I have some .50 325 REAL bullets that so far I haven'tbeen able to find a load I likein either of my 50's with. I am thinking about trying them in my 54 with a patch to make up the difference. The bullets mic out at .508 to .510 and the patch I'll use is .019 to .021. This should give me around .550 when combined. I haven't slugged the 54's barrel but believe it to be somewhat tight based on other loads I use in it. The barrel is a 1:48 twist.

Has anyone else tryed something like this? If so, what load would you suggest? What kind of results did you get? How did you patch it? Did you use a felt wad? Am I crazy? No, wait, don't answer that last one.

Any thoughts out there?

Thanks in advance.

What kind of lube are you using on them when shooting your .50?

No I never tried that. I shoot the 300 & 380 in the .54 calibers. The 280's and 320's shoot good in my inlines until you get back past 100 yards. Then they start to drift a little. I just am not sure how to fix the problem. I like the 320 grain in the .50's with 90 grains of powder and a homemade lube.

The guy that gave them to me had lubed them with what I think is an Alox based lube. They shot OK but not as well as other combinations I have. In my inline they would hold around a 2" group at 50 but spread to 5" at 100. 2" is they max I like to see at 100 off a bench. I have only tried them a couple of times in the sidelock so I haven't got a good feel for how they work in it yet. They are much more difficult to load intothe sidelock than other loads I use.

I am tenetively planning a trip to the range on Mon. or Tues. so I may give it a try just to see what happens. I also recently picked up some BM3 to try so I have several reasons to go to the range, of coarse, any reason will do.

David I have only shot those bullets in 48 twist rifles so I can't help with the inline question although I have an inline with a 48 twist that loves them. They shoot real well in my old CVA sidelock as well. The way they make those bullets the top band is oversized and you have to "cut" it into the rifling after that they usually load easy. Make sure they were cast with pure lead not wheel weights or alloy.

I use my ball starter to get them going and then they load fine.

R.E.A.L.s shoot well out of inlines and I see I was shooting 3F. With the open sights, I made no indication of the distance this was done at but it was probably 35 yards during the winter when I was doing a lot of Goex 3f shooting. The 320 grains are a nice conical.. The longer the conical the better. I even have some that are 522 grain REAL style conicals. They shoot good but you can not put a lot of powder behind them.

There is absolutely no reason why one could not use a R.E.A.L. with a patch, but I think your combo for the .54 might be too much patch and too little bullet. (I have used the "Dixie conical" bullets with patches, and they shot OK-they're shaped a lot like a R.E.A.L. Give it a try! It might be great.

I shoot my R.E.A.L.'s (and Maxi-Balls) naked, made from pure lead,with a Wonder Wad under them. I get no leading at all, andaccuracy is pretty good. I'd use a Wonder Wadwith your proposed combination as well.

Reference an Alox based lube. I tried that once with R.E.A.L. conicals and the accuracy was terrible. Maybe I did something wrong as it was the first time I ever messed with liquid Alox. I dipped them and then set them on wax paper to dry. When I shot them, I just could not get the accuracy I had with a conventional home made lube I use.

I bought the liquid Alox because someone gave me a reciepe for something called Junior Lube which is a real lube by the way. The reciepe is at Juniors Sight on the internet, just google Junior Lube. I was or will make some of this lube to try one of these days, but when I made my last batch of lube I made over a quart of it. By th time I shoot off a quart of my homemade lube I might be to old to pull the trigger anymore....

Well I didn't make it to the range this week, maybe next week.

Cayugad, your results with the alox sound a lot like mine. I need to see if I can get a few more from my friend and try them with a different lube.

I'll let you all know what the results are when I get a chance to try it.

Well, it sounded like a good idea.

I finally made it to the range today. The patched REAL grouped really well, at about 2 yards. After missing the target completly at 25 yards I moved the target up to 7.5 yards to see where they were going. At that range I was getting 6 to 7 inch groups. I was using 100gr of Pyro P. I was so discouraged that I didn't even try any other loads, just moved on to other things.

I did have a nice hit with the 50 Bobcat at 200 yards, 20" low and dead center with a PRB over 80gr of P and iron sights, it was just an experiment to see where it would go.