I was going to turn in my homework as noted in another post but I can't find the cable for my camera.

This week I took delivery of a very nice stainless/laminatedWhite Ultra Mag .504 that I bought from forum member Tenmilephenom. I only had to work half a day today so I headed out to the range to give it a try. The gun has Fiber Optic sights which I'm not real use to but they seem to work fine, I may put a peep on this rifle just cause I like them better. The gun is set up with the musket cap BP so I went and bought some of those earlier this week, I like the size and ease of use they allow over the #11's. The gun functioned flawlessly.

I started off shooting 460 Bull Shops (.504's) and 70gr of Pyro P to see if it was on paper at 50 yards, it was about 4 inches high and centered and grouped around 3". I made an elevation adjustment to put it closer to POA. I then bumped the powder up to 80gr and shot a 3 shot group of around 3" that was about 2" low. Next I shot 4 shots using 90gr, I had 2 shots about 1.5" apart and 2 that were almost touching but a couple of inches from the other 2. I then bumped up to 100gr of powder and got a 3 shot group of about 2.5" but still a bit low so I adjusted the sight to bring it up a bit. I then shot 3 more using 110gr of powder, shots 2 and 3 were touching and shot 1 was about 1.75" higher and dead center of the target.

Notes: The .504 BS's are a bit loose so I need to go with .5045 or .505 next time I order. I need more practice with the FO sights or a peep so I can get a more consistant sight picture. I have the beginings of some very promising loads but need to work on my open sight skills before I know for sure which one is best.

One thing that bothered me a bit was that the Bull Shops were to easy to load, the weight of the ram rod would push them all the way down to the powder even with a fouled barrel, this would not be safe to hunt with. I also tried some 400gr White conicals but only 1 of 2 hit the target so I gave up on those. I shot one sabot bullet (Buffalo 285SSB) to see what would happen, it hit the target about 5" high and 4" left. I would have shot some more but I had skipped lunch and was getting tired and hungry so I cleaned the gun and packed up. The cleanup was a bit surprising, I ran a brush with some Rusty Duck on it for a few strokes and then 3 wet patches of Rusty Duck both sides and the third patch came out clean. I couldn't believe it was clean already so I ran an alcohol patch to see if anything else came out, it was clean. I then tried a patch of Ballistol and it too came out clean so I ran another alcohol patch to remove the Ballistol and followed that with a patch of Sheath for good measure. I then pulled the striker out and cleaned the breach area with just a few patches and was done. this is one of the fastest cleaning guns I have.

I must say I am very pleased so far and can't wait to do some more shooting with it, I just need some tighter fitting bullets to try in it. I also need to find the cable for my camera so I can post the picturesI took.