Accuracy at 100 yds.

[ntech]

Hello!
I have Tradition Ranger barrel .45 cal. 1-66 twist, 28" long.
I shoot at 50 yds and accuracy is good about 2-3" and sometime overlapping.
But at longer range 100 yds accuracy is badly poor.Its 10 - 20 " and some of shots from 5-shots series are out of the target.
I was shoot .44 patched round ball , .45 minie and ,.45 REAL.
I use many different charges from 35 to 100 grain.Always the same.When I close distance to 50 yds again everything is OK.What is it ?
What accuracy you have at this range ?
Regards.

 

Are you sure you are not shooting in meters? That will add about ten yards to the equation. And it is an equation.

If you are getting groups of up to 6" (15cm) spread you must multiply that X 2 for your 100 yard group expectation. That comes to 12" (30cm).

You now factor in the dificulty of using those huge crude sights at 100 yards, the extremely short sight radius of the barrel you are using and the rediculious trigger set up, your good 50 yard groups are easily expanded and explained at 100 yards.

If your gun is holding 6" groups at 50 yards the best you could hope for, under ideal circumstances, would be 12" groups at 100.

You are probably doing as well as anyone possibly could using open sights and the Traditions barrel, trigger lockwork and sights. Good 100 yard groups come with guns having custom made 36-48" barrels, hooded globe and peep sights, double or single set triggers, false muzzles and custom fit stocks. You are using a 50 yard hunting model generally considered a starter rifle. It is doing what it should be expected to do.

 

[LRB]

I agree with Ghost, but I would suggest you change your sights to something better and play with your load. Try a larger RB, and maybe change your patching, and charge. Many smooth bores will do as well as your getting.

 

[shmrck1]

Sebastian
listen to what you read(charge-patch-lube plus i
must add eyes when shooting at 100yds) i'm 59 and i use all the help i can get without glasses, but i still use them to read this forum plus anything else i read. bottom line make sure you are seeing the target.
snake-eyes

 

[ntech]

Thank you all.
I have globe and peep sight from Track Of The Wolf.
And of course I shoot 50 and 100 meters.But I wrote yards because range is nearly the same.
Problem is why at 50 m accuracy is good 3" but at 100 is terrible ? It should be up to 7 ".
I cant get it.I have 15" and more and sometimes can't hit target.

 

[Stumpkiller]

The 1:66" twist will not stabalize the conicals (the .45 minie and .45 REAL) as well as a round ball, but it should be better than 20" at 100 Yds for the REAL.

How are you shooting? Seated at a bench, lying prone on the ground or standing offhand? What lube and patch are you using for the round ball? How old is your powder and how are you measuring each charge?

We'll get to the bottom of this.

 

I suggest ou have the rifle re-barreled with a Green Mountain barrel, same calibre, for round ball, and you will than have a rifle barrel "capable" of shooting 2" or less, given proper sights, holding, experience, etc. The better the absolute capability of the barrel/gun, the better you will shoot.

 

[Donny]

Hey guys, Of course Sebastian can buy a new lock, stock and barrel, and sights, and the gun will shoot better. But I don't think that is what he wants. Me thinks Sebastian wants to improve his group with what gun he has. With 66" twist barrel, it should shoot best with round ball, so have we talked about patches, maybe they will not hold up with 90 grs of powder? ? Don

 

[Charles/NM]

What do your patches look like after they are shot? I would not expect your slow twist barrel to give good results with bullets, but only good results with properly patched balls. In your .45 caliber rifle would start at 50 grains of FFFg BP or Pyrodex P and work up to 70 grains. If your patches are burned I would use a felt wad between the patch and powder. I use Ox-Yoke pre-lubed wads under pillow ticking patched .490" balls in my 1 in 48" twist .50 caliber T/C Hawken and get excellent results at 50 yards - 3/4" groups with 60 grains of Pyrodex RS. If I don't use the wad my patches burn and accuracy goes away. I use T/C yellow tube lube, but am going to try a beeswax, castor oil and Murphy's Oil Soap concoction to see if it gives any improvement in ease of loading and accuracy. What are you using for patch lube?

 

In the my .45 rifle or the .69 I recently traded away, I can shoot a 5 shot group with the same patch, retrieving it each time to load for the next shot - just tastes terrible. The accuracy is the same as with new patches for each shot.
: The secret, if there is one,(& it's an old one) is to use a good snug combination that SEALS the bore - just like a gasget of some sort, would/might/does.
; You also have to use a cloth that has a lock stitch, just like denim. Single weave cloth won't do well for repeated shots.
: The above works using spit for lube. I doubt a grease or oil would give as good results - perhaps/maybe.
; The last time I did this 'test' was to prove a point regarding the Fadala, gasget/anti-gasget theory. My group was a single oblong hole, measuring 1 1/8" in total length, for 5 shots using a .684" ball. The New BP Fellow that I was helping that day, had read one of the BP digests and was spouting the author's theory's as fact. This fellow actually had to resort to using an extra patch between the ball and powder as he lacked the hand and arm strength to load what I thought was a normal load. The down side to his double patching, is his load/combination could not match the accuracy I got from his rifle using my suggested load.- oh well.

 

[cayugad]

Sebastian I have a rifle with somewhat the same problem. In fact it is a Tradition's Pioneer. It would be very accurate from 50 yards in, but when I got further back because of the sights, I really had some terrible groups. I wrote it off to eye sight at first (which might have had a little truth in it.) I then switched to a different sight. I went to a Williams Peep sight which mounted on the back of the barrel.

I also started using a wonderwad between the charge and the ball and it did make an impressive difference in the size of the groups.

Personally with that range I would use a round ball and 75 grains of Goex FFFg with a pillow tick patch.

I have a Traditions Hawkins Woodsman with that same barrel and at 100 yards I once put 15 shots in the bottom of a #2 pound coffee can with the standard tradition sights. Off sticks I always felt that was not too bad. I was shooting 75 grains of Goex FFFg and a moose milk patch with Hornady Swag balls. This is a nice shooting rifle.

Good luck with your rifle. All you can do is keep trying different combinations...

 

[Liver eatin’ Johnson]

As an experiment next time you are at the range, turn the target over and casually aim for the center of the blank paper. Sometimes the results will be amazing and might even reveal inconsistant trigger control or sight picture.

LEJ

 

[sprucefly]

I have had the same problem sometimes but I put much of it to old eyes. One thing I do is get a younger person,who is a good shot, to shoot the rifle at 50 and then 100 yards. Sometimes he has the same problem and sometimes he dosen't. That gets hard on the ego but can help pinpoint the problem to shooter or to the gun. Good luck.

 

[peter]

The blank target approach worked wonders for me with both hand guns and long guns. Also try using a sling wrapped around supporting arm to help hold gun firmly. Snap a few caps with out powder to see if you are still lined up with target after hammer falls.

 

I'll tell you something I have practiced for a long time and that is to shoot at a blank piece of paper and then aim for the bullet hole. I can only do this at about 30 yds or less because the hole is usually hard to see but it has helped me make a few really tight groups. It's like shooting a bare bow at a very small target - helps with focus.

Slightly OT, but years ago when I could still see, a friend handed me a 357 Dan Wesson that he was having trouble with. We were shooting in a junk yard so I popped one into an old muffler at about 20 yards. The jacketed bullet tore about a 3/4 inch hole in the front. I shot the rest of the cylinder and the hole never got any bigger. The other guy was crowing about how he knew the gun wouldn't shoot and I wasn't too sure where they were going either. When we walked up to the muffler, there were six exit holes but the last five all went into that first hole. Case closed...

 

[ntech]

Thank you for your advice.
At first I was shooting from seated at the bench.
I never use wad between powder an patch.I must try because maybe its the point?
I use Wonder Lube from trackofthewolf for patched ball and REAL.
I shoot with 35 grain of Vesuvit LC (its like FFFg) for patched round ball at 50m and 50 grain for 100m.
For REAL I use 50 grain for 50m and 70 grain for 100m.
I want to buy some better gun with faster twist like 1-32 but I haven't money for it yet so I must use what I have.
I never look for patches after shooting and even don't know they are burned out or not.I do it myself so maybe thickness is bad? I'll try few diferent size.
Once more thank you.
Best regards.

 

Right-on- even with scopes, the size, shape and sometimes colour of the bull makes a big difference on group size. If the aiming point is too big, the group will be as well. Whatever makes you hold a 'finer' sight(concentrate the most), will usually make the smallest groups. This is escpecially true with Pin-head sights. The bull, appears to be exactly the same size as the "pin head" front sight, so the bull/front sight picture makes a perfect figure "8" with the 6 o'clock hold.

 

[Donny]

Sebastain, Step 1, You need to recover used patches from the round balls, and read them. Patches will tell part of the story. Are there any holes in them? Cut, or burned through? They may not be thick enough for your 50-110 grain, 100yd loads. Don

 

[RussB]

Thank you for your advice.
At first I was shooting from seated at the bench.
I never use wad between powder an patch.I must try because maybe its the point?
I use Wonder Lube from trackofthewolf for patched ball and REAL.
I shoot with 35 grain of Vesuvit LC (its like FFFg) for patched round ball at 50m and 50 grain for 100m.
For REAL I use 50 grain for 50m and 70 grain for 100m.
I want to buy some better gun with faster twist like 1-32 but I haven't money for it yet so I must use what I have.
I never look for patches after shooting and even don't know they are burned out or not.I do it myself so maybe thickness is bad? I'll try few diferent size.
Once more thank you.
Best regards.

Sebastian.....I thrown in my own /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twocents.gif worth before you run off, and you can take it for exactly that.
If I were having the problems you describe, and I have had the same problem, I would move my target back in to 25yd (25mtr) and "build" myself a load that punch itty bitty groups at that distance....one hole would be nice /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wub.gif, Then I would move the target out to 50, 75, 100 yds making my adjustments as I went along.
Years ago I read something by some whiz bang, shoot'em up muzzleloader that said "62yd...dead center, is exactly where every muzzleloader should be zeroed"...Well, It is my feeling there is only a little bit of truth in that statement, because targets, animals, and everything else one may come to shoot at, comes at all different ranges...guestimating, or knowing the range and hitting the target is the real name of this name. And, we are worse off at "windage" than we like to think we are, without references, and knowing EXACTLY what to expect with a given "hold".
Start short, and work your way out that is my solution.
Respectfully, Russ

 

[Stumpkiller]

62 yards, eh? I'm "on" at 25 yards and again at about 80 or 85 yards (hard to tell as my "on" at 85 yards isn't as "on" as it used to be).

Sebastian, are you wiping with a clean patch between shots or just loading and shooting? Try wiping with a moist patch (solvent or saliva) between shots if you're not already.

Make sure you're resting the gun on your hand and your hand on the rest and not the forearm of the gun directly on the rest. This can goof up a string of shots.

Are you casting your own lead balls? If so, are you weighing them? I end up rejecting 30 or 40% of my home-cast balls for being frosted, wrinkled and/or underweight. Are you loading them consistantly with the sprue up (or down)?