need help with accuracy

[douglas duncan]

first off with this rifle, Lyman trades with GM 32" 1-70 twist. I am using a 530. Rb
I could put all the shots in a 2-3" circle using pyrodex rs with 80 grns. I posted these awhile back and was told I could tighten this up with goex black powder.

So I go out any buy some goex to use. yes my patterns tighten up still using 80 grns of powder.
here are a couple of the targets. these are at 50 yards.

but not until I went and weighed all my balls that I had. when I switched to the goex my groups opened up and i could not get them to close up after trying different powder charges. so I went home and weighed them all out.
I am shooting the balls that fall in between 225- 225.9 and 226 - 226.9 they both seem to shoot the same for the most part.

It seems that between 80-85 grns all my shots will hit pretty much the same. expect when I get out to a 100 yards then they will open way up.
my patches seem to be blowing out also. this never happened with the pyrodex either. these are the same patches i used before which looked great before switching powders.

here are some 100 yards targets to me this is not good enough.
the black dots are the holes which i covered up so I can stll use the target. only one shot each in the black on both targets.

before the switching over to goex I could put them inside a 3" circle at 100 yards now it looks more like a 6+" group.

some of the things that I have been doing
tried swabbing between every shot which helps
various powder charges
different patch lubes, moose juice which is working better than the moose snot
tried and OPW with no effects to accuracy

I have not tried a thinner patch with the OPW yet something I will try next time out. (Tuesday)
is the day.

Can someone give me some ideas?

 

[Kentuckywindage]

if your patches look bad, try a thicker patch. My cva mountain rifle was shooting 80gr RS and @ 100 yards, 2" group was easy, then i upped it to 100gr rs, added a .015 patch on top of the powder and then my patched ball and knocked 1/2" off the group.

 

[hepburn4590]

What is the bore diameter? What patch thickness? I have a 54 that won't begin to group till I get over 100grs of powder.

 

[douglas duncan]

I have never measured the bore, as for the patch thickness could not say. the pillow ticking is pretty heavy. I have to give the ball a good whack to get it down the bore. the part I do not understand just because i switch powder, should it start ripping the patches? I know the goex burn faster but?? ripping patches

 

[douglas duncan]

so you are using a patch for an over the powder wad?

 

Can someone give me some ideas?

Go back to Pyro?

 

[jtmattison]

I have the same GM barrel. Mine will shoot the wings off a gnat at 50 yards with a .535 ball, pillow ticking patch, and a greased felt wad over 90 grains of Goex 2f.

If you're blowing patches I suggest you try pillow ticking and a wad.

HD

 

[paulvallandigham]

Doug: Take the barrel and some patching material to your nearest machine shop, and ask to borrow or use a micrometer, or a caliper so you can measure the bore ( land to land) and groove diameters of the barrel. Then you can also measure the thickness of your patches.

Without these measurements, and a firewall between the powder and your PRB, you are going to see problems with the patches burning, if you are not using the correct thickness, or the proper lube for the patch.

Send Dutch Schoultz $15.00 for his Black Powder Rifle Accuracy System. Its the best $15.00 you can spend on an education.
http://www.blackpowderrifleaccuracy.com/

Don't go back to using Pyro.

Your BP groups are fine. It does look like you are occasionally looking at the target at the last moment, as you fire the gun, rather than focusing on the front sight. That explains the two different clusters of impacts.

The high ones are from looking at the target in almost every instance. The same kind of double cluster is often seen when shooters are using scoped rifles. Once you know Why its happening, you can eliminate " flyers", and blame it on the shooter( YOU!!)

Call it a flinch, or over enthusiasm, or whatever. If you don't exercise the self control to maintain your sight picture through the shot and recoil, and the return of the sight to the target out of recoil, you will see two different groups.

For shooters who use the FOCUS ON THE TARGET method taught to shotgun shooters, when shooting a rifle, also, an occasional low hit will be the result of focusing on the front sight when the trigger lets off the shot, the opposite result from what they are used to seeing and doing.

 

[douglas duncan]

I have a set of calipers and measured the bore which comes out to be .540, with the grooves at .552
So with this if going by the book your ball should be .005 smaller than the the bore. which in turn will make my ball to be .535
i have been using a .530 ball
i also measured the ticking i have and it comes out to be .018 thick
as for the shoultz system I have been to his web site, and I have been using some of his ideas like weighing the balls, wipping after every shot. this is how my groups have improved. I need to focus on the sights more I guess.

 

[jimmy82]

I was using beeswax/olive oil lube and not getting very good results. Then I went to spit and they started touching each other. Only problem is I will need to figure out a lube to use for hunting. By the time I find something to shoot at the spit will be dry. But for target shooting I have gone to spit and haven't looked back. Even with burns and cuts on the patches the shot groups are tight.

But then again in my wife's .50 cal she has been using the bw/oo mix and occasionally makes some very good groups when she is in her groove. She doesn't like sticking cloth in her mouth lol.

 

[douglas duncan]

I find that black powder is not as messy my hands are a lot cleaner after a day at the range.

 

[shortstring]

You used the word "ripping" as far as the patch goes. What do they look like? Typically a blown patch will give out where it makes the seal between the ball & the bore. I have seen patches that were failing during loading & the tear would be like a split under the ball. My gut feeling is that you might do better with a .535 ball but the factory barrel crown may or may not be of a quality that will load & not damage the patch.

Also are you using FF or FFF powder? One might do better than the other. How old is the nipple? I find that this can make a difference as far as accuracy goes. Usually I put a new one in every match I go to.

I will say that the 50yd targets show a repeating pattern. In each target the flyers were high. Normally a barrel that is shooting eratic will randomly throw shots. Also a blown patch will quite often go low as the velocity will fall off as the patch loses its seal. Where I'm heading with this is that the shots out of the groups may be a result of human input. Could be visual error, or pressure placed on the gun during the shot. The problem with the way we hold a gun is that it allows the gun to recoil different from one shot to another. Something to watch is when you squeeze off a shot hold the position until the smoke clears & see where you are now aimed. It should be about the same from shot to shot. I find (at least shooting chunk) that if my recoil varies on a shot that I will probably find that one out of the group. A common believe also is that if you packed the load differently on the high shots it would explain them. I've run some stuff thru the machine rest & didn't really prove anything one way or another as far as this goes but I still try to uniformly seat each ball.

Paul

 

[douglas duncan]

I use the term ripping as in meaning they are torn apart around the where the ball is in place.

I also agree with you on the 535. Ball, with the measurements I have done and according to the lyman book I should be using a 535 ball not 530. Even though a 530 shoots fine. I just feel that better can be done.

I am going to try the larger ball along with different size patching, and focusing more on thefront sight. Paulvallandigham has pointed this out to me along with what you are saying.
The nipple has been giving me some problems lately, I will change it out seeing how I have already put at least 300 rnds though it.
I been using 2f powder I bought some in bulk so I can be changing it that easy. One way or the other I will make this work.
Determination and consistency will prevail.

 

[tg]

I have used a bore size ball with GM barrels and .015-.018 patch it is a hard push but a lot of target shooters do this with GM barrels so I hear, I got plenty good groups for my needs with the .005 under line of thought, but any barrel/gun can be fickle and shoot better with something that is not the "norm" keep fiddlin' with it you will find the sweat spot, have fun while trying

 

[douglas duncan]

here's an update on this I went and got some 535 balls, and headed out to the range again three days straight now.
tried some .018 patches and the first four shots touching, strung the last one but by not much. :thumbsup:
tried some .015 patches no good opened way up only took three shots with these.
shot a few more groups with the .018 patches and all pretty much staying the same.

it seems with the .018 patches and the 535 balls it tight en's up just a little more than with the 530 balls all of this at 50 yards.
took it out to 100 yards the groups tighten up some but only hit the black twice. I would say about a good 3" - 5" group better than before. :hmm:
now its time to mess with the powder charge.

took a look at the patches no holes just a black circle where the ball was sitting. more or less like what's in the book. so this problem is solved.

right now my cheek is a little sore from the rifle. so I, can say I am getting a little gun shy right now. more like getting tired of getting hit :surrender:
I need to give it a days rest (my cheek) anyways we have a storm coming in and it is suppose to snow at 8000ft.
thanks for the help so far.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you are using FFFg powder, try FFg. It kicks less. Really! Your 32 inch barrel will only burn 89 grains of powder efficiently, so you are starting at the right place- 10% less- to find an accurate load.

Use a " Pointer " at the 100 yd. target. Make triangle out of a piece of paper by folding one corner to the opposite corner. Staple or tack that triangle to your target so that a point is at your aiming spot. Some shooters find it works better to have the point come down from above, and others like it from the bottom up. Either way, it helps you hold more consistently at that long range with open sights.

Don't be too proud to try this. It takes a lot of practice to learn to shoot open sights on any gun well. Most of us have never fired an open sighted gun at more than 50 yards. Even in the military, the rear sight has been a peep sight for more than 50 years, and there are not many of us around that had a chance to fire open sights, unless they were on a pistol, in the services, either.

As to the powder load, I would recommend trying different loads, around the basic powder charge that is working at 50 yards-- 80 grains of Whatever Goex you are using. Go down 5 grains, then up 5 grains and shoot for groups. Once you see improvement in accuracy by going one way or the other, then split the difference in the powder charge load (77-78 grains, or 82-83 grains, etc. for example) to see if there is any improvement.

You are looking for your barrel's Sweet Spot at this point. At 1500+ fps MV with these loads, your 1/2 oz. ball is still going to be traveling at 1000 fps. at 100 yds, more than enough to take deer or elk.

I have a .50 caliber rifle with a longer barrel- 39"-- which will burn 90 grains of powder. In my gun, I found using 75 grains of Goex FFg powder gave me the most accurate load at 100 yards. Velocity at 100 yds will be a bit slower than what you should have with your .54, but not enough for any deer to know the difference.

If you are using FFFg powder, for instance, that burns a bit hotter, and has more recoil force, than FFg. That also means you are getting more velocity out of that powder than the coarser powder will give you. You can easily back that powder charge off to 70 grains without expecting the ball to bounce off the hide of a deer or elk at 100 yds. :rotf: :thumbsup:

 

[shortstring]

Something worth throwing into the mix is the math as far as the sight radius of a 32" barrel. Assuming that the rear sight is 7" up the barrel an error of .010 would give you 1.5" at 100yds. That's a couple sheets of paper. The further up the barrel (as far as the rear sight goes) the worse it gets.

I'm with you as far as the FF powder. It would be my choice. Replacing the 300 shot nipple can't hurt anything. However all things considered your 50yd groups are fantastic for an offhand rifle. Just pull in the flyers & you got 'er done. Of course I can't say I've ever met anyone that pulled in all the flyers so I wish you luck. :cursing:

What's up with that Utah football team anyway? Not very popular here in SE Michigan these days. :bow:

Paul

 

[douglas duncan]

the powder of choice right now is 2f, I will have to try that triangle trick seems it might help some.
the sights on the rifle are peep sights and they do help in looking at the front sight allot.
been using them since the get go.

sorry Paul I do not follow football or sports that much. my interest lies in the mountains.

 

[shortstring]

If this rifle has a bead front sight as many of these do, you could make a target that we use in chunk shooting. Basically it's a black donut that you center the bead in. You just want a small halo of white around the bead. At 50 yrds it might be 9" OD & 4" or so ID. It is a very accurate way to point a gun.

I guess that if I lived out there I would feel the same about sports. Around here if we didn't make them out of mole hills we wouldn't have any mountains at all. Sort of looks like a pool table with corn growing on it.

Paul

 

[tg]

Looks like you are well on your way to finding that perfect combo, I have had some larger bore guns that really liked 3f it might be worth a try just for comparitive purposes, enjoy the journey.