Fired my New Englander for the first time this morning. The bore was dirty when the gun was bought: Was concerned the bore had rusted. Cleaned the gun and chunked a small medical flashlight down the bore backwards: It was all shiny: Lucky.
Checked the sights with a laser boresighter the other day and they seemed to be on target. This morning i decided to shoot the 370 grain Maxi-Balls. Had trouble seeing the front sight so i put some orange paint on the bead: Worked great.
i tried 80 grains of Goex Pinnacle 2f and the 370 grain Maxi-Ball: Wrong answer. All three shots were hangfires and bullets went all over the 50 yard target.
Went to 80 grains of Pyrodex RS and it seemed to shoot about 2"
low at 50 yards. Upped the charge to 90 grains and the first round was in the 2" bullseye. Fired a three shot group that measured about 3.5" and quit.
Will try again in a couple weeks. That gun does not balance well; its barrel heavy and balances just behind the barrel wedge. Its probably because of the hollow Tupperware stock. If i can't find a wood stock the barrel may get hacked off to 21 or 22 inches.
http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/4898/dsc01350x.jpg