Temperature 72 degrees, no wind, sunny, no bugs (got too cold last night and killed them off), just a perfect summer day.

Rifle: Thompson Center Hawkens 50 caliber 1-48 twist barrel original,
percussion cap model. Open sights

Powder: Schuetzen 2f black powder. 85 grains worth

Projectiles: roundball and 240 grain .430 XTPs

Patch: pillow tick with dishwater lube

Caps: CCI magnum

Distance: 40 yards on the head!



I taped a chunk of laminate flooring to the target board. That target was shot to pieces because I put 400 rounds of .22 caliber through it. What a blast!! I then put a Birchwood Casey bulls eye on the laminate floor and it showed up real good.



Took my first shot and needless to say, that gets a person a little pumped up. I mean, that is on a clean dry barrel.



2-1/2 inches at 40 yards is not deadly accurate, but hunting accurate it is. I made a big goof when I shot 240 grain XTPs. The XTPs were .430 and I brought out the wrong sabots. When I loaded the rifle I thought.. man they loaded easy? But they grouped real good.

Then I loaded up roundball and shot my first of three off hand shots at the target. I missed the laminate and put a hole way off in the paper target. So I shot again.. this time I hit the laminate. Shot #3 well we are not going to talk such foolishness anymore. I need to work on the off hand shooting. I wiggle like the devil when I try to hold on target. I would like to blame my lack of skill on hangfires.. but nope.. just me!!

Then I started to get some extreme hangfires... I had no idea why.



7&8 I held through the hangfires. I shot low, but at least I held through them. So I loaded up for one last try, at a bottle of water. I had places a 2 liter bottle of water up at 40 yards and wanted to make it explode. Actually I was curious of the damage a simple roundball would do. And like Ron.. I wanted to capture the geyser, but my video was a smoke cloud instead...



After four misfired caps.. meaning snap but no pop... I pulled the nipple and found the reason for the hangfires. I was swabbing between shots using the fancy lube which was dishwater. I was using an old light brown T shirt for patch material. When I pulled the nipple.. there in the end of the nipple was a chunk of T shirt. How it managed to get in there during swabbing I will never know. But I removed that.. drizzled a little powder under the nipple, capped it and BOOM!!! it went off perfect. But I called it quits because the rifle was getting really filthy when I swabbed. I took a photo of the patch after swabbing but must have moved as it was so fuzzy you could not tell what it really was. But it was dirty..

At least I found the problem. The damage of that simple round ball is amazing. It entered the front of the bottle, blowing that out even the bottom out.. and the ball was still in tact enough to exit the back of the bottle. That would have been some penetration there. You can see the exit hole there on the bottle and the fact the front is all but blown away.

Over all it was fun. But I do have to work on my off hand shooting, or promise myself that I will not take any off hand shots at critters.

I don't imagine too many deer would walk away from that grouping!

HA

cayugad

Glad you have some decent temperatures... It is little after 5pm here and still 93*

I ran out to the farm again this morning to check POI again on the 52 and at 11am the range finder was reading 89*.

Nice shooting, but I do have a question? Why would a round ball remain inside the plastic bottle at 40 yards. I do not know a whole lot about PRB's but I really would expect more penetration at 40 yards... nevermind you did say the ball passed through as I thought it should...

Have you had time to re-shoot your DISC with 209's yet?

I like your range. Is this in your back yard? I would be in heaven to go out back and shoot.At least you solved your hangfire problem.

I have 125 yards of shooting range. But to go to the full extent of the range, I am bavBeing just outside the back door makes it convenient. In fact, when I move to the full extent of the range, I am shooting between the house and garage, I am actually in the woods in front of the house.

Sabotloader, I did get pass through. But the exit hole looked very clean still. Why it would blow the front of the bottle up so much, always amazes me.

Dave it is evidence of 'hydro static shock' really I think it is more a case of 'Hydraulic' pressure at work. There are a lot of people that do not believe that these pressure even exist. You jug shows that it does. The front of the jug is ruptured because the pressure seeks the weakest and closest place to escape and the the first hole you put provided that exit only it was not big enough to allow the pressure out fast enough so the pressure increased the size of the hole. Then as the ball passed through the liquid it created additional pressure which needed to be released so it blows out the bottom because it less movable than the wall on the other side of the jug which will flex farther with the pressure than would the bottom. By time the ball reaches the opposite wall - the pressure has hole big enough that pressure can not be created any longer so the ball passes cleanly through the next piece of plastic.

This little video shows the same thing... That is one of the main reason I shot Nosler Partitions for so long and now have turned to the Lehigh/Bloodline. This video is actully a Barnes

That some decent shooting. i've goofed a few times and fired .430 bullets in .452 sabots. The bullet is usually 2-4" outside the group somewhere.

It sure makes you wonder how a deer can ever take a hit from a roundball and run away. Even if it was just a little 50 caliber rifle. Just think of the pressures caused when you shoot that 52 caliber with that 300 grain Lehigh. That must really pound a body cavity.

Falcon... it never even dawned on me until I loaded the second one, and that magic light goes on in your head saying.. what the heck? Then I started looking. The other thing I noticed was the sabot was over 30 yards in front of the shooting bench. That seems like an awful long distance to travel. The round ball patches were no more then 8 yards in front of the bench.