• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

loading tips from a target shooter

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

The German

36 Cal.
Joined
Apr 7, 2010
Messages
97
Reaction score
0
I took a friend of mine from Austria to the range today. He shoots a lot of muzzleloaders comp. in Europe . He is visiting ( and shopping here in Utah) at the moment. Shooting my flintlock pistol and "new" GPR ( percussion) he had some recommendations. First he says the rear sight is to narrow - ideal would be a fairly wide target type front sight and a square rear notch with a wide flat top. We opened up the (adjustable Lyman) sight and my shooting improved! Loading wise he explained how he loads his percussion gun. Starting out with a clean gun, he wraps a square cleaning patch around a undersized ( on size) brass brush, sprayed with a bit of ballistol and wipes ones. Then he inserts a full lengh ( as long as barrel) funnel and pours the powder from a pre messured ( and weighted)container ( glas). The round patch in a "secret" lube is layed over the muzzle, a weight sorted roundball added ( he prefers swaged balls) and then hammered in the muzzle( with a shortstarter )then pushed down. He also says it is important to have the same pressure on the load all the times and a scale under the gun can teach the use of consistant pressure ( in a flintlock, he only wants the ball on the powder and no pressure).
After fireing, he wipes the barrel once again with the ballistol patch and starts over again.
He feels that if you don't need a hammer the patch ball combination is not tight enough! After explaining to him that I want to use the gun also as a hunting gun and I am not willing to carry a hammer we tried the following: 60 gr FFFg ( Grafs) 0.010 pre lubed patch and 0.535 ball - hard to seat and not accurate. Same load but 0.530 ball, easy to seat also not accurate. 0.015 patch, 0.530 ball, o.k. to load not accurate. 0.018 patch- harder to seat but manageable but not accurate. Change of plan: 60 gr FFFg, 20 ga 1/8 inch cork wad, 0.015 patch and 0.530 ball super accurate! He say's he is using 1/4 felt
over powder wads sometimes with good results ( but I only had some cork for shotgun shells) which I will be trying in the future. We checked the patches before we went to over powder wads and they did not fail, so I do not understand why the wad made the difference.....
He further told me that most shooters he knows are using heavy loading rods with handles and bore guards and extra cleaning wiping rods also with bore guards and not the gun supplied rod.
For cleaning he recommends water only ( with a bore mop, then dried with patches and finally a patch with ballistol). He thinks everything else just wears out the barrel faster. In his opinion any abrasive paste would ruin the sharp lands and lapping a barrel should only be done with lead slug ( when the gun is built) and the the muzzle should be cut of at least an inch and then crowned... well he has a lot of opinions.....
 
Don't get wildly excited about his choice of Ballistol. It was invented, and is still made in Austria. Its darn near the country's national drink!

Its just mineral oil with some additives to remove mercury fulminates, which were present in priming compounds, and highly corrosive to rifled barrels during the First World War( 1914-1918). Those corrosive primers were pretty well replaced with less corrosive priming compounds by most countries before WWII( 1939-1945). You occasionally will still find mercury fulminate primers in old military surplus ammo, but most of is Berdan primed, not boxer primed, and therefore difficult to impossible to reload with American priming components,and reloading presses. It requires a special claw extractor to pull those spent Berdan primers from their brass casings.

There are better vegetable oils available today to use in the bores of MLers. The SECRET he is sharing is lubing the bore before firing the first shot. This keeps the barrel residue soft, so that wiping after each shot makes the gun one shot clean all day long. loading tubes are becoming more common among bench rest BP target shooters, too, both in MLers, and in BP cartridge matches.

You can achieve the same effect of packing the powder, using 3Fg powder in percussion guns, by simply holding your barrel vertical, so that the powder you pour into the muzzle( with or without a funnel) will fall straight to the breech of the barrel, without touching the sides of the bore. The same result occurs when loading BP cartridges, using a 2 foot long loading tube. The powder packs together as well as it can, and no further physical pressure is useful to improve consistency of burn.

I do not recommend using the packed powder method in flintlock of 50 caliber or larger. Instead, I recommend 2Fg powder, tilt the barrel so that the powder slides down the side of the barrel, load the PRB down to a mark which represents where the ball just begins to compress powder( you can hear/feel it through the rod.)

Lube the bore with a greased cleaning patch AFTER seating the PRB, to keep the fowling soft, and easily cleaned after every shot.

Using OP wads even in rifles helps to put a better seal against the powder gases when the gun is fired, protects the cloth patch from burning or being torn by escaping gases, and protects the soft ball from being cut by escaping gases. Often, the groove depth of these rifles is so deep that its very hard to find a fabric thick enough to fill those grooves completely, and still allow a reasonable sized ball to fit down on the lands inside that thick patch material. Grooves that are .010" or deeper cause these problems with PRB loadings. They are definitely NOT suitable with conicals unless you use OP wads, and/or paper patched bullets. However, even PP bullets shoot better when the grooves are no more than .005" deep.

You need to know the Rate of Twist and groove depth of any gun before loading it with either conicals, or PRBs. A PRB can be fired from and rifled barrel no matter how fast the ROT might be. You may have to adjust the powder charge downward a bit, however, in the faster ROT barrels. It depends on how soft the lead is, how tight a weave the fabric has, how deep the grooves are, and how well the weave of the fabric is pressed into the lead ball( ball diameter vs. bore diameter), to determine how much powder will shoot that ball consistently and accurately. Olive oil makes a fine patch lube( known as "sweet oil" in much of Europe), for instance.

Thanks for sharing your Austrian friend's comments. :hatsoff:
 
Thank you! Now some things make more sence to me! I like the idea of " lubing" after loading ( each shot) as I am also concerned of corrosion in the bore when hunting but was not comfortable of running a lube patch down ofer loading and not knowing how it shoots then, If you do it every time at the range, then nothing changes for hunting.....
 
Having attended and competed in the Texas State Muzzleloading Championships in Brady, TX a few times, I can say that the loading procedure your friend describes does not vary significantly from the procedures I observed and tried to follow in competition.

Many competitors were shooting custom rifles but many, like me, were shooting TC's with Green Mountain barrels. Mine was 45 cal. Why did I ever sell that one?

Some loaded with a funnel but most did not. I do not remember seeing folks running a lube patch down the barrel after laoding the ball and patch, but I would think that some did. It certainly sounds logical and I intend to try that when I get my GPR kitg built.

Most, if not all, used a tight fit on the ball and patch. We used leather headed mallets with the short ball starter to get it going. The light wooden ramrods were not used. Actually I broke the "stock" ramrod trying to load at competiton when my range rod decided to stay home one trip.

I don't remember using a wad but I know that some did.

My secret formula patch lube was not so secret---olive oil. I suppose some were using pre-lubed patches, but IIRC, many were using patch strips, and cutting the patches at the barrel. I did not find a difference between the grocery store brand and the gourmet extra-virgin Italian stuff.

Ah, all of this thinking about competition makes me want to go again.
 
Paul,
Previously I've seen you mention NOT compressing the ball over the powder with flintlocks, why?

Alot of good info here. Some to consider trying. When you shoot as poorly as I do one can use all the help he can get... :haha:

Snow
 
My chronograph showed me I got more consistent velocities, shot after shot, if I did not compact the powder, and I also produced a noticeable LOWER STANDARD DEVIATION OF VELOCITY. I could get a bit higher velocity if I DID try to compact it, but If I didn't use a bathroom scale under my gun when putting pressure on my ramrod, the variation in velocity went all over the place.

I use the larger granulation size of 2Fg in the larger caliber flintlocks, because it leaves extra air between the granules, compared to a similar load of 3Fg powder. The extra air helps speed ignition, which in a flintlock is little different from lighting a set of fuses. In the smaller calibers( .45 and smaller) my chronograph doesn't show a significant difference between using 3Fg or 2Fg, PROVIDED the powders are not compacted in flintlocks. I load to a mark on my range road to get consistent SDVs in my flintlocks.

In percussion rifles, Compacting powder(drop tubes), and using 3Fg powder gives far better velocities, and lower SDV for all calibers. That is because that cap INJECTS fire into the powder, burning its way through the length of the charge, to give faster ignition. The tighter the powder is compacted, the more uniform the velocity. My brother, Peter, shoots a wide variety of percussion rifles, and he has tested this idea extensively, and verified my conclusions( reluctantly, as we are twins.)

There is a method to my madness, but I don't mind when others disagree. :idunno: :rotf: :hmm: :thumbsup: That's how we all learn. Not everyone has an identical twin brother who questions everything he does, and has for 63 years. :rotf: :grin:
 
Stumpy, it is quite probable that The German's European friend made previous trips to the USA to learn poper proceedures and techniques. Equiped with such he then would be a rage in Europe.

TC
 
paulvallandigham said:
My chronograph showed me I got more consistent velocities, shot after shot, if I did not compact the powder, and I also produced a noticeable LOWER STANDARD DEVIATION OF VELOCITY. I could get a bit higher velocity if I DID try to compact it, but If I didn't use a bathroom scale under my gun when putting pressure on my ramrod, the variation in velocity went all over the place.
Paul, was this with plain-breeched barrels, chambered-breeched, or both? My reading suggests that (well designed) chambered-breeched flintlocks should work much like a percussion, with the uncompressed powder in the chamber igniting easily/consistently and jetting flame into the compressed main portion of the charge.


paulvallandigham said:
I use the larger granulation size of 2Fg in the larger caliber flintlocks, because it leaves extra air between the granules, compared to a similar load of 3Fg powder. The extra air helps speed ignition, which in a flintlock is little different from lighting a set of fuses. In the smaller calibers( .45 and smaller) my chronograph doesn't show a significant difference between using 3Fg or 2Fg, PROVIDED the powders are not compacted in flintlocks.
Unless there is a significant difference in grain shape or size DISTRIBUTION between 3F and 2F, the difference should not be in the amount of intergranular porosity, but in the size of the pore spaces. This would still account for the difference in the propagation of the low-pressure early-stage powder gasses, since permeability is drastically affected by cross-sectional area.


paulvallandigham said:
In percussion rifles, Compacting powder(drop tubes), and using 3Fg powder gives far better velocities, and lower SDV for all calibers. That is because that cap INJECTS fire into the powder, burning its way through the length of the charge, to give faster ignition. The tighter the powder is compacted, the more uniform the velocity. My brother, Peter, shoots a wide variety of percussion rifles, and he has tested this idea extensively, and verified my conclusions
Again, AIUI, this should also be the case for chambered-breech flinters.

Regards,
Joel
 
JoeL: My guns are plain breeched. My brother shoots some of each, altho he prefers plain breeched to the chambered guns. All I can report to you is what my test results were.

I was Not expecting Any of this when I set up my Chronograph. The Chronograph was new, and all I had done before beginning to test my MLers was to test the machine for ACCURACY using .22 Rimfire ammo, which I sorted using a "Rim Gauge". I had been loading my .50 flintlock the way I described- using 2Fg powder, sliding it down the barrel, and loading my PRB to a mark that was set based on the PRB just touching the powder-- for years, based on the consistent accuracy that technique was giving me.

When I acquired my 20 ga. fowler, I began, as usual, to test both 2Fg and 3Fg powders in it, to see which it liked the best. I had the Chronograph, so I used it to shorten up the testing in the cold weather, and to give me additional information to what the patches, and targets were showing me. I got the same preference for using 2Fg and loading it loose, rather than compacted. I even hauled out the bathroom scale to try to get more consistent MV from compacting the powder with the butt placed on the scale, so I could use similar pressure on the PRB for each shot.

Compacting the powder DID increase velocity, even over non-compacted 3Fg . But, I could not get the SDV of velocity to reduce using compacted powders- either 3 or 2Fg powder. And Groups suffered.

My brother lives in Florida, and is often testing his guns a couple of days a week. He also builds guns, now, so he had many more rifles than I do or need, and has a larger selection of calibers than I do. He also has his own chronograph.

As I did my testing, he was also doing testing with his 20 gauge fowler- made at the same time by the same builder. He is much "newer" to flintlock shooting, than I am. He's been shooting Percussion guns much longer than I have.

He found the same results with his chronograph shooting the same loads, loaded the same way, in his 20 gauge. We often compared notes daily by phone. We tend to be a bit competitive with each other, so we play devil's advocate with each other all the time. If one suggests a theory, or technique, will "help", the other does his best to prove him wrong, and vice versa. Peter's work, for instance showed me that using 2Fg in smaller caliber guns- based on his actual testing-- didn't give the lower SDV that we both got with our larger caliber rifles and smoothbores. We still don't compact the 3Fg in our flintlocks, but we do use 3Fg in .45 and smaller caliber guns. He also found that using compacted 3Fg in his percussion rifles produced consistently better SDV, and smaller groups, than if he didn't compact the powder.

Finally, he found that trying to manually compact the powder just was NOT efficient. Holding your barrel vertically, so that the powder free-falls down the length of the barrel lets gravity compact the powder as well as using a "drop-tube"(Yeah, he made one to test this). He got smaller SDVs using gravity to compact the powder- in both plain, and chambered barrels, than when he tried to compact the powder by putting pressure on his ramrod.

Later, he was reading some articles written by BP Cartridge rifle shooters, who reported the same results from their testing. They use a drop tube that is at least 2 feet long( 24 inches) to load the powder into their large casings. Then the over powder wads, and bullets( lubed, or paper patched) are loading using a loading press and die to seat the bullets consistently. All their attempts at compressing the powder manually, or using their reloading presses, just resulted in bulging brass casings.

He was very confident in reporting his results to me. Lately, he has been working with a pea-shooter--- a .28 caliber rifle, that uses, maybe 12 grains of 3Fg powder to shoot a .27 caliber ( #2 buckshot) ball, that he made up as a squirrel rifle. Its a percussion rifle, and very accurate out to 25 yards. On a low wind day, it is capable of remarkably small groups out to 100 yards. That small amount of powder, BTW is generating more than 2,000 fps MV! :shocked2:

I was asked to explain what I alluded to. I am not telling you that you will get the same results, nor am I telling you to load your rifle my way. If what I have written gives you some ideas on directions to go in your own testing, fine. If you think what you are doing is fine, that is okay with me, too. Because I don't have any chambered breech rifles, I personally have not tested them, to compare with my plain breech experiences. My brother, Peter, did. He also has the benefit of imput from a national Champion Rifle and Pistol Shooter, and barrelmaker, and gun builder. That is his good friend, Phil Quaglino, of Havana, Fla. More than once he has run something by Phil, who has told him what to expect, and He as called me both before testing an idea at the range, to tell me what Phil advised, and then called me after he did his tests with the actual results.

Phil is a remarkably knowledgeable man. He smiled when Peter told him about my finding a lower SDV( and smaller groups) with my 20 ga. fowler, loading my 2Fg powder loose, rather than compacted. He doesn't own a chronograph. He knew this result from his many years making and testing barrels. As a target shooter, he still has books he has kept over the years describing every shot he ever took at a target, describing not only the caliber, powder charge, ball diameter, weight, patch, lube, but also the technique he used to load and clean that gun for that shot, and the POI on the target for the shot. :shocked2: The notes indicate wind direction and speed, air temperature, humidity, etc.

I am exhausted just typing all this. :shocked2: :bow: I don't have the patience and discipline to keep "book " like this on every shot fired.
But, this is the way great shooters became national champions back when they didn't have chronographs. :hmm: :surrender: :idunno:

Phil later made it clear to Pete that he was very proud of how Pete went about systematically testing my results, and the conclusions he reached. They, or course, matched his own findings from years of shooting.

Phil actually has become a fan of Chronographs, since Pete has made his chronograph available for Phil to use when they go to the range to test one new gun or another. Phil's latest toy is a .25 caliber rifle, shooting #4 Buckshot( .24 cal.) balls, at amazing velocities.

[Phil seems to be on a mission to prove that you can shoot RBs accurately in any ROT barrel, with shallow grooves, if you use the right, soft lead ball, and patch. ] *( My observation- not something I have even asked Peter about. I may be wrong about this. Phil has had major heart surgeries and the gear he now carries in his chest interferes with him being able to shoot any caliber gun that recoils much at all. He set out to make a rifle in a small enough caliber that would not hurt him to shoot, would be light weight to carry, but very accurate, so he could kill deer with head shots. He killed hundreds of deer at the family property in New Hampshire back in the 1930s, using a .32 caliber rifle, to feed all the extended family over the winter, when he was a young teen. He did the job of shooting, while the older boys and men made up a drive to push the deer past him. In spite of age, and his medical problems, he is still a very fine shooter. He is quite capable of picking his shots, so he can kill a deer by shooting them through the ear with his small caliber guns. :bow: :hatsoff: )


I am now in my 60s, considered to be an " Old Guy" by most other MLing shooters these days. But, I am still plumbing the minds of even "OLDER GUYS" that are still alive, because I learned many years ago that OLD GUYS have forgotten more "stuff" than I have been able to learn! :hmm: :surrender: :thumbsup: If you know someone who has been shooting these guns for many years, be nice to him, and talk to him. He is a wealth of information. It may not always be correct- memories do fail and fool you with time--- but its very valuable information that you won't find written down anywhere. When he passes, all that knowledge goes with him.

Even if you know an older man who no longer shoots, invite him to go to the range with you, and give you pointers on how to load and clean your gun. Just being there will help him recall memories that he had forgotten. If he gets to fire ONE shot, you will have made his YEAR! We all know how addictive BP is. Its no different with these older men who have not shot in years. Get them where they can smell BP smoke, and new life rises in those tired limbs. Eyes sparkle that don't see well on the best of days. And smiles change the age lines on their faces.

Its important to take kids shooting. But its also important to drag us Old guys out to the ranges, too. :wink:
 
Paul; you have an open invitation to come and shoot at my home range anytime you happen to be in the area. :wink:

my buddy that shoots only modern handguns has expressed an interest in my BP rifle. he was a world class pistol shooter with scores like 1485/1500, but his eyesight is failing, (like mine), and his average has dropped to about 1460/1500. last weekend he won the national in Montreal for the Duty Pistol disipline, and placed high in the Revolver and PPC classes. i have him to thank for my re-kindled interest in the shooting sports. all it really took was an afternoon with a custom .45 ACP (worth $3000) and i was hooked again. the Hawken came out of retirement and is, once again, my closest freind.
so. this goes to show that even us younger old guys sometimes just need a kick in the pants to see what we've been missing.
:thumbsup:
 
:hmm: ... I've lurked here for well over a year, reading posts, considering ideas and suggestions and just "being there" to "digest" all the good information that flows through these posts.

It's almost like deer camp with the fellas sitting around the warming fire in the fireplace while the wind howls just on the other side of the panes of glass... listening and commenting on various things with a bourbon or a beer in their hands... just having a "ball" B.S.ing with one another.

Ahhhhh, yes... así es la vida ("Such is life"). It's the "stuff-of-life" for us all... and it's "free", so "ENJOY", n'est pas? :v


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.
 
I watched shooters at Friendship use a .451 ball and a .020 patch and hammer it down the barrel.
It looks to my like they were gamers trying to swage a side to the ball to make it a small bullet. In regular rifles I was not impressed with any better accuracy than a regular patch and ball............But now those big chunk guns doing the same loading procedure could really shoot a tight one hole group...................Bob
 
Back
Top