Well to start things off, I am shooting an Italian percussion rifle. 50 cal Hawken''s style. I do not know what the "rate of twist" is.

So I got into BP a little while ago and while I seriously enjoy shooting this smokepole, I cannot seem to get it too shoot real good for me. I have a realnice Lyman peep on it too.

I recently drew a ML tag for deer and I am really excited to get to hunt the rut in a place where It is limited to ML hunting, and holds great bucks all over.

So anywho, I have only shot round ball and patches so far, .490 Speer balls with a lubed .010 patch, and 85 grains of T7, FFF. I mostly have shot at 25 yards to just get the hang of the thing and I can get about 2" or so groups there but it seems that they fall apart at 50 and 100 yards. This could be because this is mostly just using a rest and havent got to put it in a bench gun vise type deal that holds the gun a little sturdier. But I dont want to use up all my powder just shootin round balls for fun so I was wandering if 85 grains is too much for FFF?

Also I want to switch to Musket caps because for some reason this gun is a little un reliable with the #11 caps, sometimes takes a couple hits to go off. Which sucks...

Anyway, if you have any advice or words of wisdom they will be gladly appreciated!

Thanks!
BHB