I bought this barrel way back when, for way too much. The lug was ruined and extractor welded up. Took it up north to my buddy's place and hunted turkeys in the morning and worked in his machine shop in the afternoon. Two days about 16 hours in the shop. Welded up the lug and turned and milled it back to shape, hand fitted to my frame. Drilled and taped the chamber for a hand made breach plug. Looked perfect. Excited. I spent all summer firing this thing and the best I could do was 14" at 25y. Bad. You can't ram a regular bullet in the field so alternatives were in order. I used 325g 430 bullets, patched, rammed with a hand hammer. Used Black, pellets, and smokeless. Crap. The black/substitutes fowled terrible, and crap. TODAY I used measured, smokeless pistol powder and 451 lubed patched round balls and holy cow shot like lazar. 100% lead balls, heavy patch heavily greased with wonder lube. Stuffed with hand effort. Finally. Here is the load. 20g W231. Good recoil, clean as a whistle. Accurate and I suspect high speed. I have killed many deer with much less in a real smoke-pole. PS; I also loaded 300g 45/70 regular bullets from the breach end with 18g Unique. tapped the bullet into the rifling, pored in the load, screwed in the breach, capped and fired. worked like new money. Just as accurate. Ready. 16 Oct muzzleloader season. " muzzleloading long guns, 45 cal or larger, any ignition system, scopes allowed." Does only with required tag.
