Questions, t/c hawken 250 Real Bullets

[270WSMANIC]

Greetings all, I’m new here but not new to muzzelloading I do have a couple questions though. I am trying to get my 50 tc hawken to shoot the 250gr Lee real bullet. With a ghost ring rear aperture sight and bead front sight and off sandbags using 90gr 777 at 25yds about 1 in. group and 3-4 in. at 100 yds. Don’t sound bad right? Problem is I am getting unexplained flyers they will open the 25yd group by 3-4 in. in any direction and the 100yd group by 10 -12 in.
The bullets as cast from my lee electric melter look pretty good and mostly weigh within 4-5 grains of each other, can small flaws in the bullets cause the flyers? I’m also wondering about the lead being pure. I was always told if you can scratch the lead with thumbnail its ok. Is their a more scientific way, short of having a Rockwell tester to check the quality of your lead supply?
Thanks in advance for your help. If it ever stops snowing around here will get out and shoot some more maybe try backing of the load a bit. I did manage to kill a doe this year with the load it did a fine job and no flyer on that shot.

 

[roundball]

IMO, that's very good performance and shooting skill in general...just have to get a handle on the odd ball (no pun intended) flyer.

777 is pretty hot powder and just brainstorming, you may be getting patch failure (burn-through) every now and then causing the flyers.

As a simple thing to try with stuff you already have on hand, try seating a spare lubed patch down on the powder first to act as a firewall, then seat your PRB on top of it.

Lay it on the muzzle, and poke start it in the middle so the material around the edges sort of pucker's up evenly all around, then seat it down...that keeps a lot of material out around the periphery of the ball when it gets seated down to help plug those grooves from gas pressure blow-by.

If this eliminates your flyers you can buy a bag of Oxyoke prelubed wool wads made for this very purpose...I use them with every fairly large powder charge hunting rifle load I use, in all calibers.

 

[rawhide]

hi and wellcome first I want to ask. are you wipping between shots or not? fouling in the bore can cuase fliers. I shoot .380 reals out of my hawken in .54. try that first. I know in mine I get 3 good shots the 4 will go wide if I don't wipe the bore clean. or some guys here like to put a lubed felt wad under the bullet and clame to get better shot groups all thuogh I havn't tried this yet worth a shot. and yes you want as pure as lead as you can get for casting. also I noticed when casting these bullets I hold the dipper up alittle higher when I pore and then pore it in one fluid motion. helps to not cause air pockets in the bullet. if there is a air pocket in the bullet it will cause it to go wild.let us know how it go's

 

[larry wv]

I would try less powder maybe 80 or less. Thats a pretty hefty load. Regroup from there.Some one will have more info.. Larry Wv

 

[R.M.]

Welcome.
RB. The REAL bullets don't use a patch, but, a felt wad between the powder and bullet just may be the ticket.
I'm guessing that you're casting the bullets yourself? Drop an ingot on the garage floor and listen to the sound it makes. A thud will be soft, and a ring will be much harder. I know, high-tech, but a good indicator.

 

[roundball]

Welcome.
RB. The REAL bullets don't use a patch, but, a felt wad between the powder and bullet just may be the ticket.
I'm guessing that you're casting the bullets yourself? Drop an ingot on the garage floor and listen to the sound it makes. A thud will be soft, and a ring will be much harder. I know, high-tech, but a good indicator.

:grin: Yeah, was focused on explaining the possibility of blowby and then the subconcious took over plugging in the wrap-up reference to PRBs.
Although, a prelubed patched concial might be interesting :hmm:

 

[Rat Trapper]

A lubed felt wad under the bullet will help. I have always had better luck with my TC hawken using the Hornady great plains 385 grain bullet. You might take the time to weight out your bullets and try to get them closer to the same weight.

 

[270WSMANIC]

Thanks for the quick replies, going to cast some new bullets after bit and will try reducing the load and or the lubed patch-felt wad trick next time I shoot. When hunting I keep a pocket full of speed loaders handy, I'm guessing the patch or wad have to be ramed down between powder and bullet and not included in the speed loader and shoved down at the same time as the bullet what is ya'lls experiance with that aspect of loading?

 

[roundball]

When I used some TC reloaders, I included the Oxyoke wad right in it as part of the whole load, started all the components at the same time.
I only commented about seating a spare 'patch' separately to ensure all the excess material was evenly distributed around, to avoid any possible uneven seating & sealing situation...but you won't have that same situation with a flat wad.

 

[270WSMANIC]

Thanks RB, I'll be getting some of those wads first chance I get.

 

[Richard Brinkman]

First off welcome to the forum. Lots of good advice here one thing I would do is to try to get more consistancy on the bullets that you are casting. 4 to 5 grains variation on a 250 grain bullet is a lot! You are probably getting some air pockets in your bullets. If nothing else weight some out and select a handfull of the heaviest ones and try them against the lighter ones at 100 yards bet you see a big difference.
One other thing look closely at the base of the bullets and make sure that they are completely filled out.

Good luck and enjoy!

 

[Idaho Ron]

A friend of mine and I have done some testing with a TC White mountain carbine with 777. At 100 gr his stock broke shooting 410 gr Hornady Great Plains bullets. He got 1500 fps out of it. I would not recommend doing that.
I don’t like 777 so I use Pyrodex P. If your going to stick with the 777 I would back off to about 70 gr and work up.
I have had my best luck with an over powder wad. I use a lightly lubed felt wad that I cut at .62” for my 50. I would bet that your getting blow by that is cutting the bullet.
You said you have a Lee melter. Is it a bottom pour pot? I know some guys like them but I don’t. They don’t pour at a steady rate. They are always in a state of plugging. They work great for a little while and soon it slows down. When it slows down the lead is cooling as it goes in. When that happens the mould doesn’t fill out and weight will change. I use a lead dipper for my conicals. I pour up to 480 gr bullets. The bottom pour was just not accurate enough. I plugged the bottom and use a laddle.
I would be happy at +- 1.0 grain with a real. Are you using lube on the REAL’s? I like the BPCR type lubes when I am shooting them.
About your lead. I can scratch lead that is 22 BHN with my thumb. In my opinion it is not a good test. R.M. is right. If you drop an ingot a hard lead ingot will ring. Soft with thud. Problem is the lead in between. I use a Cabine Tree lead hardness tester. It has paid for it’s self by keeping me from buying the wrong lead. Then as I started to do hardness tests and how hardness will affect groups I found that I can tweak the best groups out of my rifle by adjusting the lead alloy. The Cabine Tree is the easiest and most usable hardness tester. I don’t know the guy that makes them but his idea was genius.
The best I have been able to get so far out of REAL bullets is 3.2” at 100 yards. While that is not too bad I like my bullets to be under 2” groups at 100 yards. Cutting the powder, using a over powder wad, and quality control on the bullets will help shrink groups. Ron

 

[William O.]

Nothing to add except that Triple 7 is 15% hotter than other subs so reduce your loads accordingly. Swab your barrel with an alcohol soaked cleaning patch in between shots too. I use the same REAL bullets in my .50 fast twist barrel but as it has been shortened due to a bulge at the end it's only for targets under 50 yards. If you get a chance to use traditional black powder you may see better, more consistant results.

 

[270WSMANIC]

Thanks for the info Ron, the melter is a bottom pore. I made some new reals yesterday I got the directions out and found that when the spout is clogging or dripping it said to take a screwdriver and turn the slotted top of the pin that opens and closes the spout. You can't realy turn it much just back and forth a few times, it straightened it right up. Ever so often I had to do it again. I was then getting a fast pore that filled the mold quick, I tried holding the mold tight against the spout long enough for the cavity to fill and setup and found I had a very tiny sprue to cut off. Worked so well I will use this way as opposed to holding the mold down an inch or so and having a mess of lead on top the sprue cutter. I was using some lead that I think is close to or is pure. 21 weighed 252-253gr. 15 253-254gr and 4 250-251. Im keeping them marked and sorted and will try them when weather and time permits.

 

[Idaho Ron]

Check the bullets to see if the lighter ones filled out right. You can use a set of calipers to measure the heavy and light ones. But the best way is to see if they are filled out better. I have found that most of the time if your going over the weight of a mould you either have very soft lead OR you’re not keeping the mould closed at the same pressure. I have also found that lead pipe is very good alloy to use for conicals. It is very close to pure but has enough tin in it to get it to flow well. Ron

 

[270WSMANIC]

Ok, finally got to shoot with new bullets still no good. Tried several different things dropped the charge to 65gr 777 still getting flyers. Over powder patch flyers. PRB flyers, PRB with over powder patch flyers, PRB 70gr ff black powder flyers. 240gr PA conicals poor group with flyers. Tried swabing every shot or 2 no help. Quite often would get 2 touching then maybe 3rd would be 4” out of the group. By the way 30yds off sand bags. Ran out of daylight or I might have tried a heavier charge. My son was with me shooting his TC Hawken flinter with PRB and shooting good groups time permitting will try the 250 Reals and the PA conicals in his gun. One thing I noticed was when shooting PRB in my gun patches were badly shredded without the overpowder patch, with it they were holding together but had small holes in them. My last 3 shot group of the day PRB 60gr 777 with overpowder patch , first 2 shots were in the center of the 2” bullseye overlapping !!! 3rd shot 4” out of group. I some how resisted urge to wrap gun around tree. Its possible the overpowder patch failed to protect the 3rd shot its also possible with me racing daylight that I forgot to use overpowder patch on that shot. At any rate the PRB patch should hold up better then it did even without the extra patch. I’m thinking get out the grinding compound and try smoothing the rifling out a bit. The 490PRB with .015 patch loaded easy but I don’t think to easy in other words fairly tight. Now I need another good day to shoot according to the weather forecast I’ll be waiting a while @!$$%*&.

 

[wvbuckbuster]

I use drill cloth to make my patches. You can buy it at JoAnn's. It has a tighter weave and amite thicker. Have you tried black powder or pyrodex? Try adjusting your loads of the 777 raise or lower but only change one thing at a time. Maybe a different lube? You will find what your gun likes just keep at it.

 

[270WSMANIC]

I use drill cloth to make my patches. You can buy it at JoAnn's. It has a tighter weave and amite thicker. Have you tried black powder or pyrodex? Try adjusting your loads of the 777 raise or lower but only change one thing at a time. Maybe a different lube? You will find what your gun likes just keep at it.

Thanks for the reply wvbuckbuster, I i said in my post tried 2ffg black no help. I'm begening to think I may have lead build up in rifeling, going to try lead remover and a good brushing before heading to the farm again to shoot also need some good weather, seems to be hard to come by again this winter.

 

[Tom Compton]

Welcome.
RB. The REAL bullets don't use a patch, but, a felt wad between the powder and bullet just may be the ticket.
I'm guessing that you're casting the bullets yourself? Drop an ingot on the garage floor and listen to the sound it makes. A thud will be soft, and a ring will be much harder. I know, high-tech, but a good indicator.

Best, easiest and cheapest check came early. Tried it yet? I know the weather is a hinderance.