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.....
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.....