What is a good practice round?

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strawberry

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I am new to black power, and loving it. I am going to hunt with BARNES 300 gr 50 cal sabot rounds off of 150 gr of Pyrodex. What I am woundering is... the barne are too expensive to practice so localy I can find some Hornady round balls that would require a patch(I am not to sure how that works), or should I try to find Hornady Hard balls that use a sabot. Or what would you sugest as a cheaper and equally effective practice round? And I am using the 50 gr pellets for now I was thinking of swiching to 777 loose power, mainly to reduce the smell and corrosion, as well to play with the load. Is it too much trouble to use loose power?
 
loose powder is actually VERY VERY EASY to use... not as fast as dropping pellets down the pipe but with a powder flask and a proper powder measure it takes a few seconds to dispense a tailored charge.

the make and cal. of your rifle will play into what patch/ball to purchase but if memory serves me rite most patch/ball combo's for the .50cal are .490" round ball with a .015" patch... if its too hard to load get a thinner patch... if its too loose get a thicker one.

if you post what rifle you have there is a good chance someone can narrow down a patch/ball/charge for you to start with.

maxi ball from TC is fun to shoot as well....
 
I would guess you are shooting an in-line and if so, the rifling twist is likely too fast to get much accuracy from round balls and bore-sized conicals can be a pain in some in-lines. Thompson Center makes an all-lead bullet/sabot called the Cheap Shot that would be ideal for practice although I don't think I'd use more than 100 grains of powder with it. The Hornady XTP is another option if you want to stick with the three pellet load. Both are fairly inexpensive.

Loose is pretty easy to use. Get a good powder measure and you're away. T7 really isn't that much cleaner than Pyrodex despite claims that it is.
 
Anouther good way to go is find some sabots and put 45 cal cast pistol bullets in them .I used the black sabots and .452 255gr cast bullets in mine got reasonable accuracy and fun and cheap to plink with.
 
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