Got my new Winchester today. Couple of questions.

[A.J.]

Got my new Winchester Apex today. It's a handsome rifle, and for having a 30 inch barrel, seems to balance and handle very well. Can't wait to shoot it. I have a couple of questions for some of you "In--Line" veterans. The last muzzleloader I had was a T/C Hawken. You just jumped in the tub and cleaned it with hot water. How do you clean these new in-lines? In case you're not familiar with this Winchester, it's very similar to a CVA Kodiak. The back end drops down and you have full access to the breech plug. Another question I have concerns the powder. The manual for this thing says the max charge is 100 grains of loose BP, or 3 fifty grain pellets. Why's that? Doesn't the pellets get mashed down to loose powder when you seat the bullet on top of it? I was planning on loading around 120 or 130 grains of BP to take advantage of that long barrel. BTW, this Winchester has one of those Spanish barrels on it. 'Preciate any advice you guys can give me...alan

[DickG]

If Winchester says the max load of loose powder in the Apex is 100gr, then don't put more than 100 gr in it.
If it were me I wouldn't put more than 100 gr of pellets in it either.

Its better to be safe rather than sorry.

I clean with windex and then swab with Breakfree CLP.

[Keith Lewis]

Pellets are not loaded hard enough to "mash" them, in fact the correct way to load them is just to seat the bullet on the pellets with very little force. Personally I do not like pellets and only use loose powders. The pellets at 150gr. are supposed to be equivalent to the loose powder load of 100gr. but with the Spanish barrel I would load on the safer side. I got rid of my Traditions Pursuit just due to the questions on the Spanish barrels. I know a lot of them work just fine but I got tired of wondering if mine was going to come apart so I traded it for an American made NEF.

[DickG]

Keith is correct about loading pellets. They sould not be crushed.

I disagree about the equalivent loads.

Pyrodex and 777 pellets are designed to be the equalivant to 50 gr. of black powder. Therefore 3 pellets would equal 150 gr of black powder.

I have found that 100 gr of Pyrodex or 777 pellets to be approximately equal to 100 gr of Pyrodex P or 90 gr of 777 ffg.
In my experience pellets are more convient and loose is more consistent and accurate.

The Hodgdon web site  load data is:
http://www.hodgdon.com/data/muzzleloading/