Well what I don't go through to shoot a rifle and smell black powder. 82º here on my range, me sweating like a pig tied to the back door of a butcher's shop, and then wanting to get kicked around by a big bore .58 caliber rifle. I will tell you, that gun actually kicked a little today. Wearing only a T shirt (for the upper part of me ... all you evil minds smiling) and 110 grains of Goex 2f with a .58 caliber ball. It let me know I was having fun. And I was.

The rifle used was a T/C Renegade with a 32 inch Green Mountain Barrel. This is a .58 caliber with a 1-70 twist. Iron sights, and blued. Just a real nice barrel if you ask me and one to hunt with too.

All right.. all joking aside. Down to business. Semisane was kind enough to send me some of his .58 caliber .575 roundball to try on the range. I set a target up at 50 yards and wanted to compare Semisane's home cast round balls to Speer swagged round balls.

To be fair to both loads, I shot a fouling shot first. I then shot a three shot group using Semisane's home cast ball. I want to add, this man is truly gifted in the art of casting a round ball. I would have sworn he went out and purchased them and then sent me some. But we all know he is a man of his word. He also tumbled these I believe as they are almost perfect in conformity.

Here is 50 yards and a three shot group...



I just plain could not argue the way those round balls of Semisanes shot. They are a little harder to load then the Speer balls. And I did not swab the bore at all. But them boys there would hunt. I would go up against anything with them. Especially with that kind of powder charge. I would have tried them at a longer distance but it was just to HOT to be walking around out there.

Then I swabbed the bore clean with moose milk. I popped a could caps to make sure that the bore was clean and clear. This last picture is an over all of the day, but I am sure you can see where the two groups lie.

50 yards Speer swagged .570 ball



That one that got away from me was with a Semisane ball. And it was 100% my fault. I had the gun in the rest, the set trigger on, was getting into the stock, was just about to shoot, and a deer fly took a chunk out of the top of my shoulder. I knew when it went off it was not a good shot.

In the corner of this target is pictures of different things. One being a deer. So since my Speer were shooting so well, and I did not want to waste anymore of the Semisane ball as I have more testing to do... I shot twice at the picture of the Whitetail deer head at 50 yards.



And since I had two Speer balls left in that box I took three soda pop cans, filled them with water, and lined them up on a block of firewood. I just wish I could have shot a video of that. You would have thought it was raining at the 50 yards line. Those cans just exploded. The last speer ball I aimed at the metal target trap 100 yards away. There was one part that was not in alignment with the other pieces. So I set that nice and straight.

It was just a great day of shooting. The gun was dead on, and everything was just how you want it to be. It sure beat splitting fire wood today...