So I wanted to get out and do some shooting today. I hadn't shot my muzzle loader in months and had a slight issue last time I shot it. Back before hunting season I took the scope off and remounted it. When I sighted it in, I got it close and shot 4 shots. 2 hit 2" to the right, and 2 hit in the bullseye. I hunted with it and it did great. After hunting season I shot it again and it was consistently hitting 2" right. It was so many variables I wasn't sure what it could be. I took the stock off, so wasn't sure if it was that, I wasn't sure if it had gotten bumped hard during hunting season, or I wasn't sure if it was just initially 2" right when and the 2 in the bullseye I just pulled on, or if I'd pulled on the ones 2" right. I'd tried dialing it back in but shortly ran out of bullets trying to get it dialed in. I haven't touched it in a few months. I also wanted to try the crush rib sabots instead of just the regular ones.
So a friend and I agreed to go to shooting today. I took this muzzle loader, my centerfire rifle and my friend took their muzzle loader. When we got there, we loaded my friends rifle, and went to prime it only to realize that we'd left the 209 primers at my house, and had just brought my #11 caps. So, we didn't get to shoot that one.
So I set up the target at 100 yards and fired mine off. I was shooting 100 grains of Pyrodex and a 300 Grain Speer Deep Curl in a Harvester Crush Rib Sabot. It was close, but not perfect and as it hadn't been last time I'd left it. I feel it most likely was shooting the same as I'd left it. I moved it over and shot a few rounds, and went back and forth some. This scope doesn't seem to track the best, but seems to stay zeroed and I shot good groups I just would either move it too far left or too far right. I took it apart swabbing it and it started to rain. I moved everything into the garage quickly and somehow dropped the pin piece that holds everything to the bolt. I couldn't find it in the gravel, so I finally rigged it back together to work until I could get home. I searched for quite a while without finding it, and I was starting to think this is a horrible day.
After it rained I got back to shooting.
I finally ended up changing targets and figuring out how much each click moved it. I shot these two on the that are about an inch apart.
I moved it to the left, and shot the left one, then I moved it back to the right some and shot the 3 in the middle. I figure it's good enough.
Then, on my way walking back to the target I found the pin I'd lost laying there in the gravel. I must have walked by it 10x. Overall, with it shooting that well, and not having actually lost anything, I found it to be a fairly good range day. Now, I guess I need to sell off my remaining 50 pack of the short black Harvester sabots as I definitely prefer the crush rib ones.
Bad trip to the range turned out to be pretty good.
