Ok, I figure this is the place to ask. It has happend twice, and with two differnt guns. I sight in my guns cleaning after every couple of shots. Get both guns shooting 1" high at 50 yards. Clean the guns well and reload them for hunting. In the first case the gun set for a week before being loaded. The first shot on a deer I miss. I take the gun back to the house and it' s shooting 12" high? I figure scope or mounts moved? 2nd gun is loaded the next morning for hunting. Shoot a turkey that evening, perfect shot placement at 40 yards. Clean the gun and reload for the next morning. Two days latter miss a shot on a HUGE 6 point. Lot' s of mass, just no brow tines. I am frustrated and go back to the house. Check guns zero, guess what it' s shooting 12" high at 50 yards! Now I am not sure what happend. It could be the scope or mounts again, but I am not so sure. I am shooting 120 grns of pyrodex with 240 grn xtp bullet in a sabot. The gun is a 50 cal t/c black diamond. The first gun was a cheaper CVA staghorn, I used the same bullets in it, but only 90 grns of pyrodex. Since then I clean well between each and every shot and have checked the mounts, rings and scope. everything seems in order. The scope is a leupold, it' s older but works great. It' s been on my 7mm Mag for years, but I wanted a better scope for the black powder gun. I guess my question is, other than the scope moving, would something else cause this to happen, such as the way the gun is cleaned, loading procedure etc? Or do you think I just happen to have some bad luck?

The only thing I can think of is the scope is broken and is changing settings after each shot.Try open sites and see what happens or mount a different scope.

Any scope can fail to hold zero-- that what it sounds like.


12" is hard to believe for lack of a fouling shot, but I always hunt with a fouled barrel.

Out of my Encore, first shot from a clean barrel is 4-6" high at 100 yards, then sub-1" .

Out of my Knight, first shot is 3-6" LOW, then groups sub-1" at 100 yards.

For 50 yard shots, I' d shoot with the iron sights-- and get the scope ?????? out of the picture. If the groups don' t dance with iron-- you know it is scope or mounts.

Any oil in the gun can cause the first shot to be high, 12 inches is a lot though. I have seen it up a few inches. If I were you, I would shoot off either a few caps if the gun is an inline or if it is a flint, a little pan powder in the pan or barrel. This way the gun should shoot more accurately.

I would also drop back the charge to 100 grains versus 120. I believe that anything over 100 grains is probably too much. I have shot 150 grain versus 100 in my CVA Firebolt shooting 295 PB or 250 TC Shockwave. I now shoot 100 and it' s enough to hit the target at 100 yards.

Tomster