Yesterday i fired my .54 caliber TC New Englander after installing a Williams tang peep sight. Distance is 78 yards. Powder charge was 80 grains of Black MZ.


The patched round ball was a tight fit in the bore. Ball was seated very hard on the powder. Did not swab between shots. My three round group measured just over 1 1/4".


There is one problem. With the sight nearly bottomed out the group was high. Now i need a taller front sight.

Not a bad problem to have there Falcon. Means you are getting more bang for your buck. Good velocity from the sounds of it. I wish I'd gotten around to trying that MZ stuff as it sounds pretty close to BH power and cleanliness without the BH price. I'd take a 8% loss in velocity for 100% price reduction.

Its not close to BH209 performance levels if you want speed. Not even as fast as Triple7 actually. When you consider its actual weight its a pretty poor performer. IIRC its 88gr by weight for 100gr by volume.

I feel T7 and Bh209 are poor performers and I've listed several reasons why, numerous times on various boards.

There's more to grading a powder than highest bullet speed. I'm seeing really quick ignition - consistent target holes and a surprisingly semi-clean barrel after 10 shots of Blue Mag pellets fired on a Saturday in December. Covering four days of hunting altogether, no signs whatsoever yet of moisture in the powder.

Very happy with the Mag pellets and I suspect Black Mag loose will show up under a different label, should it ever go away as rumored.

We could very well see Black Hots Loose Powder coming to powder shelves this late summer.

i'm a hunter not a long range sniper.


i'd rather sneak up and put a patched round ball in the animals ear than shoot same from long range.

:biggrin: I had to go to something else to keep from commenting on that...He will have to change his name again!!

My prior posts on why I quit T/7 and BH209 are here to research. Also at most-all of the ML messageboards on the Web-net.

I covered the T/7 and Blackhorn discontinuation thing many times already.

That popcorn looks tasty...... :cool:

Sorry! I changed my name here once. Never again!
Besides I have-yet to make a permanent-type switch to Alliant Mag powders. Had you read my prior posts, it's mentioned that I will test Black/Blue Mag in 2018.

I hope the powder continues to work well. But even I wouldn't bet on not finding more than (1) issue with it.

The only powder in the past 26 years that I've stuck with-is Real Blackpowder. Substitute blackpowder will always see new arrivals, for technology advances are commonplace these days.

Well I'm new to all these subs. Been shooting sidelocks for most of my life and Swiss for most of those years. Just starting to get into inlines and the one I have currently is a smokeless rig. So you could consider me a newbie to most of this info.