M.I.A.

[yeoman]

I haven't been here much in 8 or 10 weeks. Weather was crappy for shooting, took a vacation, been working diligently on a property purchase and Spring has sprung meaning chores and more chores. Oh yeah, and work too. Looks like you fellas have been busy! I did manage to get to the range Sunday. It's on the way to the hunting property I'm on the road to buying. If I do, I'll have a nice 200-300 yd. place to shoot for free...... well, not exactly.

I'm hoping to tune the Hawken so it is POA at 200 using 100 Pyrodex RS and the 200/10mm XTP. Looking at the charts and using a BC of .19 and FPS of 2000, I got a +3.6" @ 50 and +5.9" @ 100 to be zerod at 200. I drew a + above the target dot center at 3.6" and went to work. First thing I noticed was how clean my bore stayed during the last 10 weeks of no use. Not a speck of color on the patch I ran down the bore. Using the bottom center of the target as a POA, I got this. I started this process 10 weeks ago so the sights look to be darn close.

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Looking at the "clean bore" shot, I'm wondering, if I were to load with 100 T7 for the clean bore shot rather than Pyrodex, maybe my first shot would be in the group. I'll have to try that. I moved the rear sight a tad right and went to the 100. Using the bottom center of a 5" target as POA, I had a really nice +/- 1" 3 shot group going top center, one breaking and two just out of the dot, so the sight adjustment was excellent...... and then. As I ran the 4th sabot down the bore, I met resistance just before seating and made a mental note of it. No big deal, just didn't feel the same crisp seating on the powder. Took the shot, it felt good, but when I looked through the spotting scope, it was way upper left, turning the group from 1" into 4". Shot 5 joined the first 3 to be a 2.25" 4 shot group. Dang I hate those fliers! Coulda, woulda. I went on to try other POA's and left that target at the range.

This weekend I'll take the crab paper down to the 200 and cover the backstop so I can see my misses, of which I'm sure there will be plenty. Till then, good shooting.

[frontier gander]

That .45 deer creek i had did the same thing but with triple 7. First shot, perfect at 100, next 3 shots were 3" high. Switched to Pyrodex and all 3 shots would cluster into a 1" group.

Might just be that your barrel does best on a fouled bore. From the looks of that group, its on pretty good!

[yeoman]

Gander - this gun definitely wants the bore fouled.

I was looking at some back posts and saw your GP flinter. That is definitley the finest work I've seen you put up so far. It really turned out nice. Congratulations! ..and looks like it shoots too!

[cayugad]

nice shooting there...

its nice to have your own range..

[gleason.chapman]

Beautiful group at 50 yards open sights Hawken. 1st shot count however, so I see your delimina. I would try the Pyrodex that FG said. Chap

[yeoman]

Chap - I was using Pyrodex. Were you suggesting trying Pyrodex P?