Okay, I picked up my first black powder rifle last night, its a Traditions Pursuit XLT with a camo thumb-hole stock and nickel barrel.
I don't know much about black powder but my father does. He has been shooting black powder for a few years and I figured this year I will give it a shot. Is there anything I should know about this gun? I am going to be hunting whitetail here in FL, so what powder should I get and which grain bullet?
Hey whitetail, welcome to the wonderful world of muzzleloading, you will be having fun. I would try 100 grains of 777 2f and a 250 grain bonded Shockwave, both of which you can usually buy at Wal-Mart. Try the Winchester 777 209's also, they cut down on any chance of the dreaded 777 crud ring... good luck!!
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"A single shot rifle and a one eyed dog"
The Tradition's Pursuit should be a good shooting rifle. I too would suggest some Triple Se7en 2f or Pyrodex RS. The difference being, the Pyrodex is more corrosive and might need more careful swabbing of the barrel, although it had excellent power, good consistancy, is cheaper normally, and is a dependable powder in high humidity areas. Start your testing of the rifle with about 80 grains and work upward from there. The rifle should tune in between 90-100 grains of powder but all rifles are different, so who can really guess.
As for projectiles, 245 grain Powerbelts, 240 grain XTP Thompson Center Mag Express, 300 grain T/C mag Express XTP's, or 250 grain shockwaves should work in the sabot department. In conicals you could try maxiball, or some Great Plains Conicals if you like to throw big lead around. No telling what the rifle will like.
I am sure you are going to get some good advice from your father. Swab the barrel between shots on the range, and learn a good load. Since you're a bow hunter you know, after that it is all about placement of the shot. Good luck.
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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, a total wreck, screaming Yahoo, with a big smile on your face."
I'd start with some Triple Se7en FFGor Pyrodex RS powder and some 250grHornady SSTs or T/C Shockwaves (basically theexact same thing).Start with 80 or 90gr powder and increase up to maximum (modern inlines usually have a 150grmax charge, reduce by 15% with Triple Se7en but notPyrodex), or stop when your groups start getting poor. You now know where to experiment for best group size,or forbest combination of accuracy and power.
Thank you everyone, this has been very helpful so far. As for powder, my booklet states; If using a granular powder measure, maximum charge is 110 grains of Pyrodex or ffg or 93 grains of Triple 7 loose powder. I plain to use the "pellets" (at least that is what my father calls them), is that the same as granular in terms of powder? If so, does that seem a little low?
According to the online manual, the Traditions XLT has a max charge of 150gr Pyrodex, or 130gr T7. [>:]Pellets and granular may weigh the same with pyrodex, but loose T7 is more powerful than the pellet T7 and must be reduced by 15%.
You must be reading the max load for shotguns, not rifles. That's for a 1 1/4 oz load of shot. Check page 26 of your manual, or page 19 of 26 in the above PDF format.
First Muzzleloader
