I bought a Scout Carbine several years ago in .54 cal and tried to tame the thing for about three weeks prior to the opening of the season that year, with no real success. I did manage to take a button buck with it at about 35 yds. that had jumped up in front of me at about three paces and ran. When he slowed to a walk and looked over his shoulder to see what had snuck up on him as he slept, I put 425 gr. Hornady Great Plains through both shoulders. Just a lucky shot the way that rifle performed. I tried every load and projectile I could find or cast on the bloody thing, but never got anything better than "patterns" out of it... recoil was pretty awful too, given the light weight and low buttstock angle. (The name Scout seemed to indicate what you need to do to find out where your last shot went!) I was really disappointed since it seemed like a great design for a stalking rifle. Working with TC, I tried to swap barrels off twice, without improvement. I ended up giving it away to one friend, and the little monster made the rounds back to another, my closest buddy, who still has it gathering dust. Without a doubt, the problem with that rifle has to be the twist rate...WHO ON EARTH EVER THOUGHT A 1 IN 20" TWIST IN A 54 CAL WAS A GOOD IDEA!!! Using the Greenhill formula to calculate an appropriate bullet length for this twist resulted in a required weight of apx 1200 gr. I asked the good folks at TC if they were trying to build a muzzleloading anti-tank rifle. Flash forward...my amigo will let me have the Scout back if I want it. He and I have discussed in the past my thoughts on improving the specifics of what was in concept a good idea. IMO a nice slow ball twist barrel in .58 cal is the way to go for a muzzleloading stalker... minimal recoil, sufficient knockdown, easy load developement with the un-fussy ball twist. Maybe I'll take him up on the offer and get a barrel.
