So I was at the range the other day shooting out to the 100m with my 50 cal Hawken rifle with round ball 70 grains ffg. I was shooting at a 11 by 14 target (roughly), now out of 10 rounds there was 6 on target and the other 4 were around the target edge. This is also the second time shooting this rifle and the first time at 100m. Now with more practice I know it will get better but will my group get any tighter or will I need to switch to bullet.
How big of grouping Should I expect?
- Thread starter shooterm
- Start date
If your bench technique and your load are reasonably good you should put 5 balls into a 2" group at 50 yd and a 6" group at 100 yd unless the light and wind are against you. 70 gr FFg is a reasonable target load for a 50 cal. I use only 60 gr FFFg in my 54 cals. Suggest you do your load testing at 50 yd to improve target/sight picture clarity and minimize the effect of any wind. If you have a slow twist rifling then trying slugs will be counter-productive because they will not stabilize at the slow twist rate. Do you know what the rifling twist rate is?
NorthCoastBigBore
CGN frequent flyer
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The type of lube you are using will have a direct effect on this - if the fouling is building up too quick you'll need to clean more often. FWIW my favourite lube right now is dead straight 50/50 olive oil and water, swirled around.... but everyone has their favorite and you'll quickly hear a pile of good opinions there.
Otherwise, if the patches are good and consistent, your RB's are consistent and your loads are consistent then the rifle can shoot better than your eyesight. NO problem cloverleafing my GPR at 25 yards BUT I can't see well enough to give you a 100 yard idea. Ringing the 200 yard gong shot after shot is no problem.
Otherwise, if the patches are good and consistent, your RB's are consistent and your loads are consistent then the rifle can shoot better than your eyesight. NO problem cloverleafing my GPR at 25 yards BUT I can't see well enough to give you a 100 yard idea. Ringing the 200 yard gong shot after shot is no problem.
my hawken is 1/48" twist, I wasn't expecting to have any glorious groupings for the first time at the 100 and again 2nd time ever shooting it 
Im also using prelude patches and did a couple pull throughs after every 2nd-3rd shot. Using iron sights at the hundred can be fun on the eyes with nothing but smoke in front of you lol
Im also using prelude patches and did a couple pull throughs after every 2nd-3rd shot. Using iron sights at the hundred can be fun on the eyes with nothing but smoke in front of you lol
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Good advice so far.
50 yards is way better to establish group at first.
Experiment with patch thickness to balance ease of loading with accuracy. 50 grains of FFFg is my preferred target load in a T/C Hawken.
I use No. 9 for Black powder as patch lube (hard to find in Canada now), but just plain spit works well for target loads. Many people make their own moose milk out of soluble cutting oil and windshield washer fluid or a variety of other combos. I never did like greasy patch lubes.
Some guns do not shoot well off the sandbags. I usually cradle the forend in my hand on the sandbag for accuracy testing.
50 yards is way better to establish group at first.
Experiment with patch thickness to balance ease of loading with accuracy. 50 grains of FFFg is my preferred target load in a T/C Hawken.
I use No. 9 for Black powder as patch lube (hard to find in Canada now), but just plain spit works well for target loads. Many people make their own moose milk out of soluble cutting oil and windshield washer fluid or a variety of other combos. I never did like greasy patch lubes.
Some guns do not shoot well off the sandbags. I usually cradle the forend in my hand on the sandbag for accuracy testing.
thanks for the advice, I thought I was getting a pretty good group at the 50 so I started at the 100 to start practicing my grouping. What do u mean about the patches Rdrash? the ones that I see on the ground and I don't inspect them, but they look like they held there shape, with black powder grove marks from the rifling.
NorthCoastBigBore
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Northwest BC (Rural) 103-I-##
Make sure they aren't burned through. If so they aren't thick enough - OR - the weave isn't tight enough. If I read your post correctly though you are using commercial patches so it shouldn't be a problem here (I just use old clothes the kids have outgrown that mic out right, are 100% cotton and have a good weave).
Have you mic'd the patch thickness and compared to the diameter of the RB to make sure you aren't too tight or too loose, as compared to the bore?
Really though, at 100 yards - you're probably shooting as well as you can see. For my part it's so blurry at 100 I might as well be throwing rocks.
Have you mic'd the patch thickness and compared to the diameter of the RB to make sure you aren't too tight or too loose, as compared to the bore?
Really though, at 100 yards - you're probably shooting as well as you can see. For my part it's so blurry at 100 I might as well be throwing rocks.
A 1:48 twist is a compromise to handle both PRB's and slugs. If you load the PRB's too hot then the patched ball will not follow the rifling like it can in a slower twist barrel like 1:66 or so. You mentioned using 70 gr FFG. Test at 50 yd or even 25 yd but start at 50 gr then go up 5 gr at a time until your groups open up. At 25 yd you should be able to put 5 shots into one ragged hole with any decent load.
For target shooting I prefer liquid patch lube rather than the greasy stuff as the barrel fouls less. Water-based patch lubes without synthetic oils are consistently best. My Moose Milk recipe is one part Pinesol, 2 parts hydrogen peroxide, one part water soluble oil (cutting oil or Ballistol) and 20 parts water. A 1:10 mix of Murphy's Oil Soap and water works too. I use Bore Butter when hunting because the load will be in the gun longer and (a lot) fewer shots are taken.
For target shooting I prefer liquid patch lube rather than the greasy stuff as the barrel fouls less. Water-based patch lubes without synthetic oils are consistently best. My Moose Milk recipe is one part Pinesol, 2 parts hydrogen peroxide, one part water soluble oil (cutting oil or Ballistol) and 20 parts water. A 1:10 mix of Murphy's Oil Soap and water works too. I use Bore Butter when hunting because the load will be in the gun longer and (a lot) fewer shots are taken.
There's no doubt that the rifle is capable of better than that. So it's up to you to play with different loadings and your bench rest technique.
An ML Ardessa pistol taught me just how important the patch thickness and material was. A simple change in patch material produced an amazing change where the gun went from "minute of hillside" to "minute of grape" just with the patch. So patch material and fit with the ball plays a huge part in all this. From there you need to play with the amount of powder from something like 40gns up to around 80 to 100gns and shoot about 4 or 5 shots at each amount to find a charge that shoots decently. Yep, it's a LOT of work to try different patches and load amounts but it's needed.
An ML Ardessa pistol taught me just how important the patch thickness and material was. A simple change in patch material produced an amazing change where the gun went from "minute of hillside" to "minute of grape" just with the patch. So patch material and fit with the ball plays a huge part in all this. From there you need to play with the amount of powder from something like 40gns up to around 80 to 100gns and shoot about 4 or 5 shots at each amount to find a charge that shoots decently. Yep, it's a LOT of work to try different patches and load amounts but it's needed.
Agreed - and change only one variable at a time so you can clearly see cause/effect.
NorthCoastBigBore
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Northwest BC (Rural) 103-I-##
Yup that is the best way. No internet when I learned it was all from the "old guys"
Contact the Edmonton House Brigade re-enactment group. There are some very keen and experienced BP shooters there and they would be happy to help you. Also check out the website of the Alberta Black Powder Association.
Is your muzzleloader new? Often they don't start shooting there best until a couple of hundred rounds have went down the barrel. If your crown is to sharp it will cut your patches when loading and you will loose accuracy that way. Like others have said cut it back to 50grains of powder and work up from there. Its not a flint lock by chance I know they came in both flint and percussion. Many new shooters will flinch with a flint lock. But I would guess that playing with the amount of powder and the patches should help a lot. They are a lot of fun to shoot.
Trevor
Trevor
It's a tradtions Hawkens (Percussion) got it from Cabelas for my first Black powder, love it lots of fun down the road I would like to get the Perdosoli 1853 3 Band Enfield but that will be down the road. After I get better with this on first
Just IMHO, but it sounds to me like your round balls are either to small or your patches are to thin. Lube can make a difference but not that much. I would find patches that are thicker if it were my rifle. Back in the day when I was first starting out a mentor by the name of Chris Wilcox noticed that I was getting larger than acceptable groups with my Lyman 50 cal Plains Rifle. He told me an old formula for figuring out ball and patch size for any diameter bore.
Like it or not bores are not all created with bores that are exactly the same diameter. The offshore produced rifles, such as my Lyman, had some very extreme variations. My 50 cal rifle which should have had a .500 bore had a .510 bore. Finding patches that would take up the difference was next to impossible so I started double patching alter linen which I picked up at the local fabric shop and cut myself with a disc cutter/hammer or cut off with a patch knife. The linen I needed for good accuracy was .008 in thick and when using it doubled it needed to be soaked in Spit Patch or it couldn't be started down the muzzle. I ended up braiding brazing wire together to make a ram rod. Even with a proper wooden dowel type ball starter I ended up breaking the wood ram rod. The extra weight of the brass rod as well as its strength made ramming the ball down to the powder charge much easier.
This was not a convenient fix but at least I could compete against other shooters with a reasonable chance of winning. As soon as we had measured the bore diameter of the rifle and assuring it was accurate I ordered a .510 diameter mold that was made out of steel rather than the Lee aluminum mold that came in the kit supplied with the new rifle. Nothing at all wrong with the Lee mold. It was just to small.
There are several formulas out there for proper ball/patch/bore fit. The one I settled on that seemed to work best was .005 in alter linen over a .510 diameter ball over 80 grains of FFG or 75 grains of FFFG. The rifle shoots much better than I can hold it with this combination. I still have that old Lyman. It still shoots better than I can and I still use this load for target shooting. I increase the powder charge to 95 grains of FFG/90 grains of FFFG for hunting deer.
I tried lighter loads in my rifle but they just weren't accurate or consistent enough for my liking. I was also shooting Hunter Bench Rest at the time and the accuracy addiction was deep.
It got to the point that tamping the ram rod over the ball a certain number of times seemed to give better accuracy as well. For some reason many shooters of both front loaders and butt stuffers forget that repeatable consistency is the real key to accuracy. Finding the sweet recipe can take time but it is worth it if you are really serious about accuracy. Without realizing it at the time, I was upsetting the pure lead balls to form into the rifling. This was not possible for the running/shooting matches but accuracy was still acceptable enough for that purpose.
With the proper recipe I have seen lots of black powder rifles that are every bit as accurate as competition metallic cartridge rifles when everything including sights are equal. I can remember a match where splitting a card in half through the edge from 25 long paces offhand was won consistently by the black powder shooters. Similar results when shooting balloons offhand at 100 yards. The big secret was the black powder shooters did a lot more offhand shooting than the metallic cartridge shooters did and when push came to shove it really showed.
Like it or not bores are not all created with bores that are exactly the same diameter. The offshore produced rifles, such as my Lyman, had some very extreme variations. My 50 cal rifle which should have had a .500 bore had a .510 bore. Finding patches that would take up the difference was next to impossible so I started double patching alter linen which I picked up at the local fabric shop and cut myself with a disc cutter/hammer or cut off with a patch knife. The linen I needed for good accuracy was .008 in thick and when using it doubled it needed to be soaked in Spit Patch or it couldn't be started down the muzzle. I ended up braiding brazing wire together to make a ram rod. Even with a proper wooden dowel type ball starter I ended up breaking the wood ram rod. The extra weight of the brass rod as well as its strength made ramming the ball down to the powder charge much easier.
This was not a convenient fix but at least I could compete against other shooters with a reasonable chance of winning. As soon as we had measured the bore diameter of the rifle and assuring it was accurate I ordered a .510 diameter mold that was made out of steel rather than the Lee aluminum mold that came in the kit supplied with the new rifle. Nothing at all wrong with the Lee mold. It was just to small.
There are several formulas out there for proper ball/patch/bore fit. The one I settled on that seemed to work best was .005 in alter linen over a .510 diameter ball over 80 grains of FFG or 75 grains of FFFG. The rifle shoots much better than I can hold it with this combination. I still have that old Lyman. It still shoots better than I can and I still use this load for target shooting. I increase the powder charge to 95 grains of FFG/90 grains of FFFG for hunting deer.
I tried lighter loads in my rifle but they just weren't accurate or consistent enough for my liking. I was also shooting Hunter Bench Rest at the time and the accuracy addiction was deep.
It got to the point that tamping the ram rod over the ball a certain number of times seemed to give better accuracy as well. For some reason many shooters of both front loaders and butt stuffers forget that repeatable consistency is the real key to accuracy. Finding the sweet recipe can take time but it is worth it if you are really serious about accuracy. Without realizing it at the time, I was upsetting the pure lead balls to form into the rifling. This was not possible for the running/shooting matches but accuracy was still acceptable enough for that purpose.
With the proper recipe I have seen lots of black powder rifles that are every bit as accurate as competition metallic cartridge rifles when everything including sights are equal. I can remember a match where splitting a card in half through the edge from 25 long paces offhand was won consistently by the black powder shooters. Similar results when shooting balloons offhand at 100 yards. The big secret was the black powder shooters did a lot more offhand shooting than the metallic cartridge shooters did and when push came to shove it really showed.
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