I know, inlines are not made to shoot round balls. Well that is not entirely true. Maybe they should say, not made to shoot them well. But again, it depends on the powder charge.

I was talking to forum members, and the subject has came up.. whats a good light load for a small frame person, and will an inline shoot a roundball.



Today I took out my Knight LK-93 .50 caliber. It has a 1X Traditions ($50.00 cost) scope. Legal for our hunting season here in Wisconsin. Also a great aiming point. My intention was to see how well this one shot roundball.

I wanted to see how low a charge it would shoot. So I have my small pistol flask loaded with Triple Seven 3f powder. I had moosemilk, and pillow tick, and a lot of home cast roundball. The weather looked dangerous. It was humid as all get out. And 80 degrees (which for September in Wisconsin is strange in itself). But I took the chance and shot anyway.



I never swabbed the barrel clean with alcohol. Which I later think was a bad mistake. The first shot was a hang fire. I then remembered this had Montana X-treme bore treatment in it. So I decided not to swab the barrel at all, and just keep shooting. with 32 grains of powder (I later learned by measuring two charges) this was a dream to shoot. No more recoil then a .22 caliber rifle IMO. And it was pretty accurate.

But I wanted to see how much I could push the little rifle, and make it a lethal weapon for a small frame person and lets say close range. So I doubled the small flask charger and it measured 65 grains of the T-7 3f. Now IMO this is getting somewhat real lethal for close shots. If someone has a chronograph and thinks of it, measure out 65 grains of T-7 3f and a roundball and get a reading.



This had moderate recoil. Nothing to get excited about. But I really think this load would have hunting potential. Even for White tail as a moderate range. The accuracy was excellent, and even in the drizzle it kept shooting.

I then swabbed the barrel and that is where the trouble started. I am "guessing" that since I did not take the bore conditioner out of the barrel, it did a few things. First, very little fouling for all those shots, and never swabbing. BUT did the glass cleaner liquid slide into the breech plug and make "a plug." I could not get the rifle to fire after I swabbed.



That's the actual patch from a glass cleaner spritz patch and then two dry ones. Then the trouble started. I was going to keep shooting in the drizzle and test some 200 grain XTP 10mm with the same powder charge. Well I loaded after swabbing, and popped cap after cap after cap. If I was not dead certain I loaded that rifle correctly, I would have swore it was a dry load.

So I pulled the breech plug and pushed out a plug of powder. It looked just like a custom fit pellet. I have it drying and am going to see if it returns to powder or if I can shoot it off next time.

Since it was now raining, I called it quits for the day. But I do think, that a roundball and 65 grains of Triple Seven 3f out of a good inline, might be an excellent small frame person load for moderate range deer hunting.

While 30 yards is not a very effective hunting range except for tree stands or very dense brush, it's nice to see that some inlines will shoot a PRB accurately. And the groups look like they would probably hold together pretty well past 50 yards too. Similar to the accuracy of a smooth rifle shooting RB's with a tight patch maybe?
I think that it can partially be attributed to the Knight barrel because others have also reported getting fairly good PRB accuracy from them. Maybe it has to do with the depth of their rifling and/or the fairly thick pillow ticking patch?
Since you have so many other models, can any comparisons be made about the Knight rifling and it's depth?

There was a discontinued Traditions .54 Tracker inline model with a 1 in 48" twist that I thought might shoot a PRB accurately but I never did buy one to try it out.
Some folks complain that even the 1 in 48" twist isn't good enough for shooting PRB's, but your report just goes to show that a lot about muzzle loading isn't predictable. 10 degrees cooler or 10 more grains of powder could make a world of difference or maybe not.
But some inlines will certainly shoot PRB's better than others.

Interesting report Cayugad. I'll have to try a few patched balls in the Mustang. It would be really interesting if everyone on this board would shoot a few balls through their in-lines with 50, 60 and 70 grains of powder and report the results.

I knew my other Wolverine shot roundball real well with 50 grains of powder. But all the talk as of late about round balls in lines, and rifle loads for small people got me wanting to try this. Actually with the weather as it was, I was crazy to try shooting. Once second the sun would shine and then the next to would rain.. and humid. Made me think I was in Louisiana again..

Cayugad
I have had several guns with a 1-38 twist that shot PRB quite well the System One I have now will tear a single hole with 90 gr P and a PRB at 50 yds with iron sights and give respectable 2 to 2.5 inch groups at 100with a scope [my eyes are not what they used to be]. I have seen an inline that was rebarreled in a 1-48 twist with a 54 cal. barrel that also shot PRB well. Lee

Not quite Cayugad. It's 11:09 p.m. and my outdoor thermometer reads 86.6 degrees and 89% humidity. The week-end forecast is for ninety degrees Saturday and Sunday with scattered showers.

Looks like I'll be putting off my shooting session again. Man, do I ever want to make some smoke. Haven't shot in two months.

I havent shot a round ball in years. Might have to give it a try again.

My original Knight MK85 will shoot anything you shove down the barrel. Round balls, conicals, saboted bullets, ball-ets, and anything else you can think of. It will shoot the heavies and the lighties. It really is one fantastic rifle. Probably an all time inline classic in my opinion. It is over 20 years old, and looks like new, and has killed elk, deer(a bunch of deer), and ground hogs, what else could you ask for. And oh yah probably the best MZ trigger of all time. Tom.