pics of groups using tc barrel

[grizzy adams]

here is 3 pics , I shot the tc hawken again today at 25 yards , 70 to 90 grains of ffg , .530 home cast ball , .018 pillow tick . shooting off a bench , swabbed between shots using windex . pillow tick been washed twice wiff hot soapy water and dried , sprue on ball was up when loading , cleaned barrel before i even shot , had another person there dat shot it , tc barrel wont hold a group , found the patchs , they look good little tattered around the edges , there in the pics , let u take a look and see , i,m lost on diss barrel . any help on what else to do .

 

[Jim Evans]

Did you mike the patch material? the reason I ask is my red comes out at .015,the blue I have is.018
The second photo was okay and then it looks like you changed the lube and it opened up.

 

[grizzy adams]

i got the pillow tick at walmart , after washing it mikes right at .018

 

[Jim Evans]

I got mine at wallymart too.
The second one is the better ,so I would stick to that lube and now try to adjust the powder up 5 grs

 

[BobKrohn]

Most all TC barrels are 1:48.
Large powder charges will just make the ball skip the rifling.
I have a 50cal and always shot 50gr 3F at targets.
Would group great and saved $ on powder.

 

[Rat Trapper]

Not sure what your problem is, but all my TC Hawken rifles shoot better than that at 50 yds. Try some Hornady great plains bullets and use a felt wad under the bullet. Your rifle may prefer a conicals over round balls.

 

[gearheart]

How easy do them patches load? We are all still hoping that there is something that you can adjust that will solve the issues. Trying thicker patches like blue jean material might help. There is however a possible explanation that we would hope were not the case. If the barrel has a "Belly" inside caused by firing a bullet/ball not fully seated on the charge,and this can happen without the gun blowing up, the middle part of the barrel could be larger in the bore than the rest. This would result in the round following a corkscrew path down the barrel and only God might know where the round will go. I truly hope that this is not the case with your rifle.

 

[Bill Hall]

Grizzy, I've been studying your pics, posts, and all the info you've provided. I even went back to some of your old posts, and I can say you're just not doing anything wrong. Any variation you do on lube, patch thickness, etc, should only give you a slight increase, or decrease in accuracy, like what you experienced in target # 2. It still should be better than that.

Unless.....

The only thing that comes to mind at this time, that hasn't come up yet, is the hardness of your balls. I wonder if you're using old wheel weights when you cast, or some other mix of hard lead alloy. Hard lead balls can cause the accuracy loss you're experiencing, as there is a potential for not grabbing the rifling. I see some slight cuts on the patches, and if this is an old barrel, I'm thinking the rifling should be worn enough to not cause these cuts. The cuts are so small it shouldn't affect accuracy much, but it may indicate the patch and ball are "fighting" the rifling, and the ball is just ignoring the twist.

Let us know what kind of lead you're using. Give the fingernail scratch test and see how soft it is. If hard lead is the problem, it can be overcome, but we need to know if that's the problem or not. Hope this helps. Bill

 

[grizzy adams]

the patchs load fairly tight , have to use a short starter , have tried thicker patch , to hard to start , have to use a hammer, if I use a different lube they start easy. i tried tighter ball (535) still to tight . diss barrel never grouped good when i got it , did a good cleaning it helped some but it just dont hold a group at all , when the barrel is clean , wiff a cleaning patch i can feel a rough spot in the middle , but wiff the bore lite i cant see nuffin there. Dat is what i cant figure out , it trys to group one to 2 shots , then the rest goes south . tried minnie balls it wont group them , the best it grouped was 3 inchs at 50 yrds , at 75 to 100 yards cant even hit a pie plate . i,m getting like diss :cursing: as saying *(*&^%) words at it. Now wiff my gm barrel , it well shoot all shots in one hole , wiff a .530 ball , .018 pillow tick , and doesnt matter what lube i use .

 

[grizzy adams]

I.m using soft plumbers lead , I get it free from old lead pipes when they tear down old houses in town .

 

[nkbj]

For what it's worth...
Because every barrel is a different barrel this will be anecdotal at best. My brother once had a TC 54 Renegade that just wouldn't shoot until he fed it .530 round ball, pillow ticking with neatsfoot oil and the max load of FFg. Had to use a protective layer over the powder to prevent burn through also. Then he cut horribly scary cloverleafs at 100 yards with one of those old ladder type tang sights TC sold back then. And ripped half moons out of the back of critter heads. Any way, said all that to say this; don't ever think that because it's a TC barrel that it needs any certain type of load. Man, you just never know.

 

[grizzy adams]

done did the max charge 120 grains of ffg , and wont do it again , having a cresent brass butt plate bruse on the sholder after 5 shots , went home and took a handfull of advil and cried lol, its worse when you do dat wiff a 425 minnie balls, sittin down shooting off the bench. I'll just pass on dat :surrender:

 

[shootrj2003]

I just started working up my .50 Renegade barrel ,I've had it for years but always used my .54 so I went to the 50. but I went technical and measured ball an groove dia. and all came up with .010 as a correct patch size,[I always just grabbed .018 ticking before because that's what the store boughts fromT/C were].But added up properly they should be by a ball size of .492 and groove dia. of .510 = .018 divided by 2 = .009.Mama quiltss,so I found something tough at .010 .lubed it and used it .to early to tell really,but at 50 yds ive got a 2'' group .I'm gonna play with the charge after I finish playing with the patches some more[I've got .015 and the old .018 size to try] but hey maybe a thinner patch?the .010 felt too thin to me but they seem to work fair so far.

 

[Geraldo]

Pic #2 looks close, although you almost have two distinct groups there. I would cut back to 65gr and then 60gr and see what kind of groups you get. The other two lubes obviously aren't the solution. If you still get split groups like that, barrel bedding may be the answer.

Also, have you tried shooting Maxi-balls, with or without a felt wad behind them? I've got a .54 TC barrel that doesn't shoot great with RB, but is wicked with Maxis (only lube the rear groove).

 

[shootrj2003]

What Iwas trying to say was maybe you should try a thinner patch,my .54 [renegade]would actually call for a .010 as does my .50

 

[grousehunter]

i cant believe that gun shoots like that at 25 yards. i thought too much powder for sure but at that distance. maybee your balls are cast poorly. i took my gun out and tried loads up to 100 grains which i know wont hit anything past 50 yards but at 25 still got great groups. i took out 3 different weight balls even as i always weigh them and put them in different piles. i tried different patch thickness as well. i even ran dry patches. cant recipricate wat is happening in your gun. that distance seems to close for anything to matter. i even used balls that were 20 under, my wife bought them somewhere and i had relegated them to the slingshot. it still shoots better. there has to be a barrel problem. is your muzzle in proper shape?

 

[grousehunter]

oh yeah i even tried loading with sprue in various locations, even with sprue down on another note this worked quite well at lower charges and will be something i will investigate further

 

[jan buck]

apply Dutch Schoultz method. and check your guns nipple. where the flame comes out the hole. my sons renegade began shooting poorly, couldn't figure it out til i looked at the nipple and that was causing his lousy accuracy. the other option would be to find and buy a gm drop in barrel for superb accuracy. :thumbsup:

 

[grizzy adams]

put on a new spit fire nipple before shooting , and I have a slow twist gm barrel for it all ready , just shooting the tc barrel to see what it would do , it wont shoot prb or minnie for nuffin , i tried every thing , different powder , balls , patching , felt wads under prb etc , the tc barrel just dont group, i,m at the point of giving up on the tc barrel.

 

[ebiggs1]

I have shot more than two dozen TC’s and fund they all perform pretty much the same. Pretty good actually. I suspect you need to look at mechanics. I never noticed a great improvement between the touted superior lubes but to each his own. Bore Butter works as good as any. Look for damage to the barrel and mechanics. Maybe the way you are resetting after reloading. The same way each time? I think you have eliminated the hot side for problems.