sabotloader

sabinajiles,

I have read your post and while I agree wth a lot you have said i would like to add that I believe hunting deer in the east or south east is not the same in the west, espicially here in this part of Idaho. I guess your populations run higher than ours, we might be able to get to two tags per year on some occasions but that is not the norm. Further we do not have the wood lots or feeding plots that seem to be prevelant in the east. For me to hunt deer I have to spend a lot of time on Public Lands, basically Forest Service and Potlatch. I am hunting in and out of clearcuts, shooting across draws from one ridge to another. Yes, there are some 50 yard shots, but not always especially when hunting elk. I would like to go prepared to make that extended range shot if needed and have enough energy to humanely(sp) kill the animal I am after. During elk season and after the first few shots by people it is really tuff to get real close to our white tail or elk.

Because of these situations a lot of people believe they need those "magnum" charges, especially those newbies coming over to ML'ing from the bolt action centerfires. (that is exactly the reason that so many inlines are sold) Maybe I am wrong here, but I would prefer everyone out here hunted with a "magnum" ML instead of a "magnum" centerfire or any centerfire there would be a lot less game taken and hunting would return to somewhat of an art.

I have shot 150 grain loads (equivelant) on many different occasions, just experimenting never in a hunting situation, and I need to agree with bigcountry, I do not think there is a tremendous difference in recoil between the two loads. Remember that 3 t7 pellets is equal to 127.5 grains of Pryro crap or BP.

Us guys that just come over to ML are awlays thinking performance - performance - performance not to many of us understand the law of deminishing returns - "so" it must be necessary to get perfomance to load 150... And really you do get some added velocity, but at what price.... I shoot 100 grain loads and have not found the reason for the extra 50 but some folks do. You probably shoot 80 grains or less and wonder why I think I need 100 - you shoot rb - I shoot sabots, and it all comes down to matching our rifle with the conditions we hunt...

So this whole thing goes right back where you started "To each his own" - sorry for taking up time and space.



Matching you hunting weapon to the conditions you are hunting in is important

bigcountry

Well that stinks. I about did the same thing 5 year ago. I did my typical obsession where I was working to get a new bow tuned. And shot and shot for a few weeks, until my shoulder pulled. Doc said if I kept it up, I would have to move to a crossbow. Since then I try never shoot more than 50 arrows at a time.

Most people I have seen try mag loads that are newcomers gave up pretty quick. I took several months last year week after week trying dozens of combos. It burns the cold winter.

sabinajiles

I admit that I don't know anything about hunting in the west or southwest. If I were faced with those conditions, perhaps I would concentrate on ambush points but with no experience with your conditions, I honestly can't say that would be effective. If conditions necessitated longer range shots, and I were interested in maintaining a more traditional method of shooting, I would probably opt for a BPCR, as long as it was legal. I really have no real bias against inlines. I just have no desire to use them. I own one that I never use anymore.

sabinajiles

I suffered a severe rotator cuff tear that had to be repaired by sugery. It didn't occur from shooting my bow but from an accident. After surgery, my arm was in a sling for ten weeks and I wasn't allowed to do anything at all with it. After that it was a long rehab, probably taking close to a year to get it back to about 95% of what it was before, at least by strength. However, I can't draw and hold the weight of my longbow. I can draw a 60 lb compound bow and did hunt with one for a while, just to keep in the woods, but have pretty much given that up because I just don't enjoy it that much.

Briman

My poimnt was that:
150 gr triple 7 loads do recoil ALOT for a muzleloader, I shot his rifle, and though I'm not very sensitive to recoil, it felt a lot like a 12 guage shotload that I was shooting. Shooting a dozen of these off a bench will cause people to flinch unconsciously.
I could shoot my RB rifle all day without it even coming close to bothering me.

The cleanupup of triple 7 sounds like a marketing ploy to me. You still need hot water to clean it up, and need solvents and a brush to remove sabot fouling. I think new shooters are being sold on a falsehood that the new improved muzzleloading is easier to clean up. Ask anyone who has never shot real blackpowder as to why they won't try it, the typical response is that they don't want to do the blackpowder cleanup.

bigcountry

I don't agree at all about the recoil. Before I started experimenting I heard that over and over here. And then tried it, and it sure wasn't no 12ga slug in my opinion. But the knight elite comes with a great recoil pad. Maybe has something to do with it.

I also don't think anyone uses triple 7 on the thought its easier to clean. Its hard for me to get in that frame of mind cause I used it all and its all messy as all get out. I lump all powders in the same catagory. Its hard for us to know why people buy a new mL cause neither of us are new.

Striper Phil

shoot 777 in my primitives, Pennsylvanian and trapper and have since they were new because I was told they are less corrosive and it seemed the right thing to do. I shoot pellets in my inlines because that’s what they were designed for I think.. I shoot my primitives with open sights and have a difficult time of it as I age I can’t see to well so the rear sight is pretty blurry. Try getting a sight picture when there are three parallel rear sights bouncing around. The Pennsylvanian Long gun gives the best sight picture because the rear sight is pretty far down the barrel. By the way that is in part the reason for the long barrel design. The historical old timers couldn’t see worth a damn either. Any when I started less corrosive seemed like a good idea since I was not sure about the cleaning thing. I have gotten better at cleaning over the last few years. Inlines with scopes seem to match.

retrieverman

I am new at muzzleloading myself and have done the trial and error load development for my gun. I am currently shooting 130 gr Pyrodex with a 250 gr Barnes Expander MZ. I am consistently shooting 1" groups at 125 yards and 2" at 200 yards. I am dead on at 125 yards and 13" low at 200 yards. The reason that I got started in muzzleloading is the easy of inline rifles. I am shooting a 50 cal Knight Disc rifle topped with a Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14 scope.

sabotloader

Briman,

With the advent of the new Polymer plastic - plastic fouling is greatly reduced - in fact I have never had a problem with plastic fouling and I rarely use brush and solvent... I do use hat water though. I have inspected the bores of my guns with a bore scope and really can not see much in the way of plastic. And for cleanup all do is stick a hose in the breech area and run hot tap water through. On occasions I will run boiling water through but not very often. I have shoot real black powder but i do worry about corrosion so I now shoot t7 that relieves some of that concern. Often during the season I might not clean - I mean strip clean the gun until the season is over so using t7 gives me less worry in that requards. So again t7 works better for me.

MLKeith

I noticed a lot of concern about the recoil with maximum loads of 777. I agree the sharp recoil from the 777 loads make it difficult to shoot the heavier loads. I mentioned earlier that I shoot Black Mag'3 and I can verify that maximum velocity can be had using BM3 with considerably less felt recoil than the same volume of 777 which will produce less velocity. 777 has a very rapid rise rate of the pressure curve which in most cases is not necessary or even desired for muzzleloading bullet performance. Black Mag'3 is also a lot less corrosive than 777. It is non-corrosive to steel and slightly corrosive to brass. I know that it is still difficult to find in a lot of areas (unfortunately my area is one of the ones that it does not exist in) but when you can get some to try you will be impressed as I was. BM3 works best with heavier bullets 295gr. and up. With 100gr. volume I get 2000fps out of a 300gr. bullet.