You need to stop thinking of your muzzle loader in terms of centerfire rifle performance. The patched round ball (PRB) kills game all out of proportion to what is indicated on paper but you must keep in mind it's limitations as far as range as well as shot placement. Your Trade Rifle should be very accurate using PRB along with the right powder charge and will not need any more power/"umph". Wild hogs are not bullet proof and a 50 caliber RB placed in the right spot is deadly in short order. I suggest you start with 50 grains of 3f powder, a .490 RB, .015-.018 thickness patch material either prelubed/pre-cut or find some 100% cotton mattress ticking at your local fabric store and after washing it, then lube with olive oil. Set your target at 50 yards and shoot three times, swabbing the bore after every shot. Then increase your powder charge by 5 grains and repeat until your groups get nice and tight. Your best powder charge should be around 1.5 times your caliber, or 75 grains but your rifle will tell you what it likes. Do not adjust or file your sights yet, you're just looking for an accurate amount of powder and PRB combination. Since this is a new Lyman barrel I also suggest that you use something like JB's bore compound after every range session and to expect to put about 100 shots through it before best accuracy is achieved. I can't stand the Lyman adjustable rear sight and always use the primitive buckhorn that they include, but to adjust the point of impact you will need to either drift the sight left or right using a brass punch or file down the front sight to raise POI. It's not as difficult as it sounds but I understand the anxiety when taking a file to your new rifle barrel. Just go slow and you'll have a wonderfully accurate pig killer in no time.iwuzwhatiwuz said:
If it is very noticably off to one side or the other then just center it the best you can, then don't adjust it again until you figure out the best load for it. If you notice that it is hitting the target off to the right but the front sight looks centered on the barrel then leave it alone for now. What you want to do is have only one variable to deal with right now, and that is the amount of powder you're using. Once you find out what your rifle "likes" then you start to change other variable, adjust the sights for point of impact, etc. Unless the front sight is just hanging off to one side I would leave it alone at this stage. This goes along with my other advice as to swabbing the bore with an alcohol dampened cleaning patch between every shot as doing that returns things to nearly the same as when you first started, therby eliminating one more varible. Now, this is by far not the only way of sighting in a new muzzle loader but too many times if you're new to muzzle loading and don't have someone experienced to take you to the range and show you how it's done, people get frustrated by the process, proclaim that muzzle loaders are messy, inaccurate weapons and we are better off using something more modern. Folks tend to start off with powder charges that are pushing maximum recommendations, make sudden, drastic changes to their sights and introduce more and more varibles without an understanding as to what effect those will have on accuracy which leads to frustration. This is magnified when starting off with a flintlock to a certain extent, although I don't think it is a major concern it does add to the learning curve. Fortunately your TR is a reliable, well built ML that will give you a lifetime of service.iwuzwhatiwuz said:
Ah, now I see. The factory may have left off the sight so you can choose either the fixed or adjustable as they come with both. As I said before, I can't stand the adjustable so I always put the primitive Buckhorn on my Lyman rifles. Do center the front sight and then go sight it in, have a good time at it too.iwuzwhatiwuz said:
