Hi everyone, this is my first post on the muzzleloading forum. I decided this season to dump my hopelessly inaccurate smoothbore shotgun for a ML. I bought a New Frontier Cascade Magnum, bolt action .45 caliber. I mounted a Bushnell 3 X 9 scope and headed out to the range.

After several shooting sessions, I am not getting the accuracy I had hoped/expected. I'm shooting 3 - 4 inch groups at 50 yards and 6 - 8 inch groups at 100. I'm shooting from a padded rest. Some of it might be shooter error, of course, but I'm generally a half-decent shot, at least with other rifles. I'm shooting 2 50 grain 777 pellets and 200 grain XTP's. I've tried cleaning the bore between each shot (as there is plastic residue left from the sabots) and this helps some, but not much. The error/variation in bullet impacts tends to be vertical as opposed to horizontal, which might suggest that the pellet charges are not all of equal weight, but it's hard for me to believe they could vary that much, especially at close range.

The gun's manual recommended using Powerbelts for better accuracy, but I thought that was just a marketing trick and bought the cheaper XTP's instead. I'm pretty concerned about the poor accuracy - I bought the ML because I hunt in an area with a lot of open grassland, where 100 -150 yard shots are pretty common. It's fine if the load has the energy and trajectory to shoot that far, but it doesn't help if you're shooting groups the size of a car tire at that distance.

Thanks in advance for any answers/advice.