Success at last with trade musket!

[NorthFork]

I recently purchased a Pedersoli Indian Trade Musket. I bought it with the intention of shooting mostly ball and some shot. Well getting good useful shot patterns and densities at varying distances was almost too easy. But decent round ball accuracy eluded me. No matter what I tried I simply could not get a consistently accurate group at 50 yards or beyond. I also discovered that my sight picture for shot would be very different than with ball. For some reason the ball loads hit the target VERY low in comparison to shot loads. Was very frustrating. Being a bulldog by nature, I just would not give up. Went shooting with a good friend today. He wanted to verify zero on his modern slug gun for deer season. My first shot of the day was roughly 1 foot higher than the next 3 shots. I then loaded a SkyChief shot load for him shoot as he had never shot a flintlock before. He ended up shooting two shots. I went back to my ball load. First shot again went roughly 1 foot high. He mentioned that maybe it liked a clean oiled bore. So I decided to try something different for a change. I had been using 80 grs 2f, a mink oil lubed patch either .010", .015", or .018" and either a .600" or .610" ball. Just trying different combinations to see what worked best. This time I used 80grs 2f, 1/8" card, a SkyChief oiled wad, .015" patch lightly dampened with the excess oil from the wad, and a .600" ball. First shots went over the target into the berm. Remember I'm trying to compensate for very low hitting ball loads. I then tried the same sight picture for the shot load. I proceeded to put 5 shots into a group measuring 3.875" CTC. This was at 50 yards. The group was dead on. Not low, high, left or right. I then shot 3 at 25 yards. 1/2" CTC group. This was dead on as well. I went to the 75 yard bench which is actually 82.2 yards. Shot 4 shots holding dead on the bull. One shot went 3.5" high of the X. The 3 other were an average of 4" low and were 3.5" CTC. EUREKA! Moral of the story, stick with it! I think I do know what the problem was. The patched RBs without the card and wad had an excessive amount of blowby and were not achieving proper velocity. The addition of the card and wad helped cure that. The damp wad effectively cleans the barrel when rammed down so that helps eliminate the 'clean bore fliers'. Might be unconventional, but it works.

 

[thomas]

Good for you for not giving up! :thumbsup:

 

[Britsmoothy]

Wow, that is super performance :thumbsup:

B.

 

[NorthFork]

I should add that all of these shots were from a bench using a large vee shaped sandbag for the forearm of the stock. No bags or other support for the butt. I don't want someone thinking that I'm claiming these were shot offhand.

 

[hthomso]

So Northfork, how do you like the Pedersoli Indian Trade Musket in general? Is the quality and workmanship good? Does the lock function reliably, do you get fast ignition? Thinking about getting one myself.

 

[NorthFork]

Overall quality on mine is very good. I have not had the lock problems others such as Britsmoothy have had. Lock sparks well. Not the best sparker I've seen but by no means the worst either. Frizzen spring is a bit stiff but I don't know that I will mess with it. It can be a flint smasher but I do get good flint life before I need to knapp a new sharp edge. Fit and finish is very nice. While it is a factory muzzleloader, you can tell there is quite a bit of hand fitting/finishing that went into it. Was not slapped together by unskilled/uncaring slobs. It is not the faster ignition I've seen (or should that be heard??), but after I drilled the touch hole out to 1/16" it is MUCH faster. I am currently using an Ampco touch hole liner drilled out to 1/16" and am not having any difficulties. Now that I've got a good ball load I'm VERY VERY happy with it. Even if I had not found a good ball load, I was satisfied enough with just it's shotgun performance that I was pleased with it. Heck I'm even using the factory ramrod and have had no breakage issues. Things I wish Pedersoli would of done different are, the correct sideplate and ramrod pipes. I can see myself changing or modifying these in the future. I'm pretty picky and petty when it comes to many things in life. If I'm not 95-100% satisfied with a firearm it goes on the trade blanket or in the used rack at the local dealer. I'm keeping mine and if I had to do it all over again I'd buy another Pedersoli. That's the best endorsement of this firearm I can give.

 

[hthomso]

Thanks for the info, Northfork!

 

[spudnut]

I came to the same conclusion,I shot paper cartridges for years in a llp brown Bess very well,but I sold it and aquired a 58 and a 60 call tradegun,Couldn't really get a good paper cartridge goin with them , but found a wad of tow over powder and a thin patched ball worked great.No blow by and the thin patch is easy to pull a ball!

 

[Skychief]

Great report NorthFork :thumbsup:

Glad that you found your "Eureka" load. Reminds me of a thread I posted quite awhile back called Smoothbore Nirvana. Very satisfying aren't they?? :hatsoff:

Keep it up and good luck. Looking forward more reports, Skychief.

 

[Docgp]

I've had very good luck with a similar load, just chewed round ball and a OS card instead of patch.

Great shooting.

Doc