Got the Woodsman Hawken out today and played with it first at 100 yards, trying Pyrodex P, Harvester smooth black sabots, etc. It turns out that the 185s shoot tighter with the harvester sabots, but still want more powder to tighten them up. We plan on using the 160's, so the experiment with the 185s was just for fun.

The factory supplied sabots do wonderful with the 160's, while the harvesters do terrible ( Ok not terrible, still roughly a 2" group). The 160's did not like 100gr Pyrodex P, but LOVE 90 grains Pyrodex RS.

Below in white is a single shot with 90gr RS. I wanted to see if it still impacted the same with my hunting load I worked up weeks ago. Still hit perfectly!



After all the shooting above, I went and took the rifle home to swab the bore 100% clean and to reload 90gr Pyrodex and the 160gr Thor sabots. (Note powder change for #1 shot) I aimed 12 O'clock on the first shot in case I had any hang fire. I popped 3 caps prior to loading, but sometimes moisture still can catch the powder and cause a hang fire. This was not the case today. All are in a nice semi straight line with 2 and 3 being the groupers. I am thrilled to say the least.


Then I stretched her legs and took it out to 150 yards! No more was needed LOL. DEAD ON out to 150 yards!


I'm pretty much going to get the rifle ready for round balls for my bear hunt, but its only minor adjustment needed.

I'll save the rest of the Thors for my brother in law because lord knows, he will need every bullet in the box and then look at me after 2 hours of not listening to me and say.... Is that all you brought!

Not meaning to be a pain in the azz MD, but shouldn't this be in the regular BP forum. That way if any of the sabot crowd (I won't mention names) wants to start a long drawn out argument over this or that being better because it's what they use or like, they can have at it.


BPS

shoot, this place is to dead to worry about things like that lol.

Yea you're probably right about that Jon, it's too darn hot here to wanna do anything! Not much going on with shooting this time of year. The Mrs. and I attended the 3rd annual memorial trap shoot today in honor of her nephew who was killed in a vehicular accident in 2013. We shot one round of trap at around 2:00 in the afternoon and the humidity was outrageous at that time of day... something like 96%!!! So I can understand why folks aren't shooting much these days, at least here in the Northeast part of the country. We've been under a major heat wave since early June.


BPS