Hey guys, remember my Disappointing Day With The Renegade? http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=2736181&mpage=1&key=&#273618 1

Well, after working the pittedbore over with naval jelly and oiled steel wool, I reshot the same loads I tried in my original range session -fifty yard five shot groups with 80 grains of Pyrodex RS and six different bullets. Did I have any improvement? Not really. Here's a short description of the results.

Patched balls - Still tearing up patches with groups in excess of six inches.
410 grain Hornady GP - Group went from 3 7/8" to 3 1/2".
320 grain REAL - Group went from 4 1/2" to 4 3/8".
250 grain REAL - Group went from 4 3/4" to 9" (what the hell!)
405 grain Lee .457 cast bullet in MMP orange sabot- Group went from 4 1/2" to 5" (bullet clearly not stable - evidence of wobble on target)
250 grain Gold Dot in Harvester crush rib sabot- Group went from 2 7/8" to 1 7/8".

The only thing that looked promising was the Gold Dots in crush rib sabots. Maybe the sabots are better a dealing with the pitting near the muzzle. So I figured I ought to explore that a little bit. I shot a group with 300 grain Gold Dots in crush rib sabots, and a group with 300 grain Remington Semi-Jacketed Hollow Points in MMP orange sabots. They actually shot better than anything else (targets below). Clearly, a little load experimentation around those bullets is in order. Looks like this barrel will never be a patched ball shooter - which is what I wanted - but it may turn out to be useful with a sabotted bullet.