The objective of my Sunday range session with the .54 Great Plains flintlock was to see how much of a difference, if any, a wad made to accuracy.
The plan was to shoot four five-shot groups - two with a .530 ball with wad and without wad, and two with a .535 ball with wad and without wad. I had also intended to shoot the test loads over the chronograph for velocity comparisons, but decided I didn't want to fool with it in the heat.
All shots were at
50 yardsfrom a bench with
85 grains GOEX FFFg, a
Wal-Mart pillow tick patch, and my
25% bees wax/25% Crisco/50% olive oil lube. The bore was wiped with one side of a damp patch and one side of a dry patch between shots.
Here's the first target fired with the
.530 ball and no wad. That's a
two and one-quarter inch group (about my average at 50 yards with iron sights and this gun).
Here's the second target with a felt Remington Wonder Wad under the
.530 ball. A
two and three-quarter in group.But three of the shots are touching. Maybe I'm not shooting up to theload's potential.
Here's the third target with the
.535 ball and no wad. A
two and one-half inch group.
And here's the
.535 ball with a wad - a
three inch group.
In both cases, the load with the wad was 1/2" bigger than the load without the wad - not what I expected. Now this is a pretty limited test and the differences could certainly be coincidental and/or myaiming errors. However, I did learn a few things.
- I can shoot this gun well enough to take a deer out to 50 yards.
- The gun can probably do better than I can shoot with iron sights.
- Using a wad while shooting on the range is probably a waste of time and wads (at least for me).
- Using a wad in a hunting load to keep lube from contaminating thepowder won't hurt a thing.
- The gun won't go off if you don't put powder and a ball in the bore - no matter how many times you prime the pan.
To Wad Or Not To Wad? That is the question.
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