Hi all i want to buy a muzzleloader this coming summer, i like the thompson centre omega in amo and stainless barrel. Any other suggestions or comments on this or any other model of inline? My main reason for wanting to purchase one is for deer in southern ontario, especially now that they have extended it to a second week long one making 2 weeks of gun hunting in my WMU. For whitetail how many grains of pwder do you recommend, and what kind of powder??? If you loaded up your ml with 150 grains and a heavy sabot are they enough for moose??? ANd by the way what is the recoil like on them? I know this is a scattered array of different questions and i would appreciate if you could answer a few, thankyou very much, Spencer Ray.

hey goose welcome to the boards, i like t/c products, i have shot the omega and i own a black diamond and have a encore with a 209X50 barrel for it, both are capable of 150gr. charges but all i ever shoot is 100 using 2 pyrodex pellets, my grouping is better and the gun dosen't kill on both ends, plus shooting 150gr. alot of the powder is still burning going out the end off the barrel, as far as moose i'm not sure, someone on here will be able to help you with that though, but as far as the t/c products i don't think you can go wrong, best of luck

Goose

Welcome to the forum & many of us here use the Omega. I did a search for you on past Omega subjects. Here's a "few" to read -- should only take you a few minutes to read....lol

Click here for T/C Omega discussions

Goose_Getter welcome to the world of muzzleloaders. I commend you on asking questions about a rifle you like now, instead of buying it and then asking is it any good...

The T/C Omega is an excellent choice for what you have described as your hunting situation. It is with out doubt one of the better long range black powder rifle I have read posts on. I own a Black Diamond XR and with the same barrel technically other then the action being different, this is a long range shooting rascal.

As m.t.hands was telling you, some of your best accuracy will come in the 100-120 grain range depending on the projectile you shoot. As for whitetail deer it is a 200 yard rifle if your willing to practice and have a good scope. Some of the loads I would suggest based on my experiences with the Black Diamond are the T/C Shockwaves or the Buffalo Bullet 375 grain SSB spitzer hollow point sabot. This even with 100 grains will floor any whitetail if you place it in the right spot.

As for moose, on a different board a person posted results of an elk hunt shooting Shockwaves and another a hunt for moose using Shockwaves. The wounds were hard to believe. These rifles do have the juice to make clean fast kills at long distances. The trick is to get the right bullet combination and practice. You picked a great rifle to do all of this with. A real beauty in my opinion. If I had not got such a good deal on the Black Diamond XR I was headed towards the Omega as my rifle. I am happy with the one I have (among many ) so good luck and good hunting.

I have a stainless Omega 50 with realtree stock. I just finished an evaluation of three synthetic powders. 777, Clean Shot (also called American Pioneer Powder) and a new entry Black Mag3. I was shooting a 300gr. bullet in a Harvester sabot. 100 grains of Black Mag3 gives the 300gr. bullet a velocity between 1920fps and 2000fps. with manageable recoil (and I am recoil sensitive I will not shoot a 7mm Mag with any load). Accuracy was less than one inch at 100 yards for a three shot group. There was an article in Black Powder Hunter magazine where a woman shot a moose with 100gr. Pyrodex and one shot did the trick. I personally do not think you need more than 100gr. of any powder to pass almost through an Elk or a Moose if you keep your shots under 150 yards. Personally I will be loading 85 to 100 grains of Black Mag3 and either a 348gr. Powerbelt or a 300gr. Hornady SST for my Elk hunt this year.

Mr. Lewis

Good job reporting on the Black Mag-3. Don't stop now... keep it going! With that stuff being roughly $27 a jug, you can save us a few bucks with our own future testings & reporting it here & other spots I've read you on the world-wide web.

My first question on the Black Mag is...
Does in come in multiple grain sizes?
If not, would you rate the grain size please in comparison to 777 or American Pioneer?

There is a more extensive report of the "test" on Greybeard site. I didn't want to copy the whole thing over again. Black Mag3 was apparently out once before but it was called Black Mag2. I think the number refers to grain size although they do not specifically call it ffg or fffg. The grain size of Black Mag3 is very fine like a fffg powder. That explains partially why I got a lot more velocity out of it compared to Clean Shot or 777 which were both ffg as that is what I had. I have not found fffg 777 anywhere yet. I know fffg Clean Shot exists but I did not want to pop for another pound of stuff I might not use. I now have a lot of 777 which will probably set on the shelf until it goes bad. The increased velocity also came with reduced perceived recoil which was an unexpected bonus. I really like the stuff. I intend to do some more comparison with another rifle as my hunting partner is using my Pursuit LT and he is a new muzzleloading guy. If you want to talk without cluttering up this site email me at [email protected].