Spent about two hours making smelly smoke this afternoon. It was great, made more so in that I had the place to myself for the entire time. I was working with two Thompson rifles: the old .50 Renegade I assembled 30 years ago while I was in seminary and a newly acquired (and really like new) factory made Hawken in .54. I picked up the .54 to use as a round ball gun, and it's showing some potential, though I'm convinced it can do better.
My last three shots with the .54 all cut the 10 ring, albeit at three different corners (about a 2" group). I was using Hornady .530 balls, 80 gr. FF Goex, a .54 Wonder Wad over the powder and Wally World 10 oz. denim lubed with a "Mule Milk" recipe I found on this site. So far, this is the best performing combo for the .54. I tried some CVA pre-lubed patches which both of my rifles clearly hate. Patches from the .54 are still showing slight signs of cutting from the lands. Frankly, this rifle has been shot very, very little and the barrel needs to break in. Maybe I should give it the J.B. Bore Paste treatment? In any case, it's at least performing predictably and with plenty of accuracy to fill a tag or two this year.
My faithful old .50 Renegade was grouping a bit more than 2" @ 50 yards with 370 Maxis (which I cast) lubed with the lastest Thompson wonderlube and 90 gr. FF Goex. I actually got a better group last time with the older "Bore Butter", but, like it's bigger bore stable mate, it's grouping predictably. (Some of you may remember I "fire lapped" this barrel several weeks ago.
While I could certainly fine tune each of these rifles, they're shooting to point of aim with predictable results. It would appear that any misses this Fall can be laid at the feet of the "jerk behind the trigger". My hands smell of a mixture of minty lube, essence of Murphy's Oil Soap/Alcohol/Water mix and genuinely stinky black powder fouling. All's right with the world!
PC