RE: First Shot High
 

F. G. Iunderstand your point.I can try again, but I've had good groupsspoiled byflyers in the past with 100 gr.By the way, we're hunting a little north of Meredith, Eagle Co. Cayugad, thanks for the ideas. It gives me a couple of directions to go in.

RE: First Shot High
 

I don't get a 3" variance from clean to fouled with 110 grains of FFg Goex, more like maybe an inch, not enough to worry about...therefore I don't fret it.

That said, I hunt with a clean unlubed bore, and take the time to sight in with each shot from a clean dry barrel.

"Clean dry" defined as the bore being "dry brushed" between shots, the breech scraped, then'patched out' with adry bore mop....and thenthe nipple picked.

This puts things back to as clean as I can quickly get it, without introducing any moisture to the bore. One thing I can't stand is black powder sludge. I'd rather dump some dry soot out of the barrel and rock on knowing things are going to stay consistant.....

I've compared this method I usefor sight in and range practice with shooting groups from an actually clean barrel and can't dicern enough difference to make the actual clean barrel a better option. IOW, it's clean enough to rely on what it produces.

While hunting I don't mess around with that practice, I just load and shoot a second shot and have done so often while carrying multiple tags. Like I said, it will hit just about an inch higher than the clean bore shot does at 100 yards....well within the kill zone of anything I need to take a poke at.

3" ain't no big deal anyway, how big is the kill zone on an Elk for crike's sake?

Kill 'em with the first shot and there's nothing to worry about in the first place..............

RE: First Shot High
 

Well 3" on his first shot could mean the difference between a good and bad shot, especially if hes shooting it 150 yards away.

I say give pyrodex a try. That fixed my problem.

RE: First Shot High
 

Your talking about the size of aripe Granny Smith rollin' around inside a 100 pound burlap sack, anywhere in the middle is for keeps.

3 inches don't mean squat on an Elkand if it does thenyou need to shoot more...........

RE: First Shot High
 

I shoot plenty.

3" low on the first shot and then dead on with #2 + is not acceptable to me.

Reminds me of the time when i used triple 7/ goex mix in a .54 flinter. First shot dead on, #2-#3 were 11" low @ 100 yards.

Switched to pyrodex/15g goex and shot a 2" 3 shot group with that load. All were center and no high or low crap.

Triple 7 is not consistant enough for me to use when i can use $16 pyrodex P, lower my powder measure and shoot more per can of powder.

RE: First Shot High
 

Quite a ship your sailin' there Capt'n............

RE: First Shot High
 

You make a good point Rifle, but lets look at it from another angle. Obviously, if I was to always hit within 3 inches of where I am aiming, there certainly would not be problem, even on a deer sized animal.

Howevever, lets say you can stay within 1-2 inches of dead on at 100 yards off a bench with a given muzzleloader. Now add 3 inches for the "first shot/clean barrel" in his case. Now add another 3 inches due to field conditions/ buck fever.

Now we are at 7-8". In my book, it is possible that could mean the difference between a really good hit and a marginal one. 5 inches vs. 8 inches is still not a huge difference, but enough to make me worry some.

When I shoot at game in the field, I would rather not have some small worry nagging at me. I want to be extremely confident in my equipment. That is because even though I practice as much as possible, I know I will never be Daniel Boone when it comes to shooting and I need every advantage.

RE: First Shot High
 

I would say that with open sights and a downsized confidence in one's ability, shots at 100 and 150 yards shouldn't taken......it's long been my opinion that most rifle "problems" are the nut behind the trigger, and if 3" of elevationis bothersome at 100 yards then we'd best stick to 50 or 60 yards and call it a day.

It's likely that I've been down this same road and as a result developed my own system to fend off such issues. I don't shoot sidelocks, or PRB's,or heavy conicalsanymore, but can remember at least a dozen of them and all the trial and error that went along with finding the best of the best. Back then the only propellant subsitute on the market was Pyrodex. Never could get out of that stuff what I could with real black powder so there is where I've stayed all these years.

Even in the days of shooting a Renegade and 385 grain Great Plains I don't recall a 3" variance from clean to fouled. I was wet swabbing between shots then as a lot of folksdo, as well as volume measuring my charges. It was also my pre-scope iron sight days. I did however shoot a lot and that might have made the difference.

When I went to inlines I figured I might as well get as much precision out of them as I could, why not, I was going inline for a reason and that was to get away from the built in variances/difficulies of sidelocks and fixed breeches. So I embarked on a mission to make the system as easy as possible but yet gain an edge over what I had been doing before. I went right to a scope, started weighing charges, picked a bullet that flew good yet killed fast, andfigured out a way to keep shots in the cleanbarrel zone. I'm not a fan of hunting withfouled barrels so I needed something that would allow me to replicate a clean barrel for sighting in purposes, and for practice. The consistancy of a clean dry barrel is proven to me, and the introduction of a wet patch to swab the borechanges things enough to avoid it in the context of "precision" black powder.

I don't often get the luxury of a wide open 150 or 200 yard shot due to the density of the woods and brush so precision, as I tend to call it,is required to sneak a bullet past all those twigs and tree trunks. 3" inches of lateral variencewould bother me in that regard but my system doesn't have that much slop built into it. 3" of elevation though, generally wouldn't put too much of a bind on things.

Given Wingbone's Colorado legalKRB and chosen load, there'sthree things he can do to help himself, and with about half a dozen shots tell if it makes a difference. 1.) weigh his propellant outon a powder scale. 2.) dry brush and dry mop between shots. If dry brushing sounds scary then use a nylon brush, I've used a bronze brush for years and it scares me none. 3.) keep oil and other lubes out of the bore until it's time to store that clean barrel, there's no need to lube a non PRBbore while hunting.I would say afourth thing would be try real FFg black powder but lot's of folks are stuck on the substitutes.

Just so you know I'm a tad serious about muzzleloading with inlines here's mine, complete with turrets, come ups and windagefrom 50 to 250 yards......

RE: First Shot High
 

It could also be that we are talking apples and oranges. When I say I load up a "fouled" barrel, I am talking about taking a shot, then using a wet patch (both sides) and then 1 to 2 dry patches (both sides). Then I load for the hunt. I still consider that a fouled barrel. And wingbone may not be doing even that. If he isn't, I would try that before he does anything. The only thing I don't do is to use a bore brush between shots. Even then, we are talking about loading in a somewhat fouled bore.

The difference I am talking about, and I assume he is talking about, is shooting from a bore that has been cleaned and stored and has had an oil patch run through it. I always run a couple of dry patches through it, followed by popping a couple of caps off before I load. Even then, the first bullet strikes a couple of inches different than after I follow the procedure I list in the first paragraph.

So I am still unclear what you do. Are you saying that after storage (I am assuming that you put an oil patch down for storage?) you load for hunting straight from the case?

Not trying to be argumentative, I am actually trying to learn something and sounds like you may be on to something. And of course us with "downsized confidence" need all the help we can get. I will be hunting timberline bucks this year and want to feel comfortable at taking a shot out to a max of 150 yards (open sights of course). I am a stickler about knowing my limits and sticking to them. I will pass on a shot unless it is one I know I can make.

RE: First Shot High
 

Yeah we might be talking apples to oranges....

Yes my bore is oiled for storage,with 3 in 1 oil. I've found that to be all I need as it doesn't sit very long before getting fired again, I've no need to use a grease, and bore butter draws moisture just like WD-40 does. I won't use stuff like that in my barrel.

When I prepare the rifle for the first load I degrease the bore with rubbing alcohol or carb cleaner orelectric contact cleaner, anything like that laying around that will cut the oil off the steel and leave no residue. In years past I've found that firing a load over any kind of petroleum base oil or grease will leave a fouling that is more difficult to clean out. So that's the primary reason for degreasing the bore.

The secondary reason is I've found more consistancy with the loads I use, firing from a dry bore vs. one that has any lube or lube residue in it. Spit, patch lube, oil, grease, bore cleaner, any of that stuff, acts like a lube and what I've found is vertical stringing depending on the amount of "lube" left in the bore. We can dry patch the snot out of it and there will still be some residue of what ever wet stuff we use, left in there. I choose to not introduce any kind of wetness to thebore between shots.

Another of my concernsis the breech plug, and a good reason to stay in the "dry mode". Several aspects to this and one is that I'd rather not burn a couple three caps trying to dry it out. Another aspect is, unless you scrape the breech with a breech plugscraper there is a build up of fouling inside the breech plug. This changes the load with respect to how much room the consecutiveloads occupy and sinceseating pressure is important to my load method I have no way to properlyjudge my ramrod mark if there is a steady build up of fouling. IOW, each consecutive load is seated to more and more pressure each time unless I guess at how much fouling is building up and hold my mark higher each time. This doesn't lend to any kind of consistancy,IMHO. The only good way to remove this fouling is scraping it out dry and dumping the soot out the end of the barrel. Adding moisture to it in an attempt to remove it only makes a sludgy mess and slows down the reload process. I made a breech plug scaper for my 77/50 out of brass. I turned it on the lathe to fit eactly in the bottom of my breech plug right down to a little point that works on the angled recess leading to the flash hole. I then made a square block and drilled a hole dead center, and tapped it to match the threads on the scaper. This I used in an end mill to cut two matching andapposing"flats" that act like cutter teeth, like on an end mill bit. When this scaper is attached to my ramrod and twisted in a clockwise rotation itabsolutely scrapes the breech plug fouling loose enough to dump out, eliminating the constant build up.

Dry brushing the bore does remove most of the fouling. Enough that shots #2 and #3 in a three shot group fall into a clover leaf at 100 yards with the first shot. I'm not gonna argue with that at all. Each time I dry brush after a shot,I dump about half a teaspoon of soot out the muzzle, much easier to deal with than sludge. I started out by following the brushwith one or two dry patches to clean up what didn't dump out but have found since that a couple dry bore mops aremuch easier to deal with than a pile of patches. These mops are easily cleaned laterby spraying carb cleaner on them until they wash out white again. The other advantage to dry brushing/dry mopping and removing most of the fouling each shot is that at the end of the day, final clean up is a breeze because it's like cleaning only after one shot instead of 20 or 30 or 40.......

I'm a Rifle Loony and this is what we do..............

edited: had to reword something.