My Day With a Sidelock
02-05-2009, 12:10 PM
#1
Dominant Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 21,193
My Day With a Sidelock
Chuck (big 6x6)got me so fired up about shooting sidelocks again that back ache or no back ache, I decided to shoot today. Besides it was a nice day. Sunny, 56% humidity, 7 mph wind, and 23º above zero for a change.
I set an old target that I had shot the Black Diamond XR at, up at 63 yards (the cause of the back ache actually). I was using a bench rest. The rifle is a T/C Renegade with a .58 caliber Green Mountain percussion barrel on it. This barrel has a 1-70 twist. Its hunting load is 110 grains of Graf's & Sons (Wano) Black Powder 2f, a .018 patch, moosemilk lube, and a Speer .570 284 gr roundball. I cut my patches at the muzzle off Wal Mart 100% cotton pillow tick.
I know the rifle normally throws the first round. So I decided to just dry patch the oil out of the barrel. The oil in the barrel is Birchwood Casey Sheath. Normally I will alcohol patch the barrel but decided to just go as if I were using a different product that I intend to test down the road.
As I guessed, the first shot was high. I never swabbed the barrel during the whole time I shot. I should have but it was too cold out there to swab. I first shot that large hole at 12 o'clock above the bull. Then as the rifle got dirty, it started to lower the POI. Those couple in the bull looked real good. It finally started to throw them to the left side and I will venture to guess that the rifle was dirty as it was getting harder to seat the ball.
The holes marked in blue were from the Black Diamond. In fact as it started to slide them to the left it caught the last group of the BD as you can just see a little of the blue there.
Over all I was real pleased with the rifle as usual. It just is a very accurate rifle with the open sights. I once said of all the open sight rifles I own, this might be the most accurate of them on the rack...
The rifle barrel was water bath treated, then some black powder solvent was used to clean it. The patches came out clean. Then just for fun, I decided to treat it with Montana X-treme products. That will be another post. WOW!! what a shock!
I set an old target that I had shot the Black Diamond XR at, up at 63 yards (the cause of the back ache actually). I was using a bench rest. The rifle is a T/C Renegade with a .58 caliber Green Mountain percussion barrel on it. This barrel has a 1-70 twist. Its hunting load is 110 grains of Graf's & Sons (Wano) Black Powder 2f, a .018 patch, moosemilk lube, and a Speer .570 284 gr roundball. I cut my patches at the muzzle off Wal Mart 100% cotton pillow tick.
I know the rifle normally throws the first round. So I decided to just dry patch the oil out of the barrel. The oil in the barrel is Birchwood Casey Sheath. Normally I will alcohol patch the barrel but decided to just go as if I were using a different product that I intend to test down the road.
As I guessed, the first shot was high. I never swabbed the barrel during the whole time I shot. I should have but it was too cold out there to swab. I first shot that large hole at 12 o'clock above the bull. Then as the rifle got dirty, it started to lower the POI. Those couple in the bull looked real good. It finally started to throw them to the left side and I will venture to guess that the rifle was dirty as it was getting harder to seat the ball.
The holes marked in blue were from the Black Diamond. In fact as it started to slide them to the left it caught the last group of the BD as you can just see a little of the blue there.
Over all I was real pleased with the rifle as usual. It just is a very accurate rifle with the open sights. I once said of all the open sight rifles I own, this might be the most accurate of them on the rack...
The rifle barrel was water bath treated, then some black powder solvent was used to clean it. The patches came out clean. Then just for fun, I decided to treat it with Montana X-treme products. That will be another post. WOW!! what a shock!
02-05-2009, 12:40 PM
#2
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: River Ridge, LA (Suburb of New Orleans)
Posts: 10,917
RE: My Day With a Sidelock
There's something about shooting a .58 that just tickles me. Good shooting there Cayugad. Now get to work on that SHOCKING post. You have my interest. I have a bottle of the bore conditioner coming with a 300 grain Gold Dot bullet order from Widener's Reloading & Shooting supply, but won't see it for a while. I ordered them on 1/28 and as of today their web page says "orders from 1/23 are being packaged at this time". All of my regular sources (Midway, Midsouth, etc.) were out of stock. Widener's had only 4 boxes, but they were only $16 so I bought them all and will just have to wait.
