Hope for the future II

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Took my son and his buddy out shooting today. This target is from my son. 50 yards off-hand. 10 shots. Half are in the black. The other half seem to form two groups, one group to the left, the other at 12 o'clock above the target.

My son said he could have called one of the shots that went left, but the rest he doesn't know what happened.

Shots 1 & 2 were in the black, 3 flew left, 4 went high. He swabbed the bore and 5, & 6 came back in the black, then he can't remember how the rest went.

He's wondering if this is a good target. I'm thinking it's darn good! We found a few tattered patches among ones that were in otherwise good condition. I'm thinking that to get rid of those fliers, he can either come down in powder charge, or swab more often or both.

If that solves the problem. . . dang, he's already exceeded my abilities as a coach.
https://flic.kr/p/24dFhDY

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I should add that my son's friend did pretty well too. He had been having difficulty with his T/C .45 Hawken (bought used). Ultimately we ended up sending it in to Bobby Hoyt who offered to re-cut the rifling for a very reasonable fee.

After getting his barrel back we took it out and things seemed promising except we discovered that the rear sight adjustment screw was missing an E-ring (retainer clip). So back to Ace Hardware for an $0.18 E-ring, and wait for another weekend.

Today we had it out for a second time within 7 shots we had him shooting a nice 1-inch group off a rest at 50 yards. He was pleased as punch! And took the next few shots at reactive targets sending a golf ball bouncing downrange.

We'll get 'em out again and see how they both do offhand.

 

[simonbeans]

110 grains of FFg!!! Your son is tougher than me. 70 grains is all I would want to handle.

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Yeah. He wanted to try 110 grains. It is a Green Mt. barrel and we got it primarily for hunting. So he wants to establish a hunting load. He says it doesn't bother him.

That problem with the caps not firing the first hammer strike reared it's ugly head. I watched him fire and when the hammer failed to ignite the cap he did not flinch.

 

[necchi]

It sounds like you have a really good shooter that has a really good coach.
That both have "magnumitis".
For some strange reason they both think that large maximum loads are needed for "hunting" something while "accuracy" means nothing.
Even in Ouisconsin you've heard the olde stories of a .22 harvesting huge bucks.
The common 223 is in current use for large game in the same state.

My point is if you can put a 50 cal ball accurately in what we up here call the "boiler room" with 60-80grns of charge,
(please go back and read "accurately")
, you have more than enough to kill anything in yours and neighboring states.

So good on ya for taking the kids shooting and enjoying the sport,, but your target does not represent the 50yrd off hand accuracy the rifle is capable of at all.
They should all be in one large hole somewhere on that target that would indicate a needed sight adjustment
I know exactly how it goes,
"Ooh! Ya got one in there son,,atta boy"!! "Let's keep shooting"!
The next bunch of shot's are "jerk"(brace yourself for the kick) and "flinch", but cleaning helped,
aka; calmed down.
Only to stoke, jerk and flinch some more :idunno:
So ya have a cool thing going on there BJ,, a great opportunity.

 

[Jimbo47]

For off hand shooting that's a great target!
I never shot 110 grains, but I guess if it works then no need to change.

 

[Grenadier1758]

And we know that when caps don't fire on the first strike and fire the second time, the problem is caps aren't fitting the cone properly and the sides of the nipple need to be filed a bit or the nipples replaced.

Plus for you for taking the boys shooting!

 

[jrmflintlock]

I too am glad to see you are introducing new blood to our addiction! Thank you for doing so and sharing your experience!

I have been shooting Mule deer and elk with my flintlocks for over 20 years and never used more than 80 grains of FFF in my .54 and 70 grains in my .45 as a hunting load. Heck even my new .62 Smoothbore only takes 70 grains.

There is no need to beat yourself up with added recoil. Muzzleloaders are close range tools with open sights. With 80 grains of powder its a dead on hold out to 75 yards and there is meat in the freezer!

If 110 grains is what the rifle truly likes, I guess that's what you shoot, but I would be surprised if that is the most accurate load for a roundball from a short barrel.

Good luck!! :v

 

[Jimbo47]

I've found that beyond 80 grains in my rifle the only thing different that I notice as far as accuracy, is the recoil messing with me if I go beyond that.
I'm now shooting a PRB at 65 grains of powder and it's accurate with plenty of umfh for deer sized animals at 50+ yards.
With 110 grains you might get a somewhat flatter trajectory for a longer shot, but I would expect it would be minimal.

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Ok. So basically the advice is to drop the charge, as well as fix the nipple.

 

[Grenadier1758]

We'll fix the nipple of course.

With respect the advice is to think about the range that you need an accurate shot placement for a successful hunt. Adjust your powder charge to provide the best accuracy at that range. Also, when hunting, use a rest if possible. Offhand shooting is for the target range. It's the last choice for hunting.

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Yes off-hand is the last choice for hunting, but here it is frequently the only choice. So it is best to get proficient with it.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Ok. So basically the advice is to drop the charge, as well as fix the nipple.

Yes. Assuming whitetail deer are what you are hunting, only moderate charges are needed. My first ml deer was taken with my .45 flinter and 95 gr. of bp. The deer was ded alright but there was much meat damage and I wasn't happy about that. Dropped my hunting charge to 65 gr. and hunted with that all the rest of the years. Deer were just as ded and meat damage was very minimal.

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

That's interesting. If you read Fadala's books 100 - 120 grains seems like about normal for a hunting charge.

110 grains is only 1/2 the weight of a .54 caliber ball which was a standard charge.

I've never considered 120 grains or less as "magnumitis". You see magnumitis on the other less than traditional forums where they are using 150 grain charges and better.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Sam Fadala was always a proponent of stiff charges. In a number of his books he would find an accurate and recommend a hunting load at least 20 grains more than the most accurate load. His recommended hunting loads were most likely the most powder listed in the manufacturers' literature. His goal was flat trajectory and high velocity.

To be fair, Sam did a lot of his hunting at fairly long ranges and probably did need the extra velocity to get a flatter trajectory.

 

[Jimbo47]

Was he talking about traditional or in-line?
I guess I could google it, huh?

 

[Grenadier1758]

Traditional sidelock firearms. He had several hooks that evaluated CVA, T/C, Navy Arms, H&A, Browning and others. Real good books with tables of powder charges, round ball and for T/C, Maxi ball performance. Not much on flintlocks or shotguns, but for 1980's there was really little information in the recently published literature.

In almost all of the tables he identified accuracy loading and recommended hunting loads. You might find these books through used book searches. We still use the tables published by Lyman from the mid 1970's.

 

[standslong]

IMO Thats a lot of powder.I have a CVA St.Louis Hawken I shoot a round ball with a .i5 patch over 65 grains of pyrodex rs never did a velocity test but dead deer and very little meat damage and in all most every case no tracking ranges varied between 50 and 70 yds.Deer are thin skined and not really heavy boned not a lot of punch with a well aimed shot takes them most every time.Each person and each rifle has a favorite load so go with what works again good on ya for taking your son shooting
JACK

 

[Adui]

Jack,

I have chrony'd almost that exact load. I was using 60 grains of pyrodex P with a 490 rounds ball patched with .017+- Pillow ticking from Wal mart. It pulled 1600+- fps as I recall. (I posted The exact number in another thread a long while back)

Only fired one shot over the chrony because it was a guy next to me at the range who owned it and I figured he was nice enough to let me test one shot...

 

[Zonie]

I think ole' Sam was cursed with the same thing that modern rifle shooters are cursed with.

More power! More velocity! More has to be good, right?

Not necessarily.

Many hunters think killing something takes lots and lots of power so they pour in more powder.
When the deer or whatever falls they say to themselves, "Boy. I'm sure glad I used that heavy load."

In reality, had they just stuck with their lighter, accurate load, it would have worked just as well if not even better by hitting exactly where the hunter wanted it to hit.

The thing is though, they will never know it because they will continue to use too much powder in their next hunt.