Shooting Traditional Firearms and Weapons > General Interest

GREENHORN QUESTION ON HUNTING LOADS AND PATCHES

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Three Hawks:
Your load sounds like a winner.  The fastest load attainable is useless if it misses.  

To deburr the rifling in a muzzleloader to make it easier to load and stop patch cutting on rifling burrs, first clean the bore as well as you can.  Now go to the auto parts house and buy a tube of the finest valve grinding compound they've got.   Take some wet cleaning patches, load as many on your cleaning jag as you can get and still get it into the bore.  Next smear some of the grinding compound on the wet patches and run it the full length of the bore until you feel even resistance the entire length.  

You should only do this one time in the life of the rifle as you are only deburring the rifling and incidentally slightly evening the bore.   I've done this on three of my muzzleloaders, improving ease of loading and accuracy in each one.

This procedure salvaged one Traditions rifle that otherwise would have gone onto the prize blanket.  

My old, much loved .50 T-C Hawken would develop a "hard spot" about eight inches down after three or four shots, making succesive shots more and more difficult to the point of impossibility  without a thorough cleaning.  After doing the valve paste procedure one time, it now loads easily fifty or more shots without wiping or cleaning.  

Your mileage, as always, may vary.

Three Hawks

vermontfreedom:
Fist-sized groups at 75 yards is about, what, 4-5 inches. At 50 yards, those will be 2 or 3. I'd say that's pretty good already!

I'd say your patch thickness and charge is good. You could consider going up or down 5 grains for fine-tuning, but I really think your actually there.

Just practice now, and if you were shooting off bench and bags, start (and keep!) practicing from whatever positions you'll be hunting from. If you can keep those groups from seated, kneeling, and especially offhand, you're doing good.

Oh, and if you're getting good groups with PRB and your patches are "blown" or "torn"...so what! There's no harm in it, just take a little extra care to clean the lead off your lands when you're done.

I learned on a Lyman Trade Rifle that was 20+ years old when I got it. I used 90 grains FF Goex under a .490 RB wrapped in 0.010 patches. The fit was really loose and patches would come out burned in several spots (surprisingly), but dang wouldn't it group well- 1 inches at 50 yards. Cloverleaf on a good day. So...who cares if the patches burned through if your groups are good.

And like others have said if it's a new barrel, the edges of your lands will wear down after 50 or 100 shots or so and the cut patches will lessen or disappear. Don't be afraid (or worried) if they don't. I've put over 700 rounds through my .54 and one edge of one land still cuts patches...and it shoots fine.

Keep at it and good luck!

grizz:
thanks for the in put folks,
the gun has had about 200 rounds shot thru it so the barrel may  be a little green.also the patches may have a little long shelf life on them,which ive been told that the lube may be breaking down the cotton fibers.i may try the valve compound ,because i noticed that when shooting the ball-ets that the ball would hang up about 8-9" down the bore.i have noticed while shooting with different grain conical i.e. maxi balls and ball-ets then rb that the higher the grain of bullet the higher the gr of powder and vise versa the lower the grain the lower the powder to get a group at 75 yards which is my max for deer hunting.i ackowledge that comon sense takes over ,but i would expect that a given load of say 70 grains would be the mid point of a common load for this gun.oh well their goes my redneck knowledge again  :rofl .i do like the groups at 75 yards with the 65 gr /ball-etts combo for deer hunting and will keep working on the rdball /patch combo with a double patch or over the powder fix.hey what is with the cornmeal , i never heard of that.wouldnt that cause more fowling?

thanks again for all the response
merry CHRISTmas

the grizz

Roaddog:
It makes Little differentce in fouling. it is used for a buffer in revolvers for a buffer to make the ball sit at the top of the slender when shooting lighter lodes.

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