Tank,
I have a 2003 huntsman as well. I had a little bit of a crud ring problem with pyrodex, then switched to 777 (pellets) as soon as the came out and my crud ring problem went away, but I will say that using the 777 primers in my gun.........absolutely filthly! The regular winchester primers are cleaner for me.
I now shoot BH209 with 777 primers and I have never had any problems. The 777 primers were all I had, so the load I worked up I dont wanna change anything. If it working I dont change it.........I am funny that way, dirty or not.
As far as the BH209: I hunted with it last year in everything from pouring rain to dumping snow and even in zero degrees last year and I never had a problem with my huntsman hesitating at my time of need. I even had rain and/or snow going down the barrel and plus bumping into branches, snow would fall right down my barrel (and the back of my neck
. ) ......still no problem.
As for the powerbelts, I used the 245 aerotips for over 5 years before switching to harverster bullets/sabots. I dont really have any complaints with the powerbelts, I just felt like there were better bullets out there. I prefer a bullet to pass thru with an exit wound and rarely got that with powerbelts. They also seem to really drop after about 100 yards compared to using a bullet in a regular sabot. But if your hunting in that range....no problem. I noticed the bullets performed better the further out the deer was. I shot a doe at 20 yards thru the shoulder and the bullet didnt go thru, no blood trail, and the deer ran about 80 yards before my helpers found her (and this was a textbook shot). I shot another doe at about 80 yards out and it laid down the SMACK on her. I heard alot of complaints about powerbelts being too soft and exploxing when they hit a deer but I have to say in my experience I didnt have that problem. In fact, it was the opposite. They were so darn hard the bullets I recovered hardly did anything. It was almost like I could shoot them again. The good thing about powerbelts are they are available just about anywhere, they provide good accuracy, and no matter what powder combo you use, you can get a fairly quick and easy reload in the field if you need to.
wcb