getting it out of the barrel, i have a problem with that. I'll find something that i can reuse.

As I mentioned yesterday, a buddy of mine had some Maxi hunters left over from his attempts at sighting in his Hawken years ago. They did not work for him, but after knocking off the old dried up bore butter, and a fresh coat, they worked well for me. No trouble loading and produced a decent group at 30 yds. using 75 g of powder. This next summer, I will have to buy several different types of projectiles and see exactly what does and doesn't work. I already know that my rifle hates sabots. They are inaccurate and very hard to load. I would like to find a projectile that I can mold myself. I have well over 100 pounds of lead that needs to be used up

CGS both Cayugad and I have had less than stellar results with bore butter when used as a bore preservative. I personally had rust form under the bore butter. Modern muzzleloader barrels are made of steel and no matter how hard you try you cannot "season" a modern bore like you see in an iron fry pan. Like I said before if you lube the barrel and then load it you are pushing all that lube, no matter how much, down the barrel with the bullet and there it sits on top of the powder. When I clean my front loader rifles I actually clean it 2 times once with HOT soapy water and a very hot water rinse. I then proceed to clean with modern solvents and finally a modern gun oil and it is ready to store. Before I shoot it again I use alcohol to swab out the oil and I am ready to shoot. I have only been doing this for about 25 or 30 years and have good looking barrels and good shooting barrels.

If you're wanting to cast you're own conical bullets, try the Lee R.E.A.L. bullets. My Thompson Hawkin loves them. They're very similar to the T/C Maxi-Ball. I cast the 320 grn 50 cal Lee R.E.A.L. I've used it on deer and elk with great results.

@ cayugad Why don't you like bore butter? I must ask the purpose of the chemical patch's such as alcohol or windex. Doesn't that strip the "seasoning" out of the barrel? I have done everything i can do to NOT do that. I actually got so frustrated with the rate of fouling, that i seasoned the barrel like you would a cast iron pan. I removed the barrel, swabbed it with crisco, and baked it for an hour at 350 deg. This drastically cut down on the fouling and made the rifle 100% easier to load. I use water only. No soap, and absolutely no chemicals of any type. Everything else makes sense to me. Unloading daily would not bother me if i was using a projectile that i made myself as i could simply remold it and use again. But, when it's costing me over $1+ just to ruin the projectile getting it out of the barrel, i have a problem with that. I'll find something that i can reuse.

As I mentioned yesterday, a buddy of mine had some Maxi hunters left over from his attempts at sighting in his Hawken years ago. They did not work for him, but after knocking off the old dried up bore butter, and a fresh coat, they worked well for me. No trouble loading and produced a decent group at 30 yds. using 75 g of powder. This next summer, I will have to buy several different types of projectiles and see exactly what does and doesn't work. I already know that my rifle hates sabots. They are inaccurate and very hard to load. I would like to find a projectile that I can mold myself. I have well over 100 pounds of lead that needs to be used up

Bore butter is a wax base substance.  I might wax my car, but not my rifle barrels.  Now some people have had excellent luck with bore butter.  I used it for years when I first got into the sport.  BUT bore butter has some real problems.  First.. your barrel better be bone dry and clean before you WAX your bore. If not, when you patch the barrel later you will find an orange/brown substance on your patches when your getting prepared to shoot.  That's because the wax trapped moisture, and that moisture leached on the metal.  The other problem is when you wax and wax and wax your bore, you fill the rifling.  When I was a bore butter user, I shot a Renegade.  And it was a very accurate rifle.  And I shot it a lot.  But started to notice.. the accuracy was slacking.  I blamed it on myself.  One deer season a small buck gave me an opportunity, and I shot.  Gut shot.  It was a give me shot.  We did finally get the deer.  And old timer back at the hunting cabin had me boil the barrel.  I could not believe the chunks of wax that came out of that rifle.  That was the end of my brown patches and wax chunks.. and bore butter.

People worry about seasoning a barrel.  I don't care about seasoning.  This is modern quality steel.  I might season a fry pan, but not a rifle barrel.  The alcohol or Windex is used because it is a liquid, it removes grease, and ever spill alcohol and as you wipe it, it seems to disappear on its own?  That is because it evaporates at a very fast rate.  Meaning it leaves your bore clean and dry.  Which to me is more important then seasoning.
 If I am having loading problems because of fouling..  I swab the bore.  Lightly dampen a patch, swab in short strokes, and work it down and back.  Then a dry patch.  This gives the rifle a chance to cool, and somewhat the same consistency shot to shot.  When I want to preserve my bore, I use a gun oil and then lightly oil the bore.  Like I would a modern center fire rifle.

The problem with using store bought bullets is..  cost.  I agree.  But if your hunting and you've shelled out all the money for license, gas, lodging, etc..  a couple bucks in bullets mean nothing to me.  The bullets I push out at the end of the day, I examine.  If they are not marked up, you can reuse them.  Or save them for a range session later.  But I sure understand the cost of store bullets.  One reason I cast a lot of my own.  Depending on the rifle you have, there normally is a bullet you can cast and get excellent accuracy.

REAL Conicals do shoot well out of 1-48 twist rifles with low powder charges. You have a 50 caliber right? What do you think the bore diameter of your rifle is? I cast 50 caliber REAL bullets, and I also cast a .504 450 grain that if the bore is tight, I can size down to .501. These are full bore conicals. I shoot them in a lot of my rifles.

Posted By cayugad on 07 Dec 2012 02:43 PM
If it were me shooting your rifle, this is what I would do...

I know that people hate hunting all day, then having to shoot the rifle off and clean it that night. Well that's what I do. Some people that want to leave the rifle loaded need to be very concerned with moisture and where they are storing that rifle for the night.. LOADED. If you hunt cold climates as I do... if you bring a cold rifle into a warm house.. well ever wear glasses and come in from the cold and enter a warm house? They fog. So does your barrel insides. So if you do not want to unload the rifle, you need to keep it the same temperature as where you were hunting.. or very gradually warm that rifle up. Also, before you put the rifle up for the night, swab the bore with a dry patch or two, to get any moisture that might be in there. Then with a VERY LIGHTLY gun oil patch, swab the bore down to the projectile. This will make sure it don't rust. But a light amount of oil. We don't want to put lots of oil down the bore on a loaded rifle as it will kill the charge. And remove the musket cap. Also if the rifle is loaded.. I tie a red bandanna through the trigger guard. This tells me and everyone else, this rifle is loaded. Leave it alone.

cayugad,

I beat the odds this year.  Last day of the 16 day ML season at dusk when I could no longer see the sights well enough to shoot a deer, I shot the hill side with the powder, bullet, and primer i started the season with. I had hunted at least eleven of those days. The gun had been rained on, snowed on. frozen, and thawed but still fired!  In the muzzle loader world that is victory in its self.

If I was using a side lock I won't have pushed my luck.  I was using the Remington Genesis inline.  When I came in at night I would first place the gun muzzle down until it reached room temperature.  I would then place it in the safe but stock down with the fire block unlatched to allow air movement through the nipple.  I was using 2 triple 7 pellets for powder which also alowed air movement to keep the powder dry.  Part way through the 16 day season I did run a patch with gun oil on it down the barrel because I had noticed rust at the muzzle.  I then ran a coupe of dry patches. 

This may not work for anyone else but it worked for me this season.  Now if only I could get the deer to co-operate

-MD