bronko22000

I took my newly accquired Rene out today to see what she would do with PRBs, She didn't fair as well as I would have liked. I shot 80, 90, and 100 gr charges of FFg under the .530 ball and .018" pillow tick patch with olive oil as the patch lube. This patch/ball combo was tight which I assumed would be accurate. But not soo tight as to be hard to load. A solid smack on the short starter and then the longer end of the short starter and it went down firmly.
But looking back it may have been too tight as some of the patches looked fine but others were ripped to shreds. Grouping was also inconsistant as I would get 2 or 3 shots close (even touching), then a flyer 6" away. Now the partridge sights are not the best and the angle of the sun was causing a glint on the top of the front sight, but that should not have been enough to account for those horrible flyers at 50 yds. I believe I have some .54 felt wads that I may put over the powder and try that and also try some ,015" patches.
But to add insult to injury, as I was putting a new target up down range some heavy wind kicked up and blew the rifle off the sand bags and table and onto the dirt. The way it landed, it put two cracks in the stock on the left side starting at the lock screw and running back about 3" each.

cayugad

never seems to fail. I hope the cracks can be fixed.

I wonder if the stock was not already stressed? As for the fliers.. they always seem to come whether you want them or not.

Semisane

Man, that's a bummer Bronko.

You can't expect decent groups if a gun is blowing patches. Sounds like it's time for a JB treatment on the bore and a touch of emery paper at the muzzle.

As for the cracks. It's usually no big deal to open them up with a wedge to flood the crack with glue, then wrap the stock tight with surgical tubing to clamp it down tight. Sometimes it hardly shows at all. Even if it does show it won't be a functional problem if you're not anal about appearances.

pluckit

Dang! What a bummer. I kind of know how you feel. Last year I took a new to me black powder 6 shooter to the range for the first time. It was cold and there had been a little freezing rain. When I got to the range the tables all had a sheet of ice on them. When I went down range to either check or change a target, instead of putting the pistol in my holster I set it on the table. When I returned to the table I saw that the pistol had slid off the ice onto the cement below. There was some cosmetic damage to the pistol grip and loading bar but it really stank.

bronko22000

Problem was I didn't realize it until I was just about done shooting and saw what looked like a couple snow flakes. So I started searching and sure enough some good patches and some really blown up ones.
I plan on putting on different sights and retry it with felt patches next time out. Maybe I can get out on Monday or even tomorrow again.
I'm not too awful worried about the cracks in the stock. But I may go and try to find one somewhere cheap and just change out all the hardware.

sabotloader

bronko22000

I went through this same thing with my factory Renegades. Pillow Ticking patches just sort of blew up on me. I was using T7-3f powder so I blamed it on the powder but decided to put lubed wads under the patches first. Still with Pillow Ticking I failed. Even more odd was I was having the same problem in to other Renegades - but they were 50's.

Problem was solved when I changed to cotton .015 patches with a wad.

These patches were collected one day, shot from the same rifle with the same powder charge and ball.



Another attempt at trying to use pillow ticking and cotton patches.



Cotton patches fray heavily around the edges but the patch under and around the ball now days always seems to be intact.




One thing I did learn... not all pillow ticking is created equal even though it is labeled pillow ticking and appears to be the pillow ticking of old - modern pillow ticking has man made materials.

This is posted on the 'Track of the Wolf' site in response to so many people having failures with pillow ticking.

I am not much of a PRB shooter, only use PRB's for local Rondies - so i have a lot to learn - just offering this as something I have found.

bronko22000

I have no problem with this ticking out of my GM .54 1:70. That barrel stacks balls on top of each other at 50 yds and the rifling on that barrel is much deeper.
And dang it, I must have used all my felt wads up. I can't find any anywhere. Going to have to do some site searching an find some. No sense shooting again until I do. I do have some cotton .015" patches though.

sabotloader

GM 54-70 twist is a round barrel barrel and designed to shoot PRB's, the Renegade 1-48 twist with shallow lands and grooves is a compromise and probably will never shoot PRB's with as much velocity (powder load) and accuracy that does your GM 54.

This is one of my Renegades that I use for shooting PRB's but to keep it this consistent I am shooting only 60-70 grains of T7.



Here is another target and you can see that without the wad and with the heat of T7 - I am sure I was burning the patch up. The groups with the wad performed better.

If you are shooting real BP or one of the Pyro's I am not sure that you would/should need a wad as the powder does not burn as hot.




'Track of the Wolf' has the wads...

bronko22000

I order 2 packs from Buffalo Bullets. Half the price of TOW's. I also put a set of T/C Hawken sights on it to give me a finer sight picture over those big bulky partridge style sights. Sabot, I will keep the load recommendation in mind. However, I do want enough energy to be able to cleanly harvest a whitetail with it. I'm wondering if a 60 gr FFg charge is enough. Anyone have an opinion on this?

sabotloader

I just ran a ballistic sheet on the load and round ball. The real world BC is .075 but my progam will only allow me to go as low as .100, I estimated the velocity near 1700 fps. Might be as low as 1650, but I think 1700 is a fair number.

Also 60 grains of T7 would be worth about 85-90 grains of real BP.

Nother thing remember this is a 54 and they thump pretty good.