ORIGINAL: Matt / PA
Nice rifle.........every single guy in our hunting party except one (T/C Hawken) shoots a Flintlock T/C PA Hunter. A bunch of us also had some gunsmith work done to ours to install a T/C set trigger group (I think he used a Renegade trigger group)
The triggers were pretty horrendous on all of our guns from the factory. (Pretty sure we all have the older style barrel like yours with the step from octagonal to round in the 1/66" twist) I know my trigger wouldn't break over supporting the full weight of the rifle bouncing while hanging from my finger. Had to be somewhere in the mid 20# range.
The set trigger group turned them from flinching machines to downright tack drivers.
We had excellent accuracy for years with roundballs but never cared for the on game performance of them. We would have too many perfectly punched deer leave little to no sign for tracking. I actually shot the same mature doe 3 times in the chest with .50 roundballs before she fell for good. (RMC Speedloader helped)
So when PA finally did away with the roundball only bullet rule we all went searching for something with better on game performance than the light roundballs.
What we all settled on (And some of us independentally I might add) were unexpectedly 295gr Powerbelt hollowpoints (Green gas check)
I wish I had some of my test targets to show you from 50 yards as the accuracy was better than you posted with your Hornady roundballs. My best 3 shot 50 yard group wasjust about 1/2" at 50 yards with the 2nd shot almost dead through the first and the 3rd shot center punching the outside edge of the first.
I can't do any better than that with an open sighted centerfire and this is a FLINTLOCK.[:-]
The load wound up being a bit unconventional and pretty hot but brother does it shoot! I wound up settling on 100grs of FFFg Goex (seems to speed things up and is a bit easier cleaning) primed with the conventional FFFFg.
We also did 2 more things to enhance the accuracy, and that was a fiber optic front insert, and on mine I added a sharp contrasting white traingle to the base of the rear notch to better center the sights in poor lighting.
The other was a bored out touch-hole to speed the ignition even further.
These things combined with good cut agate flints, tuned locks and some electronic contact cleaner to spray on the flint and frizzen face (removing any residues) and I can honeslty say that I have NEVER had a misfire, hangfire or even slow fire since I am shooting it.
It's absolute hell on deer and is quite simply night and day vs the days when we were shooting roundballs from them. We all have slightly different views on powder charges but the bullet for every man wound up being the same. They simply LOVED that 295gr Powerbelt hollowpoint. We've been flipping them over like tin cans ever since.