100 yard 3 foot group

[KenRichard]

I shoot a Kentucky rifle Traditions kit that I adapted to include a tang mount Creedmoore type peep sight. I can normally hit a three foot diameter target nine out of ten times but the group is also about this big. Is it my round ball/cloth patch causing this diversity or is it something else? By the way it is 100 yards from a bench rest with 85 gr. of ffG powder.

 

[rabjr]

Have you examined your spent patches? What are you using and what lube? Posting pic's of the spent patches would help to determine if thats the problem.

 

[jerrywh]

what caliber. what ball, what patch , what twist?

 

[Ken Cormier]

questio ? 3 inch group or 3 foot group @ 100 yards. Something wrong there if 3 foot.

 

[DanChamberlain]

what caliber. what ball, what patch , what twist?

What flinch?

Dan

 

[ohio ramrod]

I will assume since it is the Kentucky kit, it is either 45 or 50 caliber, 1 in 48 twist. From my experience You should get much better groups at that range with prb if you are using a round ball (440 for 45 or 490 for 50). with a fifteen thousand lubed patch and a powder charge of approximately 5 grains FFFG over the caliber. These are the target loads my boys use in their older CVA kentucky's which are the same as the traditions. The main problem of poor groups is torn patches not gripping the ball properly.Try to recover your patches and examine them. :hmm:

 

[KenRichard]

.50 cal. round ball (490) 85 grains of ffg. bench rest. can't recover patches as its a public range and may get downrange every five minutes or so for a very short time (less than a minute) Could the fact that the peep sight is foldable matter?

 

[bennypapa]

Only if the sight is moving around between shots. Is it stable? Does it wiggle?

More likely you need to experiment with patch/ball/lube combos. My friend has a traditions 50 cal and I was able to get 1" groups at 50yds with 490RB/55grains FFF/.018 pillow ticking/50/50 alcohol and murphy's oil. I assume that would be no worse than say 4" groups at 100 yards.

If you are getting 36" groups there is something drastically amiss.

You really need to get ahold of some of the spent patches. They can tell you a whole lot more than we can at this point.

Have you ever looked down the bore with a good bore light?

 

[tg]

I would go back to a primitive open sight and see how your groups look, the current groups to me are to excessive for patch combo problems, check the barrel for any slop as well.

 

[Many Klatch]

I can hit a 36" gong at 100 yards off hand with a Brown Bess 3 out of 5 times. If you are doing that badly with a rifle off the bench something is drastically wrong.

Many Klatch