I would stick with a good brand like Hornady or Speer .490 roundball. As for the patch, some pillow tick is still one of the best things out there to patch with. I buy the material at Wal Mart and cut my own from the muzzle.

Roundball normally start hard. It often times takes a good "wack" on the ball of the short starter to get it seated in. If it is moving hard down the barrel, that's a different matter, but Thompson Centers are made to shoot .490 and Lyman suggests .495 ball. I would not get to small a ball as it can and normally does effect your accuracy. I hope you mean it is not so tight that you have to use a mallet and pound the ramrod down to seat the ball (all joking aside, I have done it and seen it done).

A good lube I use is moose milk. I make it with;

Liquid Lube - Moose Milk[/b]
[/b]
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8 ounces of isopropyl alcohol
3 ounces of Castor Oil
4 ounces of Witch Hazel
16 ounces of tap water
1 ounce of Murphy’s Oil Soap

(make sure you mix the ingredients in the exact order they are listed)

I buy a yard of material of 100% cotton blue strip pillow tick at the local wal mart. I wash that in the washing machine. I then line dry the material. After that you can tear the strip real easy off that bolt of material. I like to tear off an inch and a half. Then you soak that strip in moose milk. Ring the excess moose milk out. Then I lay that on an old window screen in the sun and let it dry. This is a dry patch . If you like a more wet patch, you can spritz them with a spritzer bottle.

I keep my liquid in a "Off Bug Spray Pump model bottle." Then on the range I can spritz the patch as wet or as dry as I like. Often times a wetter patch will slide better. If you are worried about contamination of the powder charge put a felt wool bore button on top of the powder first. It will absorb any of the lube that might try to make it down to the charge.

Or you can spritz the patch heavy and then dry them on some old window screen. These are dry lube patches. They work fine to. They are just a little harder to load.


Solid Lube Formula[/b]

2 ounces of Bees Wax
8 ounces of Castor Oil
1 ounce Murphy’s Oil Soap

Using a double boiler system, melt the bees wax. While keeping the wax liquid, heat the Castor oil with the double boiler also. Then mix the two together. Stir them together and while doing this a scum will form. You need to scrap the scum off the liquid. Once the scum is scraped off the mix, then add the Murphy’s Oil Soap and stir fast while it is melted. This will make a nice frothy appearance and very smooth. Pour the mix into containers and it will set up in a short time.

This mix will not break down in heat and is still usable in cold weather. It makes a great conical lube. A person from another forum gave these recipes out to people. "Stumpkiller", and they are great lubes.


That is a real good solid lube mix. It holds together real well and makes a good patch or conical lube.

If your rifle is loading hard, give it a good cleaning with some solvent and bore brush. Maybe over time the lands and grooves have filled in with who knows what. Even a good cleaning with some J-B Bore Paste. If you were a bore butter user, that old bore butter might have dried hard in that barrel and is restricting that bore. Get some boiling water, remove the barrel, and start pouring that down the barrel. It will melt the old bore butter and wash it out. Be sure to pull your nipple from the bolster.

A roundball is still a deadly projectile. Do not under estimate it. If you want to "plant" a deer then you need to break it down. A ball can do that as well as a conical. Shoot for the spine, neck, or clavicle. Normally you break that main spine area and it will put them on the ground. They might not be dead though. Still a good heart lung shot should only have them running a short distance.

Perhaps it is time to meet the neighbor and see if they would allow you to track onto their property. I had neighbors like that once. Where I live, everyone told me the old man'spropertynext door, that hewas nuts. He'd shoot me if I shot a doe.He hated hunters. Well I shot a doe one yearand it ran onto his property. So I walked up knocked on the door told him why I needed to track his land. He at first was a little upset, and so I told him he could let me track this doe and fill my tag, or I'd go shoot another one and leave this wounded one on his property for the coyotes. He then kind of laughed at me, and invited me for a cup of coffee.. We are now good friends actually.. But neighbors can be strange.

See if some of that does not help loading better. Also Pyrodex RS is a good powder, but sometimes you just have to swab the barrel when you use that stuff. It acts strange. One day you can shoot all day and the next time, you clean after every third shot.