cayugad

I was asked by a member who purchased a Lyman Great Plains Rifle. His question was, does the powder make a difference in where the rifle shoots. I told him I was pretty sure it did. My Lyman Great Plains Rifle is sighted in with Schuetzen 2f black powder.

So today I took out the Lyman Great Plains Rifle which is a .50 caliber percussion model (The Great Plains Hunter is the flintlock model). As the known standard I first loaded 85 grains of Schuetzen 2f black powder, a home cast .490 round ball, moose milk lube, and cut at the muzzle pillow tick patching. The two center hits at 31 yards indicate where they landed. About what I expected. And to be fair I swabbed between shots and swabbed extra careful between powder changes.

Next up was Pyrodex RS. I was surprised the hits were low left like that. I kind of felt at this closer range they would be more like the black powder. But again, swabbed between shots. Again more swabbing and then a powder change.

The Triple Seven 2f was next. I was really kind of shocked they hit that high. But again, they held a group. So I don't believe it was from a flinch or anything. That one real high up there was a question for me.

Normally on my new rest, the support arm is over the table close to me. In that position it hold the stock of the rifle, right in front of the trigger guard. Well for my own curiosity I moved the arm out, past the table and rested the rifle barrel in the support. I was surprised it made such a difference. I was still loading triple seven 2f powder.

After swabbing the barrel clean, answering the phone and a call of nature inside. I then came out, loaded black powder and proceeded to blow the center of the target out. Making me very happy.

Also I cleaned the rifle with the tooth pick method. Tooth pick in the nipple hole, fill the barrel with dish water, let sit, then pull the pick. I also blew on the end of the barrel to really force the water out of the barrel through the nipple hole. After all that I swabbed the fouling out of the barrel until clean. But again, that curiosity bug got me, so I pulled the nipple. The threads were nice and clean but pushing a Q Tip through the nipple port into the Bolster/Drum with Birchwood Casey Muzzle Loader & Black Powder Magic which is a water soluble, no chemical cleaner, (could you clean BlackHorn 209 with it?) it came out FILTHY!! So some more Q Tips until that was clean and then I did the barrel again with the same Birchwoods Casey product. And they came out clean. We finally wiped it down and oiled the rifle up with of course, Birchwoods Casey Barricade.

I don't want to come off as a Birchwoods Casey hacker. I use their product because our Wal Mart carried it. It works real good. And I go through a lot of it a year.

Semisane

Interesting stuff Cayugad.

I'm not surprised about the change in hold moving the impact point. Seen it many times and suspect it is the cause of many "flyers". That inch-and-a-half change at 31 yards would be over 4 inches at 100 yards, and leave you scratching your head.

Regarding fouling in the flame channel under the nipple. I've seen that also and is the reason I always remove either the nipple or the clean our screw when I clean my caplocks, and the vent liner on my flintlocks.

Blackpowdersmoke

I agree Semi...

That practice has always been a "must do" as far as I'm concerned.

BPS

bronko22000

Same here. But one thing that helps is a trick I learned from Semi. (Not sure if he still does it though). I got me a 3/8" dowel and using a hacksaw, cut a slit about 1/2" down one end. I also reduced the diameter down a bit for about 1 1/2" on the same end.
put some cleaner on a strip of patch and work it into the slit in the dowel. Start it in the barrel and (very important) rotate the dowel so the patch wraps around it then work it down the barrel. It cleans the breech area really good.
But I still inspect that area using a Q-tip just in case.

BTW Dave I would suspect a difference in POI between the different powders but honestly I would never have suspected such a big difference between Pyro and T7! What is that? Like 3" difference at 31 yards! It would have been great if there was some chronograph data to go with that target.

Semisane

Yep. See why and how here.

http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/blac...ed-breech.html