wachtelhund

Has anyone use Blackhorn 209 powder in a Lyman Mustang Breakopen .50 cal muzzel loader. If so what loads are you shooting?

I received my Lyman muzzel loader last week and tried to fire it with BH 209 powder. Shot three CCI 209M primers and all fail to ignite the charge. Prior to trying to shoot I had cleaned the barrel and breech plug. Also ran a super fine drill bit through the breech plug.

I spent several hours reading posts about the Lyman Mustang and Blackhorn 209 powder. So I called Western and talked to Doug, he said their Blackhorn 209 powder was not compatible with the Lyman Mustang ML. I was determined to try some more to get it shooting.

Doug had said the BP design was to large, holding the Primer loose and had too much head spacing. Allowing the primer to slide back when fired. I couldn't do anything about the BP size, but the head spacing?

I pulled the BP from my CVA Kodiak Magnum and compared the two. The Lyman flash channel was much smaller than the CVA. I could easily slip a 7/64 drill bit into the CVA flash channel, but not in the Lyman. So I drilled out the Lyman BP flash channel with the 7/64 drill bit. I left the vent hole as is.

To correct for the head spacing: The lyman BP has a small flange just before the the 1/2 nut, which butts against the barrel when tighten. Took a small piece of thin electrical solder, cut it just long enough to wrap it around the BP with out overlapping the ends. I screwed the BP in and tigthen it. When I got near the end I went slowly, I put a primer in and placed a small drill bit on top of the primer. I tighten the BP so that the drill bit rested on the breech face and I could just barely see light between the primer and drill bit. I tried closing the action several times, no problem with the primer. This eliminated the extra head spacing and held the primer in plcae when fired. I pulled the BP and measured the solder. It had been compressed to a tickness of .0026.

I now have the Lyman mustang shooting Blackhorn 209 powder. I have since drilled the flash channel out with an 1/8 inch drill bit and seat the BP with the thin solder .0017" below the breech face.

Now that it is shooting with Hornady practice .45 cal 250 gr lead bullets and Hornady sabots; I tried different loads the last two days. First was some COP 225 grain HPs, solid copper pistol bullets .452" sold by Midway and Harvester EZ load sabots. This combination failed to fire, in fact the bullets fell out of the barrel. Next were some Hornady 250 gr SST with Hornady sabots. Same results bullets fell out of the barrel. I believe the Mustang is slightly over bored.

Today, I tried Hornady 300 gr XTP .452 pistol bullets and the Harvester EZ load sabots. This combination fire well keeping four shot with in a 2" orange dot @ 100 yards. This was with 70 grains by weight, equal to 100 black powder.

Semisane

Good report Wachtelhund. I tried Blackhorn in my Mustang several years ago and got severe hangfires. Gave up after a few shots. My Mustang's bore is a little on the generous size also but does pretty well with that 300 grain Hornady bullet in Harvester long black sabots.

Thanks for the tip on using solder for a crush fit measuring device. That's a neat trick. Are you going to make a brass or steel shim to replace the solder?

Underclocked

Maybe try a metal o-ring or shim inside the primer cup on the plug? Wouldn't that produce a similar result? Not seating the plug fully could lead to more blowback, eh?

wachtelhund

Semisane, Haven't thought that far yet about a shim. Actually, I talked to the Lyman rep, he also told me BH 209 was not compatable with the Mustang. Then I told him I was shooting it, he paused and then asked me how I was doing it. I told him they could easily include the changes in the production of their BP. He said he would take it to his boss.

I will probably get around to making a shim after the hunting season. I do like the BH 209 powder though. Fired twenty shots with only swabing the barrel every second shot. Could have fired more.