Today I spent the morning with some of the new molds I got in. I casted up a couple hundred .495 roundball out of a LEE mold. They look really good and they are for the Lyman rifles. So I was kind of excited to try them.

And since I had some time I casted up 50 more UC Short Mags. Both of them looked really good today. Even though the lead seemed really too hot for some reason.



The roundball diameter was .495 according to my digital caliper and they weighed 182.2 out of pure lead. I got out a Hornady factory made .495 ball and it measured .495 and weighed 182 so I think I was in the ball park here. The UC Short Mags again came out at 449-451 grains in weight.

I grabbed up the Lyman Great Plains Rifle 1-66 twist 50 caliber rifle and the roundball and some Schuetzen powder and headed outside. A forum member advised they got the best accuracy with 90 grains of 2f and a .495 ball and patch. So I set a target up at 40 yards and began to see what the rifle would do.



I was not real pleased with the accuracy. Because two would hit low, then one high, and then one so so.. you know what I mean. No consistency. More testing is needed I am sure.

But I felt like shooting still, so I grabbed a LK 93 off the shelf and brought that outside. I thought I'd grabbed the one with a 2.5x20mm scope but instead grabbed one with a 4x32 Simmons ProSport. The pro sports were on sale for $19.99 once, and I purchased three of them. So far they seem to be tough as nails.

The little Knight LK has a 1-28 twist and a 22 inch barrel. It still uses a #11 cap ignition and it works so well I never saw the need to change it.

I then still had the roundball on the bench and had taken out some of the UC short mags. So I started iswth the roundball. I'd shot this rifle with .490 ball before and it was real accuate 50 grains so I kicked it up to 70 grains. It still grouped them rather well. The low hit was off a clean barrel. The others touching was on a fouled barrel. So it was behaving very nice to me today. But I came to shoot BIG LEAD!!

Then I swabbed the barrel and started shooting the UC Short Mags with 70 grains of 2f Schuetzen. That group around the bull was all I need to see to make me realize I had a winning combination here for my little tree rifle. This will do real good out in the woods.

So while the Lyman Great Plains rifle was a bit of a disappointment today, the Knight made me feel All Right!!