.45cal / .54SB Early Virginia for hunting...

[roundball]

Easiest sight-in range trip ever...filed down the front sight enough to jump it up from the backing cardboard to a paper plate, then did some work on front & rear sights to get it clustered on that plate, then mounted another plate and fine tuned it right up into the bullseye.

New Early Virginia from TVM with interchangeable 42" Rice B-weight swamped barrels. (.45cal rifle & .54cal smoothbore)
.54cal smoothbore barrel installed to test possible PRB turkey load.

Zeroed at 35yds, from a sitting position in a small turkey hunting chair
80grns Goex 3F / .018" pillow ticking / .520" ball.

Seemed unusually fast, just a joy to shoot !

 

[wattlebuster]

I love that wood. She is a looker an a shooter. Good luck this gobbler season. :thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[Robert Scheffler]

That's one purdy rifle!!

 

[hellerodsyahoo.com]

Super nice gun that shoots straight, you better use only one eye to make it fair!! good luck this season Roundball---

 

[BigDogg]

Awesome! :thumbsup:

 

[Dave K]

Gosh, that gun is so ugly, I couldn't take my eyes off of it! That sure is one pretty gun Roundball. It looks like they did you good. :thumbsup:

 

[Skychief]

:bow: :thumbsup: :applause:

 

[twobarrel]

Beautiful SB. They did an excellent job. Gobblers beware! Good luck, but the way it's shooting I don't think you'll need any.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Sweet! Looks and cooks. :thumbsup:

 

[shmrck1]

roundball,
Fine looking F/L for sure.Will harvest
lots of turkeys for you,I'm sure! :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

Yes, it turned out fine”¦the fore stock is a little slimmer than its .58/.62cal big brothers due to the B-weight barrel profile...looks and feels great, trim & slim in the hands.
Intended to be my most used Flintlock with the .45cal barrel mounted most of the time for year round weekend fun shooting, and the .54cal smoothbore barrel mounted a few times a year for a variety of small game.

A pre-retirement present to myself :grin:

 

[GreyWhiskers]

Sweet lookin rifle/gun. :thumbsup: Does this one have the patent breech that you had built into your other Virginia? Also, how easy is it to swap barrels? Hooked breech?

GW

 

[roundball]

Oh yes, same Patent Breech by Dennis McCandless out in Los Cruces, NM.

Simple to swap barrels...being careful of course just remove the tang bolt and push out the 4 pins

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

Congrats Bill! :thumbsup:

Those turkeys are already in the roaster :haha: . Great lookin' & great shootin' all in the same package :applause: :hatsoff:

Dave

 

[SawTooth]

Sorry I missed this earlier Bill,

Absolutely Gorgeous!

 

[roundball]

Yes, turned out great and handles like a dream...have Friday off tomorrow so I'm going back to the range and check/verify/tweak sights if need be for that PRB turkey load.
Then see where it prints at 50yds...may need to bump it 10grns for the same POA & POI but I normally used 90grns 3F for my deer load anyway so that'll be fine too

 

[roundball]

2nd range trip with the smoothbore barrel this morning to experiment with other patch thicknesses and powder charges.
The .018" pillow ticking still gave the best accuracy with .520" balls so that's probably going to be it for the patches.

Then when I experimented with 90grns Goex 2F instead of the 80grns 3F, to my surprise I heard the shots making that unmistakable "crack" sound with the 90grn charge of 2F, and accuracy improved another increment.

Same thing had happened with the .62cal smoothbore last year when I made the incremental step to 110grns Goex 2F...shots started making the "crack" sound and groups tightened up.

Tried a handful of shot loads while I was there and #6s or #5s will make a good squirrel load to 25yds...turkey heads at 20yds.
Will experiment with hard #7.5s sometime in the future to fill in the pattern more, and see what distance I can still get penetration with them.

But for now, this one is ready for PRB turkey if I decide to try that...going after them with normal shot loads in the .62cal first though...if I'm lucky enough to fill a tag with shot, then I'll try the PRB for a second tag.

 

[Dausener]

Another beutiful gun roundball! Let us know how the shot patterns work w/ it. :hatsoff: