Love playing with those "old" sidelocks and so i brought out the .50cal Cabelas Sporterized Hawken to my 50 yard range. First started with patched round balls and got a decent 2" 6 shot group, room for improvement certainly.

Next i loaded up 90gr 3f American Pioneer, 250gr Powerbelt Aerolite, CCI #11 Mag cap.




Not to happy i decided to drop my load down 10 grains, to 80gr 3F. That group is circled in red! A huge improvement that left me smiling. The lowest shot was the first on a clean bore. I cleaned every 3 shots.


After taking the rifle inside for a swabbing, i decided to go out with 80gr Pyrodex RS this time and see if i could get any improvement. Again, first shot on the far left was on a clean bore.


Shooting pretty tight on a fouled bore aint it? Lets take one more shot and see just how tight it does shoot.


I laughed a good 3 minutes when i walked up to the target. Thats going to be one heck of a shooting load once i back out to 100 yards! Perfect for a Colorado mule deer hunt one of these years.

After that i went and got some tubes loaded with 70gr Pyrodex RS and my home cast 320gr LEE REAL's and took 3 shots. Not happy about that group but at least it was grouping somewhat decent. I will have to experiment with wads and fillers and see what i can do to tighten this up. I love these bullets and they really pack a punch behind them as well in my shoulder.



But that was my shooting for the day gents! Im happy as heck with both the American Pioneer and Pyrodex groups with the Powerbelt Aerolite. I will mainly concentrate working up loads for that REAL and see what i can do with them. I'd really like to get them shooting nicely out to 100 yards. I know i wont match the powerbelts accuracy but if i can get a decent 4 or 5" group @ 100 yards i'd be happy.

Very Nice MD

Looks like she will shoot

I allway liked the checking on the wood stock on them