Today I got up early and put in my time at the wood pile. Then decided to shoot before the rain came. I picked a .54 caliber Lyman Trade Rifle Flintlock. This is an accurate rifle with 90 grains of FFg Schuetzen powder, .018 pillow tick patch and home cast .530 ball.

Since I have not shot in a while.. I started at 25 yards. The groups was amazing. Not quite a single hole, but a large ragged hole. So I figured 50 yards would be a piece of cake. Boy was I wrong. Same target, same load. And the group was over five inches. Twice I tried new targets, and both times well over five inches at 50 yards.

So I came back to 25 and again, nice tight group. So ... do you think the physical exertion of splitting wood for four hours, causing muscle fatigue, could be the reason for the poor groups. I admit I was tired from splitting and stacking four trailer loads of wood. But the large group really shocked me. Especially with this rifle. To be so dead on at 25 and then so rotten at 50 just don't make sense to me today.

I then put that rifle away and pulled out my Sig Sauer 522 .22 caliber rifle to see how that behaved. The spinner targets at 35 yards never had a chance. Then the rains started so I put it all away.

I guess I have to shoot that trade rifle again. It really bothered me to see those kind of groups. The sights are tight, and all was normal. Oh well.. just one of them days.