Gold Dot range report

[yeoman]

I pulled the charge from my Hawken last Friday and reloaded a new 300 XTP 44cal and 90 grains of RS to hunt with Saturday. The old load had been in from the prior weekend. I've seen deer on every stand this year (10 armed) but just one buck with a broken antler so far. That's normal here. The coming Thurs.,Fri., Sat. are my historical best time to see a mature buck during firearms season.

After hunting Sat. AM I brought the gun in the house, then back out Sat. eve and back in again. Temp was in the 30's. I kept it inside barrel down Sat. night and headed to the range Sunday AM.

There was just one guy there finishing up when I arrived. Here's a picture of the range with 50 yds to right and 100,200,300yds to the left. Nice cement-carpeted tables.


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I put two 3" dots at the 50 and a 3" and 10" at 100.

First shot was at the 100 to empty the load with which I'd been hunting.

Cabela Hawken
90 RS
300 XTP 44 cal
Open Sights

As luck would have it....

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Guess I should have left that one in the gun!

I then loaded and fired 5 Gold Dots at one of the 50 yd. dots swabbing but not checking POI between shots using MMP green sabots. An ok 2 1/8" group. Same gun and 90 RS all shots today.

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Turned my attention to the 8" target at 100 and took 5 more shots using some old (>17 yrs) Hornady mag sabots that were harder to load. A normal 3 7/8" group for me. The outside shot far right was a hang fire, but didn't widen the group by much.

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Came back to the other 3" 50 yd dot for another 5 shots using (modern) Hornady sabots. The first 4 were encouraging at 1 1/4" and on the 5th got a delayed fire making it 2 1/4". I did like the way the first 4 were clustered directly over POA by 1 - 1.5".

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I'm awaiting an order from Hornady (even though I swore off ordering from them a while back) of green sabots and a box of 200 XTP's. I'm hopeful the gun is going to like the modern Hornady sabots with the Gold Dots at the 100 based on this last target. We'll see.

Hopefully my next pics will have bone in them too.

[cayugad]

That is some great shooting. I am taking it that you have a 1:48 twist in that rifle. That really is some excellent shooting.

[yeoman]

I am taking it that you have a 1:48 twist in that rifle

Uh..no Cayugad..... I'm cheating. This is the gun which came with a 54cal 1:48 barrel. I've still got it, never fired, but I've put a 50 cal GM 1:28 barrel on the stock, with help from Sabotloader. The last 1/2 hour I've been going through target pictures for the last 6 months or so looking at targets this barrel has produced, and I realize I'm starting to take it for granted.

When I'm leaving the range the owner always asks "How'd it go?" This weekend I answered "Well, they didn't all go through the same hole so I guess I have to come back".

Starting to feel like I'm chasing my tail.

[cayugad]

I have one of them barrels as well. I have mine mounted on a Renegade. Also I put a 1X T/C 32mm scope on mine. Its got a strange pet load.



For some reason, this barrel really likes a powerful load. I was shooting much lighter loads and it did well. Then on the range one day I decided to see how far I could push that load before it broke. Well at 120 grains of Black Powder, I decided I did not want to go any further. On a clean barrel it hit low and to the right. After that it just put them in there.

[lemoyne]

yeoman, with that many hang fires you might consider puting a 10 gr of 4 F black down the barrel for a primer charge to speed up your ignition when hunting. I went to a musket nipple and musket caps tro speed mine up. Lee

[yeoman]

Cayugad - I wonder if your barrel would have wanted 120 RS? Have you tried a variety of powders in it? All I have tried is 90 and 100 RS and Selects. When I go to 100 RS and 300 bullet it starts to pound me pretty good on the cheek. I don't touch the fore end shooting from the bench.

Lee - I have had few ignition problems with this gun using RWS caps. Maybe 1 delay per 20 shots and 1 hang per 40. This outing, I wondered if I may have forgotten to tap my rifle turned on its side as I normally do or if the cool weather kept my patches more damp than during summer. I do know I was a little distracted by thoughts of having to cut and set up a Christmas tree for my bride by nightfall.

[cayugad]

I have shot the Pyrodex RS out of the rifle. While it does well, I get a better ignition in all weather using the Black Powder. Plus, since I stock pile black powder as my main powder brand, I use it the most. Almost every rifle I shoot, I use either Goex or Graf's.

[Underclocked]

Yeoman - have you tried any Swiss FFFg in that rifle? I'm in love with the stuff.

[Mossie]

Yeoman, cayugad,

I have the .50 cal. GM LRH 1/28 twist barrel on an RMC Flintlock rifle as well. My rifle also seems to like the heavy charges to get the very best accuracy as well. The lighter charges still group very well but accuracy does increase a little up to maximium charges.

The most accurate powder that I have found so far in my rifle is Goex 3f. The Goex 2f is just about as accurate but the 3f has a bit more power and is very fast ignition. Swiss 2f was not as accurate as Goex in my rifle and have not tried Swiss 3f yet. Goex 3f is what I will probably stick with. The barrel shoots about anything in a sabot very well but does not group well with PB; Great Plains bullets do ok but the recoil with the heavy charges is a bit more than I like.

My favorite load is the Hornady .452 300 grain in an MMP short black standard sabot and 90-100 grains of Goex 3f. The .452 Hornady 250 grain in the same sabot is even a bit more accurate yet. I have only taken 1 deer so far with it and the 300 grainer; got drop at impact performance.

[Zugunruhe]

yeoman-

What flavor (wt.) of Gold Dots were you shooting?