Black Mountain Magnum
 

Today was a excellent fall day. In the 40's so it was not cold. The wind was light from left to right. Overcast so no sun in your eyes. I just had to shoot today. I decided to try out the Black Mountain Magnum .50 caliber. Made by Thompson Center Arms, the Black Mountain Magnum .50 caliber sports a musket cap ignition. It has a claim that this rifle is a true magnum and can shoot pellets if you wish. Mine is the blued/black model with a simple 4x32mm Simmons Pro Sport ($19.99 I made a mistake when ordering the Pro Diamond model scope) and so you shouldn't expect too much out of the rifle.

My note card said the rifle is sighted in at 50 yards. That's fine for what I have planned for this rifle. I swabbed the bore of the 26 inch barrel with isopropyl alcohol and decided to use that as a swab today also. After checking the fire channel I was well pleased with the patch burn it shows. So out to the range.

I took along a new pack of 260 grain Harvester Scorpion Funnel Nose hollow points in black Harvester Crushed Rib sabots. For powder, I have been playing with the new Schuetzen 2f Black Powder I recently purchased. So far I have been real happy with it. I also took some 460 grain Bull Shop .504 conical bullets to try. Now remember, this rifle has a QLA in the barrel. Not something a lot of you are crazy about.

I wanted to start with the sabots. So I then looked at the shooting card and it said 90-110 2f powder. So I decided to start with 90 grains of 2f Schuetzen black powder.



This is ten shots total. #6 I knew I was not set when I touched that trigger and the rifle showed I was right. #9 kind of surprised me because that was by all indications fine. But I was real pleased with the way the rifle shot these Scorpions.



When I tried to shoot the conicals, I had real problems. This must be a tight bore. I could hardly get the conicals down the bore. In fact after the second one.. hey! I don't need to be told twice. Wow they were impossible to load.

Surprising was the harvester crushed rib sabots and the Scorpion bulets. While I did not need a short starter because of the QLA they still loaded nice and firm and sat nice and firm on the powder charge. I think this will make a good hunting load.

Overall I am real happy with this rifle and its inexpensive scope...

On a side note, I was out for a walk today and came on a nice deer track. And I followed the track through the fresh dirt to of all places... 35 yards from the back door of the house.



Now we got down to 24 degrees last night and that bad boy still sunk in the dirt when it started to warm up or last night before it hardened over. I do hope I run into what ever made that track again... say in a couple weeks.

cayugad

That is a very nice ragged hole you shot with that thar gun... I really want to get out and do some shooting also - but just to darn many other things happening...

Hope you find that deer..

You need to find that deer and give it back it's cell phone.

With all these rifles that you cut the center out of targets with, choosing the one to hunt with, will be your biggest challenge.

That looks like overall good shooting by you and the rifle. I didn't see that you mentioned the twist rate of that barrel. What is it?

Just take the phone with you when you go hunting. He might do like I do and call it with his wife's phone so he will hear it ring and walk right to it to get it. Of course that will be the last time he loses it.

The Black Mountain Magnum was a traditional fast twist rifle. It has a 1-28 twist. According to the T/C technician, the barrel is the same one as found on the Omega except they changed the end of course. I think if I bedded this barrel it would do even better. The only complaint with the rifle is the plastic or what ever it is black stock seems so inadequate for the quality of the barrel.

Also when I was testing the musket cap ignition before loading.. I know they do not throw all that much hotter a flame then say a #11 cap.. but it would blow the patch right back into the ramrod when I was cleaning the fire chamber.

I have thought of trying pellets in the rifle just to see if it would work. Also the breech end of the rifle, inside, is strange. When you swab, you feel a ring almost far down the barrel in the breech, just ahead of the bolster. Almost like it is some special chamber or something for the powder.

The two conical bullets hit several inches low and left. Although the two I shot were within an inch of each other. I might size some of my UC Short Mags down to .501 and then see how they do.

I think you intentionally put #9 up there by #6 because #6 looked so lonely. Just shows how compassionate you are.

Good shooting!

Thats some fine shooting.

Great shooting Dave, I'll be up your way over the weekend. We'll be staying in Ashland on Saturday night.