3F for roundball .54

thumper15 · 11-22-2010, 06:43 PM

I've never messed with 3f but am wanting to try it in my .54 Trade rifle behind a roundball. Anyone have pet loads or good starting load advice? What kind of accuracy can I excpect out of the 1-48 with a roundball? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Breechplug · 11-22-2010, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thumper15

I've never messed with 3f but am wanting to try it in my .54 Trade rifle behind a roundball. Anyone have pet loads or good starting load advice? What kind of accuracy can I excpect out of the 1-48 with a roundball? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

3F is a Good Choice, it burns faster and a always got better groups with it when shooting Balls.
Im not a expert on Twist but I think the 1-48 may be to Fast for Balls. I'd start with about 70gr's and work your way up.
Good Luck!
(BP)

Semisane · 11-22-2010, 07:36 PM

The 3F is fine, and what I mostly use in my .54's and .58.

The 1:48 twist is OK also and will likely give you good accuracy with patched balls. The issue with 1:48 barrels is not so much the rate of twist but the depth of the rifling. For example, TC's sidelocks with 1:48 were made with fairly shallow rifling for shooting conicals. They shoot tightly patched balls fine, but if you push them too hard the shallow rifling can lose it's grip on the ball resulting in loss of accuracy.

The Lyman web site shows the .54 Trade Rifle has a .542 bore diameter and .558 grove diameter, which gives the grove depth of .016. That's the same groove depth of the .54 Great Plains rifle. So I would expect your Trade Rifle will shoot patched balls just fine with loads as high as 90/95 grains.

cayugad · 11-22-2010, 07:47 PM

my .50 caliber Trade Rifle likes 85 grains of Goex 3f and a patched ball.

my .54 caliber Trade Rifle likes 95 grains of Goex 2f. This is the first time I ever shot my new flintlock.

I would start my testing at 80 grains of the 3f and see what happens.

nchawkeye · 11-23-2010, 02:51 AM

Years ago, I used FF in my .54 and FFF in my .45 or .40...At that time I was using 100grs FF in my .54...I went to FFF and dropped the load to 80grs...I still get good performance on deer and targets but another benefit is less fouling...About 55% of black powder is left over as residue, some goes out the barrel and some stays...By going to a finer grade powder you get more complete burning and less fouling because you are using less powder...

Johnmorris · 11-23-2010, 05:30 AM

I use 85 gr 3 f in my Lyman Deer stalker 54 1x48 good 2 inch groups at 50 yds with Lyman Peep.

thumper15 · 11-23-2010, 07:45 AM

Thanks guys. Without messing with it before I figured I'd reduce from the 90 i'm shooting with FF now, to 80 for the FFF and go from there. I hadn't thought about checking the rifling depth yet so thanks for the heads up. If I have time before real muzzleloader season starts here in missouri I'll try it out and see how it does. As a funny side note, I had a alot more fun taking the does I posted about last week with the .54 than I have had taking deer with my 7mag in a long time. Have been wanting to retire my 7mag for awhile and now I think I found it's replacement. lol

cayugad · 11-23-2010, 09:12 AM

I have a 7mm mag sitting on the rack that has not been shot in about 18 years.

thumper15 · 11-23-2010, 10:00 AM

LOL used mine upto last year but this year I decided to shoot just the .54. To me it's the same reason I shoot traditional bows, it's more fun, less stuff to go wrong and it's a challenge. I've been looking at flintlock kits on track of the wolf and chambers, might put one together next year. But, if I do it'll be another .54.