How does the amount of charge affect the bullet ? As you add more charge does it affect the accuracy or does it just give you a flater trajectory as you add more ?or do you have to experiment with different charges to see what gives you the best grouping ?

with my rifles, sometimes adding between 10-20 grains will help accuracy. Heres some examples ive had happen.
winchester x-150 shooting a 360 grain minnie, 80 grains pyrodex rs will give me 1 1/2" groups, but if i add 10 grains for a total of 90 grains pyrodex, my groups will open to 4" @ 100. This rifle normally shooting 5/8" groups @ 100 with 385 grain hornady great plains bullets and 80 grains of either triple 7 or pyrodex rs.

My deer creek sidelock in 45cal shoots a 225 grain powerbelt with 80 grains triple 7 and will shoot a constant 7/8" group @ 100. But when using pyrodex, it will "only" hold a 1 1/2" group.

Winchester x-150 when using powerbelts WANTS 120 grains Pyrodex RS loose powder with either a 245 or 295 powerbelt and it will hold a 1" group. With 100 grains or under, it will hold steady 1 1/2" groups.

It just takes time, powder, bullets and patience to get the right load that your rifle prefers. I have a little over 1200 rounds through my winchester and finally know what it likes. 4 years later haha.

Best thing is exactly what you said yourself in your post.... Experiment with loads.

All rifles are different. I have a friend that shoots a Traditions .50 caliber Kentucky long rifle and I swear, any powder charge he wants to shove down it will shoot accurate. Then I have some rifles that are real fussy about powder charges. A couple of them are down right demanding. My CVA Staghorn likes 90 grains of powder. My Knight Wolverine seems to do best with 80-85 grains of powder. My Black Diamond XR on the other hand shoots about anything I want to shoot.

The easy way is start them out around 80 grains with a quality sabot load for the inlines or if the rifle is a conicals shooter then pick a conical. Then shoot groups. Add powder of about 5-10 grains and shoot a group. Keep doing that until your group falls apart and starts to spray them all over, then back off just a little to the best group or the powder charge you feel comfortable with.

Also besides the rifle, the kind of powder and projectile can also make a big difference. When I shoot Pinnacle for instance, nothing bigger then 300 grains for a projectile. When I shoot heavy, then I like Triple Se7en or a 3f powder.

All you can do is experiment. That is what makes these rifles so much fun. For instance, I was shooting a CVA Stalker Carbine .50 caliber today with a 1:32 twist. I shot a couple of conicals and accuracy was all right but I felt could be better. Just for kicks, I put in some 240 grain Thompson Center Cheap Shots and 80 grains of 2f Black Powder. All of a sudden that little carbine was showing some real potential. So I tried some 245 grain Buffalo BulletBallets. And again, the rifle shot them well. So even though I am sure there is a heavy conical out there it will shoot well, I do know that it will shoot lighter stuff real good. All of it is a game of experimentation.

I think the just of his question has to do with the dynamics of bullistics. I have wondered the same thing. Can you "flatten" the shot ofa given projectile by simply increasing the powder charge?

Maybe, maybe not. If the increased charge increases velocity, the trajectory will be flatter.

But it takes a pretty good increase in velocity to make any real proctical difference in trajectory. And then you can get to a point where increasing the charge has a zero or negative effect on velocity.

If you're blowing unburned powder out of the barrel the only thing you're accomplishing is adding more weight to the projectile you are shooting(the bullet + the unburned powder = the projectile).

So, for example; lets say I am shooting a 300g hornady w/90g of 777. The group is inch and half high of zero but a good group. Instead of tweaking the scope, will increasing the charge to 100g theoretically lower the group?

With most muzzle loaders,when you're in the range from 80 grains to 120 grains of powder with a 300 grain bullet that's a good fit(snug/tight) to the barrel, you're burning all of the powder, and getting increased velocities as the charge goes up.

In my Lyman Mustang, with a 300 grain Hornady XTP bullet in a Harvester Crush Rib sabot,I get and average of around 1650fpswith 90 grains T7 FFG, and 1770fps with100 grains. At 100 yards, the 100 grain group shoots almost exactly one inch higher than the 90 grain group. If I up the charge to 110 grains, individual shot velocities start to geterratic, with an average ofaround 1800fps, and my groups start to open up.

"In my Lyman Mustang, with a 300 grain Hornady XTP bullet in a Harvester Crush Rib sabot,I get and average of around 1650fpswith 90 grains T7 FFG, and 1770fps with100 grains."

My experience with my .50 Encore using JSG and a 250 grain SST is:90 grains is very accurate; 100 grains is also very accurate. At 110 grains, accuracyis gone. The SST is a very tight fit in the bore of my gun but i live with it because of the accuracy.

IF you are shooting a patched round ball in a rifle with a slow twist, adding powder flattens out the trajectory and increases striking power without too adversely affecting HUNTING accuracy-in other words, if you are shooting a .54 Hawken with a patched round ball using 110 grains of powder ("one-half the weight of the ball") and are getting good accuracy, then load it with 220 grains (double-charge) for the next shot at a large target within 100 yards or so (buffalo or moose, etc.), you maylose some accuracy, but not enough to miss the vital area of the critter.

However, if you are shooting a BULLET, full-bore conical or a sabotted slug of some kind in a fast-twist barrel, the powder charge is much more critical. If you have found a good, accurate load, changing the amount of powder MAY have a VERY ADVERSE effect on the way it groups. The only way to know is to try it and see what happens.

My pet load for my optima is 300g xtp with 90g of 777 and crushed sabot. At 100 yards, you guys are saying that at 1600+ fps there is not enough time for a "minimal" difference in increased charge to flatten the shot.

Being new to all this, there is a wealth of information on this site and I for one really appreciate it.