I've been shooting the .54 Great Plains flintlock since February, and have somewhere close to 300 rounds through it, buthad not done any serious load comparisons with it yet. So, with the weather starting to moderateI figured it's time I got to work.

In my Sunday morning range session at the hunting lease I decided to do a ball & patch comparison using the same powder charge for all loads. The plan was to shoot six five-shot groups as follows:

.530 ball with .015 patch (Good Will store table cloth)
.530 ball with .018 patch (WalMart pillow ticking)
.530 ball with .020 patch (JoAnn's Fabrics denim)
.535 ball with .015 patch
.535 ball with .018 patch
.535 ball with .020 patch

I chose to use 95 grains GOEX FFFg, even though an 80 grain load usually gives me a little better accuracy with this gun.
Patches were lubed with my home made mixture of 25% bees wax, 25% Crisco, and 50% olive oil.
A wonder wad was used with all loads. The bore was wiped with both sides of one damp patch and one dry patch between shots.
All shots were at 50 yards from a bench with good solid rests.
All loads were shot over the chronograph.

Here are the results - you can see from the targets that I didn't do my finest shooting in this session, but I did establish a base line for future comparisons.


First target - .530/.015


DANG! I forgot to transfer velocity data from the chronograph to thetarget. As I recall, it was somewhere around a 1550 fps average because I remember being surprised at the velocity increase on the second target. I wasn't real happy with this group, but the .530 ball/.015 patch combination was a dream to load with just a push on the short starter. I suspect the low shot (#2) waspilot error.

Here's the second target - .530/.018




Well,that's a little better, but nothing to brag about considering that in the past I've shot a number of sub two-inch 50 yard groups with this gun.Anothershot low andout of the main group. This ball/patch combination was comfortable to load but the short starter required a stiff bump toseat the ball. Note the 51 fps spread from lowest to highest velocity.

Here's the thirdtarget - .530/.020



This combination required a pretty sharp wack on the starter to seat the ball. I was surprised when the velocity averagedless than the previous load. Very consistent velocity - only a 10 fps spread. Why didn't it group better? (The SHOOTER )


OK, on to the .535 ball. Here's the fourth target with .535/.015



AH HA! Now I'm convinced the crappy groups are mostly due to my shooting. I must bedoing something screwy. This is the load I have the gun sighted in for in preparation for the Nov. 8th. opening day of deer season and my first (I hope) flintlock deer. The last two times I shot this load combination the gun put all of the shots on the bull. Loading requires a solid bump on the starter. I have no idea what caused that velocity spike on shot #5. Maybe l leaned too heavy on the ramrod seating the ball. Maybe I didn't wipe the barrel the same as other times.

Oh well. On to target five - .535/.018




Velocity creeped up a little with the tighter load. This one requires a sharp wack on the starter.

And finally, target 6 - .535/.020




No joy here! Takes a double hard wack on the starter to seat. I suspect the chrono made an error on the velocity reading of #4. No way could it be that low.

So, what's next on the agenda? It looks like the .535 ball & .015 patch is a winner so far. The next experiment will be with that load combination and four different lubes (bore butter - Crisco - Eastern Main Shooters Supply Premium Lube, and my home made BW-C-OO mix) and three different loads of FFFg(85, 95 ,105 grains).

Hey! There are worse ways to spend your time.