A rough range day with the knight
 

#1.
I HATE CRUD RINGS! I was really hoping that I wouldn't have this problem today but... I got a patch and cleaning jag caught in my barrel twice. I had to take my breech plug out and push it through the the back of the barrel. Does that happen to anyone else? I'm fine as long as I don't push the patch all of the way to the breech plug, but if I do it gets stuck.

#2
BLACKHORN IS OVERATED! I tried BH209 for the first time today. I ordered a NFPJ breech plug like three weeks ago and haven't got it yet so I tried it with the factory plug. I made it three shots before I started getting hangfires... I decided to run a patch through it before switching to 777, it came out almost as dirty as 777 would. My breech plug had a really hard carbon build up! I think that the carbon build up was my crud ring.

#3
YOUNG KIDS AT THE RANGE SCARE ME! An old guy and two young kids showed up and went to the lane next to me. The range officer had to yell at them several times to not touch their rifles when the range was cold. After the officer left one of kids went to grab his rifle off the line. I had to remind them to not touch it (surprised that the old man didn't say something to me). Later. when I was looking down my lane, I heard one of the kids ask "what do I do?" and the old man say, "just take the safety off and shoot." I looked over and down the barrel of a loaded .270... When I have kids they are going to know firearms and firearm safety backwards and forwards before they even get to touch one!

#4
MUZZLELOADERS CAN BE FRUSTRATING! After all of this crap, I still didn't my new scope sighting in well enough or shoot a decent group...

Blackhorn certainly is not over rated. Its THE best powder you can feed a muzzleloader. No crud ring, easy clean up, accurate as heck. But what you do need are HOT primers in order to get it to set off. Knight's BP has had its share of issues with hangfiring with the powder. All you got on your patch was the soot blackhorn leaves behind. Cleans up easily with Hoppes and Montana X-treme solvent.

I had a crud ring... I was using CCI shotgun primers. Not super hot like a 209A, but hot none the less. The soot that 777 leaves is easy to clean too. I thought that BH209 wasn't supposed to leave soot. I know that the breech plug wasn't ideal. I'm going to try it again with the NFPJ breech plug if I ever get it

Ive burned at least 5lbs of it and never had a crud ring from BH209. Didnt matter if i was using conicals or sabots. Never had to run a dry patch before 20 shots even with lubed conicals. Probably a good idea too though depending on lube.

My last time out i did not use a modified BP, i used a standard Knight FPJ. Occasionally in the past i would get a hangfire with most non mag primers except Win209s. CCI standards seemed the worst too or Rem STS IF its in a FPJ.

With FPJs, now i only use mag primers in OEM Knight Disc FPJ breach plugs. The hole is well over .032 so unless yours is clogged mags work just fine. The flash channel may get some build up though but only takes a few seconds to clean.

My LK must have an even larger hole since its even better with non mag primers. Its close to .036-7 as best i can measure it. According to Al at Knight they are different than DISC plugs.

I can usually go at least 20 shots before i notice any "lag". Some days ive never had any. Temps and humidity seem to effect this a little. On warm days i can sometimes use Win209s without an issue but on cooler days the mags go off fine every time if the flash channel is clean.

Try a good bore polish (JB or ME Copper Cream) and Montana Extreme Bore Conditioner. Using both has made cleaning any barrel much easier/faster for me.

Plus the bore conditioner does not seem as bad as an oil if you dont run any patches before shooting. If i left any RemOil in the bore and fired any of mine it was nasty. Brake cleaner or Windex with a good amount of rubbing alcohol added seem pretty good at making sure nothing is in the barrel before firing. A lightly damp patch is fine then a couple of dry ones.

BTW BH209 does leave soot in the barrel but bullets load easier for me with a little soot than a totally clean barrel. Usually more accurate too. The residue on the BP though can be a PITA cleaning at the end of the day.

And did you fire off just a couple of primers first?

Scott

Best powder you can feed an MZ??

BP works great, no crud ring, easy clean up, and BP is accurate as heck, and at about 1/3 the price. And you do not need any special nipples or plugs or special hotter caps or special ignition systems. And for about 1/3 or so the price?? So I am not sure how you can call it the "best powder".

I think all these powders coming down the line are marketed to catch the shooter in a marketing ploy, I doubt very seriously if BH will out shoot straight black. And I have tried all the expensive new powders. Heck I will not let T-7 within 100 yards of my rifles. Just an opinion. But then I like to shoot my MZ's. Not save up money to buy powder that does not even come in a 1# can. Tom.

In my area real black powder is over $20lb and BH209 is $28. Swiss is about the same price as BH209 so in my case it is the best and i can leave mine uncleaned for days without an issue.

Best is a relative term.

I don't know what I did wrong, but I had a bad enough crud ring to get my patch and rod stuck. I'd rather clean up soft soot than hard carbon any day, plus I know that 777 will go off when I need it to. I'm going to get some 209A's when I get my NFPJ plug and try BH again, but I'm not holding my breath..

Either I am wrong or you should check your bottles. The bottle of BH I had was not 1#. And I guess I am fortunate because we have a local guy who stocks BP and does not charge that much. So maybe for you the BH is twice as much. Instead of three times more. But that still does not address the other problems people have like the bad hygroscopic properties of the powder. And other things you need to worry about to get it to go off. BP will go off if you do the process properly. And it does not need any special nipples, or special primers, or special breech plugs, or whatever special stuff you need. Heck I have shot BP before when it was wet.

When they start shooting BH-209 in a Gibbs rifle at the 1,000 yard line then I might give it a second look. But then they use BP?? Oh my.

I guarantee you that MZ accuracy is due to the rifle and projectile more than what type of powder you use. They have marketed these whiz-bang powders to shooters. And the shooters fell for it. After all who would pay two or three times as much for powder that does not improve accuracy(over BP). And you still need to clean your rifle?? Now if you did not have to clean your rifle after you shot then that might be worth investigating. But then you would be shooting a Savage with smokeless powder.

I have been around the block with all the different powders available on the market. And with a good projectile and a good rifle you will not be able to out shoot BP in that rig. Tom.

have any of you guys ever gotten a cleaning jag and patch stuck in your barrel? It seems to happen to me every time I shoot

BH209 is worth every penny. I dont care who shoots what out of a gibbs or any other rifle. For my rifles, bh209 IS the best powder you can get on the market. Blackpowder fouling is very heavy in my rifles (sidelock, flintlock, inline) at time i have to use a small hammer to tap the bullet down. In an inline, i got a bad crud ring with goex, even while using 777 primers. But with BH209, i get zero crud ring, zero problems. No breech plug Mods either

Yep, happens all the time if i use Black powder in my Hawken. I opted to use smaller patches so the fit wasnt so tight.

I suppose everybody is going to have different opinions and experiences based on their rifles and conditions. I'm not going to write off BH yet, but today was not a great experience

next time only shoot BH209 and dont let others on the range disrupt your shooting. Start with a fresh clean oil free barrel and load up and shoot the first shot. Depending on the heat, you may have to allow the barrel a few minutes to cool down between each shot.

For starters, What loads were you shooting today with the BH209? Did you clean out the flash channel before shooting BH209? American Pioneer leaves a lot of crud in my breech plug flash channel, T7 i'd imagine would be worse. Primers alone cause carbon build up inside of the flash channel, you need to use a drill bit that fits the hole and clean that out every so often.

Just take things one step at a time and go rush into it, things will fall into place soon enough.

Correct its 10oz and i can get more fps with BH209 per grain SO it equals out. I can use just plain old Win209s $33-36 per 1000 in my Accura and OEM breach plug just fine. I dont have to have any "whiz bang" addon for it to work either.

I can shoot all day and never have to swab. Sometimes i may shoot an entire bottle from 3 guns in one outing.

So for ME it is the best and i dont own a Gibbs but i do have a Pedersoli that shoots BH209 VERY well too. :P

When i can shoot Swiss all day and meet the above criteria or if i buy a White Super 91 i will reevaluate my opinion. ;)

The only bad thing about BH209 is that due to it being so clean you forget how much you go through because youre not stopping to clean it out after a handful of shots. Ive gone through 7 cans so far since i started shooting it. Have to pace myself!

josh...just josh

Sticking a cleaning jag with a patch is not an unheard of thing. A lot of people have done and it will continue to happen, usually to the beginning shooter.

Try making some of these patches to run a patch with they might solve your problem.



When you do feel/find a crud ring, use short strokes back and forth to make your way through the ring.

There really is a learning curve that goes along with shooting BH. I would also suggest that you look into the Lehigh Generation II Knight Breech Plug if you are going to shoot BH. The designe is much more favorable to shooting BH than the Knight NFPJ breech plugs. Plus with the Lehigh I think you can use any primer you want to.

BH is a great powder if you can afford to shoot it and if you learn the learning curve that goes along with it. My problem is that i shoot to much to be a BH user - Between the end of November and the first of this month I have shot 6 lbs of T7. That would have been around 9.5 bottles of BH. That adds up in a hurry.

I would suggest the best thing you could do would be to get a known good sub and shoot it for awhile while you are learning the use of your rifle. I choose not to shoot BP or the Pyro's because of their corrosive issues, yet if you know what you are doing and take care of your rifle corrossion is not an issue.

Hope you get some help to get things going in the right direction for you.

I havent written of any powder really...except pellets. I cant stand them. The crud ring was always terrible for me and i dont shoot much T7 anymore.

If i had to shoot another powder i would bite the bullet and buy Swiss and tolerate the cleanup time frame. Im not a big T7 fan either but i did get another bottle on sale. I gave away more than i shot.

I want to see if a bore conditioner and the bore shine help the crud ring issue. I used a lot of RemOil in the past and it may have been part of the problem i had with T7.

Gm54-120

I would really disagree with that thought. BH is about a grain for grain with T7 until you get to the heavier bullets and then it only achieves around 175 fps more than T7.

I have ran both powders through a chrono on several different occasions and there are tons of chrono information out there to verifiy this.

Here are a couple of examples...

This table is not complete but I think it shows what I am talking about.



This one is complete...



Here is another example

110 Grains Blackhorn 209 - 260-Grain Scorpion PT Gold...........2,044 f.p.s.



110 Grains FFFg Triple Seven - 260-grain Scorpion PT Gold........2,019 f.p.s.



110 Grains Black Mag XP - 260-Grain Scorpion PT Gold.............2,018 f.p.s.



Note: The Knight Extreme Ultimate Slam has a 27" Barrel, with a 26 1/4" working bore.

Another example

So, what kind of velocities do such loads have? The 140-grain charge of Blackhorn 209 that punched the 1-inch group just above and to the left gets the 260-grain Scorpion PT Gold on its way at 2,193 f.p.s. (with 2,774 f.p.e.). Shooting 120-grains of FFFg Triple Seven gets the bullet out of the same rifle at 2,1o6 f.p.s. (with 2,563 f.p.e.). A 130-grain charge of Black Mag XP gets the 260-grain sboted bullet out of the muzzle at 2,128 f.p.s. (with 2,615 f.p.e.).

If you move above a 300 grain bullet then BH becomes more and more efficient to a point that you begin shooting powder out the barrel.

And to be fair these same velocities can reached with real BP shooting about grain for grain if you are shooting Swiss BP...

I sure feel lucky...I stocked up on Goex last year at $11.50 a can...

As far as jags getting stuck down the bore, most are too large...Chuck them up in a drill and turn them down with a file...A proper fitting cleaning patch and jag will go down easily so it pulls the crud out when you pull it back out, not pack it down into the flash channel when going down...

If you want a clean burning powder, go smokeless...

sabotloader

Not vs T7

Vs say Goex or regular (insert brand) black powder or Pyrodex.

Like i said i would shoot Swiss if it met all my needs. It doesnt and cost about the same including fps. if i ever get a White rifle it will probably never see anything but Swiss or high quality black powder.

I got another bottle of T7 and am going to give it another try since it was on sale. Ive read the same article several times and i do shoot mostly heavy for caliber bullets.

BTW the last time i got a BH209 i got it on sale for $24.99 and almost all the subs were within a dollar or two except Swiss which was a bit more. T7 right now is the same price in my area and you have to add in the T7 primer cost for best results. I cant even find Blackmag locally and its in 10oz bottles too. Online pricing is roughly the same minus hazmat.

Josh,
Your problems are typical of 777 and you need to get with Sabot loader about the right mod on your breach plug for BH to not have any problems, BH works better than any other powder when you have the right breach plug set up.
Secondly shooting any other powder over 777 crudring with out a real scrubbing will give me a bad day every time so I have to suspect it can do the same for you.
The only draw back to BH when you have the right set up is the price, since I am old and they tell me I can not take it with me any way I don't worry about that. Lee

Gm54-120

Oh! OK - my bad! Gees I hate when my kids say that.....

Lee

And you always bring things back in perspective, as you are right as usual...

Lee really does.

Things get lost in forum opinions/communications and some "like me" dont convey them as well as others.

Its odd though that the FPJ on the LK93 works much better with BH209 than the Extreme or GMB54. I dont think i have had a single hange fire with it. The BPs look the same but i dont think the flash hole is.

The GMB54 and Extreme do need improvement with it but im usually good to go. NFPJs in most or all Disks is a big improvement in ignition for sure. The Gen I Lehigh may have not been the cleanest but ignition was about as good as it gets in all of mine.

Give me a nickel for every time its happened to me and I could buy a couple pounds of powder. Josh just josh... a stuck jag and patch happen for a couple reasons.

1. the patch is too big. If these are store bought patches made for a muzzleloader this should not be a problem. But if you cut (or in my case tear) your own, be careful about the size. If you start the patch down the bore and it seems extra tight, then pull it back out before it becomes a problem.

2. The patch is too dry. This happens a lot. People do not want to saturate a patch and I agree, there is no need for saturation. But that does not mean that the patch does not have to be damp. When I spritz a patch, I will often times if it is too wet, ring it out with my fingers. Then use it. I can always go down the bore with an extra dry one.

3. Your moving too much down the bore at one time. Work the damp patch down the bore in 3 inch amounts. Never put that patch on the end of a ramrod and just think you are going to shove it down the bore. When you scrub something you work in short strokes. Well the bore of the rifle is the same way. Work it down in short strokes. When the damp patch moved in that area easy, then push it down a little further. Work the next area, and so on, until you get to the base of the breech. Down there you have to be real careful. Especially if there is a crud ring down there. You might have to work it in 1/2 inch amounts to break up a crud ring. If it feels tight, do not down down further. Work the area you are in until you can move a little more. It takes more time, but you do a better job of swabbing, and you stick less patches.

Lets say you have the patch stuck. Now what to do? A simple solution is dump a little liquid down the bore and saturate the patch. The patch will absorb the liquid and usually allow you to work the patch a little. Also get a range rod that you can put a T handle on. Then you can stand on the T handle and pull that patch back up to an area of the barrel were it was not getting stuck.

Just remember, a damp patch, work in short strokes, take your time, if it feels tight back out a little and work the area over again. If you stick a patch (I use isopropyl alcohol) you can dump a little liquid down the bore so the patch absorbs it. It will usually loose it, let you finish your swabbing and then get it back out. Also check your jag when your done and make sure it has not come undone.

If you did have to dump a little more liquid down the bore, be sure to run a few extra dry patches until they come out dry. Then pop a 209 primer or two (or cap) to make sure the breech plug is blown clean and dry.

Hope this helped.

Shooting a muzzleloader has one heck of bigger learning curve then most firearms. I have learned to do things in small increments when it comes to making changes in my shooting. When I started pyrodex was the rage. I had a perfect load for deer hunting and was mostly satisfied. Then comes t7 and believe me I got my share of patches stuck till i learned what has been previously stated; work the damp patch down just a little at a time. I can feel the top of the crud ring and then I know it is really time to go slow. One thing I still will not do on the range is bottom out my jag no matter how slow I've cleaned. Last year I flirted with mag3 but the clumping up of the powder in my reloads tubes made me too nervous to use it during hunting this past season. Now I'm back with t7. I would love to use blackhorn but my ol gun will not handle it. I actually used it for 10 shots in my mk85 and it never misfires at all. The blowback was like unreal and I commented on here and then was told my gun could'nt use it safely. Patience and knowledge is the key to having fun with a muzzleloader. One small change and you will wonder where in the heck your accuracy went.

thanks for the info guys! especially cayugad, I never thought about the patch being too dry or pouring anything down the barrel before. I'm not new to muzzleloaders, this knight is my third one and I have been shooting them for a few years now (all I have hunted with for the last three years). The first time that I got the patch stuck I was shooting BH. I know people say that there is no crud ring, but I had one. I know that it wasn't left over from before because this is the first time i shot my knight. I think that it was probably from the dirty primers that I was shooting.
I emailed knight to cancel my order of the NFPJ plug because it's been weeks since I ordered it and they still haven't shipped it. I'm going to order a lehigh plug and try BH again.

Remember when you swab BlackHorn 209, you have to use solvent or alcohol.