Author Topic: I AM TRULY PUZZELED ? (Read 771 times)

montanadan · « **on:** December 14, 2004, 07:59:15 AM »

I have Traditions Penn. Rifle 50 cal.,1.66 twist. My standard load is 65grns of PRYO P.,.490 rb, .015 patch, 1075 RWS cap. Shoots great no compaints. Load with GOEX 3fg no other changes, groups open up to almost terrible. Before switching to Goex clean barrel,last patch with alky,fire the cap,load. Clean every other shot. Patch lube LeHigh Valley. I would think that groups would better with the goex(slower burn rate)? Shot to shot consistency should be better? This rifle has a 421/2 barrel.I have tried to reduce the black powder loads, only gets worse, going up in charges of Goex helps(still does not group as well). Tried 2fg Goex all the up to 85grns, no cigar. I would like shoot Goex, What on earth am I missing? I use only natural oils in my barrel, use diskbrake cleaner before going to the range. Did the soap and hot water to barrel prior to firing the first shot. I use a light coat of Ballistol in the bore brfore storing. Thanks in advance for your help....Respectfully Montanadan

crow_feather · « **Reply #1 on:** December 14, 2004, 10:05:40 AM »

One thing you might try is to put a dry patch down the bore after the powder and before the patched round ball.
Sometimes it works well\

C F

Birddog6 · « **Reply #2 on:** December 14, 2004, 02:57:02 PM »

My first thought is the patch is not holding as the patch/ball combo is too loose..
Go to a .495 ball & a Oxyoke or pillow ticking patch. Start at about 60 grains & shoot groups of 3 off a bench with sand bags. Go up in 5 grain increments on each group to about 85 grains. Take your time & make sure the Rifles is doing the shooting, not you.

If you are swabbing between shots, do Not swab with a tight patch, but rather with a just barely snug patch like tee shirt material. Get a 2 oz pump/spray bottle (WalMart Cosmetics) and on dry days, wet the tee shirt patch with 3 squirts about 4" from the patch. Swab down & back One Time. (We are swabbing, NOT cleaning. The objective is to keep the barrel in the same fouled condition, not clean the barrel each time.

On the loading patch wet it with 2 squirts. If you find this too wet, got to 2 squirts to swab & 1 squirt to load.

Also it helps if the cleaning jag first land is about .010 undersize of the other lands on it. This lets the patch push past the cruds & then grab the patch & cruds on the way out. Also sharpen the lands of the jag with a 3 corner file & the jag in a drill so that all the lands taper back from the front & have a sharp edge.

No telling how many thousands upon thousands of rounds I have shot with Lehigh & have always had accuracy in all of my rifles with it. I don't use it now since they changed the formula of Lehigh, but I do still have some & I know the new stuff will still work, it just takes more of it to get the same lubrication that the old Lehigh had.

Also, in the past 35 years I have owned over 50 dif. ML's (some store bought and some hand made) & on Almost every single one them the most accurate loads on the rifles from .32 to & including .54 cals., shot the most accurate with a RB usually .005 under bore size. Yes, they are harder to load, but a Great difference in accuracy usually. Once in a while I have found an exception, but normally the tight patch/ball combo shot the best.

Hope it all works out for ya.

Birddog6

PS: If you don't understand how to do the jag with the drill & file, email me & I will send you some photos of modified jags. birddogsix@yahoo.com

www.custommuzzleloaders.com

montanadan · « **Reply #3 on:** December 15, 2004, 01:23:35 AM »

Thanks for all the information. I can tell you one thing I was doing the swabbing all wrong, I understand the jag modification. I took a strip of patch material .490 ball seated it about 6-8 inches down the barrel then pulled it out to check for imprints of patch (015 patch) on the ball. To me everything looks normal, the barrel is smooth, ckecked patches after firing no problem. Thursday taking .490 and .495 balls and patches from 010 through .018(leaving the Pryo. at home) 2fg and 3fg Goex. The weather here in Wyo. has not been the greatest ,but Thursday looks good. MY LeHigh Valley lube is about 2 years old, and have used in all the other muzzeloaders I have. Once again thanks for all the help... Montanadan

Birddog6 · « **Reply #4 on:** December 15, 2004, 01:39:38 AM »

I never waste patching for swabbing. It is too thick, too expensive & it shoves all the fouling down to the breech & basically doesn't get much fouling out. The objective in swabbing is to push past the cruds, gather the patch & pull out the excess cruds, leaving a consistant amount of cruds in the lands the entire length of the barrel. Thus every shot has the same amount of buildup 2nd shot thru 25th shot, so the barrel condition is the same every time.
With a liquid lube such as Lehigh this iseasily done, as long as you do everything else the same. Same load, same patch, same balls, same stroke (on time down & back) pack the powder the same, same amound of lube on the patch, etc.

Now don't get me wrong, there are umteen dif. ways of doing this, this is just my way & successful for me.

Longcruise · « **Reply #5 on:** December 15, 2004, 05:25:14 PM »

Wal Mart sells a 100% cotton cloth that is meant to make baby diapers. It's very soft and absorbent and makes a great wiping patch. Just cut into the desired size squares.

Birddog6 · « **Reply #6 on:** December 16, 2004, 01:30:01 AM »

I guess it must be just me... I just have a problem with buying something to swab with..... To me that is like buying rags to wipe up oil on the floor of the garage & tossing them in the trash... Same way for swabbing with patching materials.... I had to buy it to shoot with, but I am not wasteing it just to swab with. (plus it is too thick usually to gather the way I want it to)

Between me & my two sons we go thru allot of colored tee shirts & when they get holy we toss them in a sack. When I need swabbing patches, I line up about 5-6 of them on a cutting board, take a rotary cutter & yard stick & in about 5 min I have enough swabbing patches to last for 6 mo.

Before I had the rotary cutter, I would take an evening a year & while watching TV, I would cut up old tee shirts for patches & stuff them in gallon ziplocks. In one evening I could cut up a years supply of swabbing patches.

I always cut two sizes. One size for the 36,38,40, 45. Larger for the 50, 54, 58, 62 calibers.

Longcruise · « **Reply #7 on:** December 16, 2004, 05:42:24 AM »

Quote

I guess it must be just me... I just have a problem with buying something to swab with.....

Yup, it's just you! :grin:

I've gone through quite a few t shirst too but most of them are pretty poor fodder and not thick enough for good swabbing performance. I've also gone through a lot of old flannel shirts which were far better cleaning patches than the t shirts.

The wal mart stuff runs about $2.49 per yard with the yard being about five feet long that comes up to 1440 1.5 inch square patches and a cost of .00179 cents each. Ye gads, the bank is busted :eek:

OTOH, to each his own.

Birddog6 · « **Reply #8 on:** December 17, 2004, 12:17:01 AM »

ha ha ha ! :roll: Oh well....... never have priced the stuff, just never investigated the thinner stuff, just the pillow ticking & I don't like it for swabbing...

So you are buying from a bolt that is 5' wide eh.... I must say that is a pretty good deal then. Not being a material guy, I don't know much about such things except the pillow ticking.... But none-the-less that is a good deal for sure. :oops:

Charles/NM · « **Reply #9 on:** December 17, 2004, 07:31:47 AM »

What works for me is to use T/C bore butter in the yellow tube, Ox Yoke prelubed felt wad over the powder and cut washed blue striped Wal Mart pillow ticking at the muzzle after punching the ball even with the muzzle. I never clean the bore until I'm at home from a days shooting. I tried brushing between shots and accuracy fell off bad. My rifle shoots better with a fouled bore.