Target Rifle Contest

[cannonball1]

I ask a friend of mine what group he thought I could shoot at 300 yards with thirteen shots with my target rifle and a dead rest. Three of the worst shots would not be counted. Here are the specs: 45 caliber, Green Mountain barrel, 503 grain single wrap paper patch bullet, 70 grains Swiss powder. Here is the excuse: I am a senior citizen.

What is your 10 shot group guess? I will not lie and I will tell you what my friends answer was. It might take a while to find a very little breeze day.
Here is the gun

 

[William Sublette]

What is your 10 shot group guess?

Minute of barn door.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

[QUOTE="cannonball1, post: 1804799, member: 26614"]
I ask a friend of mine what group he thought I could shoot at 300 yards with thirteen shots with my target rifle and a dead rest. Three of the worst shots would not be counted. Here are the specs: 45 caliber, Green Mountain barrel, 503 grain single wrap paper patch bullet, 70 grains Swiss powder. Here is the excuse: I am a senior citizen.

What is your 10 shot group guess? I will not lie and I will tell you what my friends answer was. It might take a while to find a very little breeze day.
Here is the gun
[/QUOTE]
Is your friend and experienced muzzleloader or just a guy who plays golf? That will help in getting a guess related to his knowledege.

 

[andy52]

On a good day with low wind, 10-12 inches would be my guess.

 

[cannonball1]

[QUOTE="cannonball1, post: 1804799, member: 26614"]
I ask a friend of mine what group he thought I could shoot at 300 yards with thirteen shots with my target rifle and a dead rest. Three of the worst shots would not be counted. Here are the specs: 45 caliber, Green Mountain barrel, 503 grain single wrap paper patch bullet, 70 grains Swiss powder. Here is the excuse: I am a senior citizen.

What is your 10 shot group guess? I will not lie and I will tell you what my friends answer was. It might take a while to find a very little breeze day.
Here is the gun

Is your friend and experienced muzzleloader or just a guy who plays golf? That will help in getting a guess related to his knowledege.
[/QUOTE]
He is an old sour-dough guy who knows his muzzleloaders.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

I could hit a flea’s eye from that distance with every shot. Easy.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

Is your friend and experienced muzzleloader or just a guy who plays golf? That will help in getting a guess related to his knowledege.

He is an old sour-dough guy who knows his muzzleloaders.
[/QUOTE]
Now, is his opinion of your shooting abilities favorable?? You could be the best shooter here on the forum, but if he does not think so, you will have a very wide group.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

I could hit a flea’s eye from that distance with every shot. Easy.

Benched, or offhand??

 

[52Bore]

with that load, barrel, sights and bench - 3moa

 

[cannonball1]

Flintl. My friend does not think I can hit a 12" plate with five shots of the 13 shots with my peep.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

I could hit a flea’s eye from that distance with every shot. Easy.

That's some big fleas out your way...

 

[cannonball1]

We have been pulling out bushes and trees. We finally have our yard done and the wind quit blowing blowing forty miles an hour after what seemed to be an eternity. Today it was around 5 to 6 miles an hour, so I went to the range. I set the target up at 300 yards, went back, loaded up, and got set to shoot. I couldn't see the target. The Dr. told me I had cataracts, until then I didn't realize how bad. I then set the target at 200 yards with a 4 to 6 mile an hour side wind. This is the best I could do. The shot touching the red on the bottom was the first shot and the very bottom shot was where I forgot to clean the barrel. That paper patched bullet was hard to get down the barrel. Pull those two shoots out, with the remaining 6 shots I got a 4 1/2" group. I did go to my trusty software on the cell phone, elevated the peep up fourteen clicks and hit a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood at 800 yards. I could see that. Hope they can give me lens to make me far sighted

 

[fleener]

Well, when I read this and saw 52 bores answer, I was thinking that 3 MOA might be optimistic. Then I went down stairs to look at the target I have hanging on the wall that I shot a few years ago at F'ship.

It is a 300 yard match, shoot 13 shots, score the best 10. Shooting is done from prone position, using cross sticks. Rifle was a Don Brown Alex Henry .451 rifle with a GG bullet, around 530 grains, most likely around 80 grains of powder (too lazy to go look in my book for exact load data).

If you strictly are looking for group size, it looks like it would be just over 7" for 10 shots. That would be discounting the top 2 holes and one that is out of the picture that you cant see.

This target was good enough to set a national record in 2008, that no longer stands I am sure.

Shooting off a table with support front and rear I think we can do better then this.

Fleener

 

[fleener]

The difficulty of shooting small groups at longer ranges is the changing of conditions and the time it takes to shoot 13 shots. Shooting from a table will speed things up over shooting prone, but it will still be around a half hour to do all the shots.

With that target I was shoot for score, not for group size, so I was cranking on the sights trying to find the ten ring and since my group was not in the 10 ring I was constantly trying to get it there with each shot and cranking on the sights after each shot.

When I shot the posted target, I was making sight changes for wind and elevation during the match. As conditions changes you need to make the necessary adjustments in your sights. Or at least hope you are making the right adjustments.

It has only happened to me once that I was able to shoot in a match and not make any sight adjustments. It was the first year I think we shot 200 yards at Oakridge TN. Once I got in the 10 ring I went for score and I shot a 99 6x at 200 yards. My last shot was the 9. In the pit they quit using the marker on the target as I was shooting the heck out of it.

Fleener

 

[cannonball1]

Fleener, That is cool. I have 10 grandsons and I might have three that will be interested in muzzleloading. I am hoping for more, but there are to many outside interests today: mountain biking, hiking the canyons, skiing, Baseball, etc.. Lets face it muzzleloading takes a lot of time and commitment. We have an advantage here in our small community, a shooting range with targets every one hundred yards to 900 yards, up to one mile long. It is not used much, during the day, Monday thru Thursday. Sad thing is my Grandsons don't live here. Sad to say most are city kids.