Your .40 loads

[hanshi]

In my experience the tighter the loads, the quicker I'll break that skinny ramrod!

I use 40gn FFFg and 0.010 cotton spit patch with a buffer patch between powder and 0.395 ball. Without the buffer patch accuracy is terrible.

The .40 ramrod I have is 3/8". Since I get as good accuracy and velocity as with denim, I go with .022" ticking with .40 loads. Much easier on the rod, too.

 

[Pioneer flinter]

My favorite load for squirrels is a 380 ball a twenty thousandths ticking patch and 20 gr of fff. Can put 3 shots in a fifty cent piece at 25 yards.

 

[nkbj]

My Green Mountain barrels have both been .403 bore. The Ed Rayl barrel is .401.

 

[nhmoose]

For target and small game 35 grains 3fg, .395 ball with a .015 pillow tick cut at the muzzle lubed with bear grease and bee's wax.

I have won many matches with it at local shoots and NMLRA territorials and at the old Ft. Ty shoots. One year did a 50 4x on the squirrel gun match.

For deer same everything except I use two measures of powder 70 grains.

My gun is made with an early Green Mountain 42 inch barrel made into a flintlock

 

[Don Steele]

Thought it time to get in on this topic with a couple of questions for anyone who wishes to respond.
1. Of the pet loads reported so far I'm curious to know if any shoot flat enough to allow for center hold on the target at BOTH 25 and 50 yds..??
2. I'm curious about all the patch thickness numbers reported. Nobody specified if their patch readings are compressed or not. Yeah, I'm one of those fanatics who carries a micrometer to the fabric store.
My most used patch material measures .022/.014-15 (non-compressed/compressed).
My partner buys prelubed patches of a well respected brand. They are labeled .020. Ask him what he's shooting and he'll tell you "20 thousandth's". That turns out to be a non-compressed measurement. When I compressed them in my micrometer to get a consistent comparison with what I use, they were more like .015. [His commercial, pre-lubed patches were sufficient to be a component of the pistol load that got him a Gold medal at Friendship last September]
None of this matters once you know what works and how you measured or..in his case..ordered it but when we're tossing all these numbers around to each other, it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison without a little more information about how the patch thickness being reported was determined.

 

[nhmoose]

My material is .015 compressed and I take the mic when buying fabric.

6 o'clock at 25 and just raised into the black for 50. I find a center hold is closer to 75 depending on black size when they are the same.

 

[Tom Compton]

Path of the ball is a parabola. The muzzle velocity is important but so is the height of the front sight above centerline of the bore.

Shooting a 13/16 barrel w a font sight 1/4" high and sighted to hit point of aim at 25 will have a different point of impact at 50 than one as mine 7/8" barrel and sight near 3/8" high.

Yes w 50 gr FFg mine is on at 25 and 50.

I report my denim material NOT compressed as I have found few folks get the same compression. Calipers vs micrometers vs how tight is tight. Not to mention my 70 year old arthritic hands vs my son's 36 year old grip.
TC

 

[nhmoose]

One has to shoot and learn their own gun IMHO. Nothing beats doing it yourself. You will win nothing on plain old talk. Especially on the internet.

 

[Zonie]

Thought it time to get in on this topic with a couple of questions for anyone who wishes to respond.
1. Of the pet loads reported so far I'm curious to know if any shoot flat enough to allow for center hold on the target at BOTH 25 and 50 yds..??

...

I don't have any test data for the .40 caliber rifle in my Lymans Black Powder Handbook but just looking at the velocities they got in a .36 shooting patched roundballs tells me that a really hot powder load in a .40 could approach 2100 fps.

Using 2100 fps and a .390 diameter ball in my roundball ballistics calculator says a rifle sighted in at 50 yards could expect to see the ball hitting at the same elevation as it would at 25 yards if the height of the front sight was .66 above the center of the bore.

(The .66 represents a 13/16" octagon barrel with the top of front sight 1/4" above the top flat.)

Getting to a more realistic velocity of 1800 fps, the ball would be hitting about 5/16" (.30) high at 25 yards with it dead center at 50 yards.

 

[mooman76]

Patch thickness and compressed or not compressed doesn't matter. What works for one isn't necessarily best for another. .020 compressed may work best for a certain caliber of mine but the same caliber of another, .018 may work best. I don't measure compressed, I let the clutch slip on the mic and that's where I get my measure.

 

[Don Steele]

Thanks Zonie. That is interesting technical information that I was unaware of.

 

[hanshi]

I also carry my caliper to the fabric store. I also like to know the compression of the patch. 60 grains of 3F scats a prb out of the bore at around 2150 fps when I use mink oil which is my hunting lube of choice. The mattress ticking I use is around .022" to a minimum of .020". With a .400" bore and .010" + .010" = .42". A .390" ball + .022" + .022" patch = .434". Thus a compression of .014". If the material is .020" compression is still .010". I could probably use a .395" ball without making much difference in seating pressure.

 

[Snakebite]

I have a .40 S. Mtn Rifle built by Jim Parker (Calvary Longrifles) with a 42" barrel. I worked up a good flat shooting load of 60grs of 3F, pillow ticking and mink oil lube. Good groups from 25 out to 75m's, haven't shot it out to 100m. That's what works for me.

 

[hanshi]

I have shot the .40, using the 60 grain load, at 100 yards and it (meaning me) was capable of 3.5" to 4.0" groups. I can't actually shoot that well so can't do that on demand. But the rifle is quite capable, I'm convinced, of even better accuracy.

 

[Don Steele]

Mine likes 65gn 3f Goex at 100 yds.
That said, I Shoot so few 100 yd targets, it's hard to know if that's the best load, but it works ok.