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Green mtn barrel opinion

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Looking at picking up a Green Mtn Barrel from TOW, and would like opinions on it.
Its a .50cal, 32", 1-66 twist .Its for a T/C Hawken.
Does anyone have any experience with this barrel with patched round ball? Has anyone tried them with ball-ets or other lead maxi ball type bullets.
 
Back when I knew almost nothing about anything the intricacies of muzzleloading I bought a Green River drop in for my TC. I shot it with a scope and got terrible groups and shredded patches that ended up looking like a pile of cotton.

I have a friend at work who mentioned he shot some BP and sold him the barrel for much less than I paid for it. He said it just needed lapping (I didn't know what lapping was). Turns out his son won a bunch of stuff shooting the barrel in competition. Also turned out my friend who never bragged about his accomplishments was ranked 5th in the country as a BP shooter, he built all his competition guns as well, he really knew his stuff.

I know this has nothing to do with your question, but your post sparked a memory.

Just a little info, every Green Mountain barrel I have known about or shot was a tack driver. I have one on the .40 I built, it will shoot any patched ball/ powder combination I put in it with amazing accuracy. It is a straight sided barrel with square bottom rifling.
 
Green Mtn, makes quality barrels. The twist is slower, for a round ball. It might shoot a shorter conical OK, you wont know until you try it. I would not buy this barrel if I was wanting to accurately shoot longer conicals.
 
I have a 1” GM .54 IBS percussion 32” 1:70 twist bought years ago. Had it on a Renegade that I restocked, and just recently was pressed back into service on a T/C Hawken 1” channel I just acquired. It’s a great shooter with 110 gr 2fg and a .530 patched .015 pillow tick. Never shot anything but RB’s in it. It has taken deer, moose and bear for me.
Walk
 
I bought a TC Hawken as my entry into black powder last spring. The factory barrel shot conicals very, very well, but would not shoot round ball for beans no matter what I tried. With a metal butt plate, conicals are fine for hunting but no fun at an extended range session. I bought a Green Mountain slow twist barrel in November. I only managed to get it out once before winter closed in, but just fooling around with 50 grain charges getting it sighted in and not doing the hunt for the most accurate load I could already see that this barrel is of very high quality and will likely print groups as small as I can see to shoot with round ball.

If you want to shoot conicals, I would use a 1 in 48 factory barrel. I don't think they are hard to find on Ebay, etc.
 
Had a .50cal. Green Man. drop in bbl. (RB twist) for my T/C Hawken years ago and was quite impressed with it. From a rest, it would put 5 .490" RB's into 1" @ 50 yd. repeatedly (with Pyrodex RS no less!). However, it needed a thicker, .018", patch compared to the T/C 1:48 bbl. Btw, Dutch Schoultz helped me with the patch thickness/accuracy issue I had with the thinner patches.
 
I shoot several GM .40 drop ins on my table guns. 70 gens of FFFg Goex holds one hole groups all day.
 
I have that barrel for a Renegade, 1" across the flats, twist of 1 in 66. I got it many years ago and always found it to be an excellent shooter. I only use patched round ball.The barrels that came with the Renegade and Hawken were decent but the GM drop-ins were better for me.

Jeff
 
Thank you all for the input, it sounds like the GM barrel is worth the price. Ordered one. Looking for a good .50 roundball barrel, and it sounds like a good barrel to take a chance on.
When it warms up here(Vermont), i will report range results. I will use Dutch system which has worked well with other barrels.
 

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I have a .40 (not a T/C) flinter with a swamped Green Mountain Barrel. The rifle is fairly old and I don't see swamped as an option on their site. All I can say is that Green Mountain barrels are top quality and an excellent choice drop-in tube.
 
rusticbob,
The GM round ball barrels have fairly deep rifling. Makes it difficult to get the grooves to seal off to avoid gas cutting the side of a projectile. To get the bullet base to seal off it has to deform under pressure, requiring a lot of pressure as well as enough bullet weight to provide the inertia for the pressure to work against. And there's the problem with bullets that are heavy enough; the twist is slow and doesn't stabilize the bullets.

If you get a hollow base bullet like the ballets you might find that you can slam them hard enough to seal off the grooves and get usable accuracy and you might not. Sometimes a .54 "round ball" barrel will shoot minies. Fifty caliber I don't know. The smaller the bore the faster the twist needs to be in proportion; by example any given twist is much "faster" in a .58 caliber than in a .45. And the more the exterior conforms to the classic shape of a minie, like a conical paper water cup (like an ICBM warhead), the more it will want to stabilize.
 
They are also made of actual gun barrel quality steel (1134) which many of the other muzzle loading barrel makes are not. Most use 12L14 which is not gun barrel steel. 12L14 hot rolled machines beautifully and apparently is adequate to muzzle loading pressures (less than 20K PSI) but still has low shock load numbers for barrel steel. I have one of the old Douglas barrels which I think is 12L14 cold rolled. It is very accurate but I worry about using it in extreme cold weather as a few of them have been known to come apart. The cold rolled 12L14 has worse shock load numbers than does the same alloy hot rolled.
 
Rusticbob, check your barrel lug when it comes in. I just received mine yesterday and my lug is not installed properly. Two screws hold it down. One of the screws is screwed down properly with the bottom of the lug making contact with the barrel on that side of the lug. On the other side of the lug where the screw attaches there is a slight gap between the lug and barrel and there is no contact between the two. Either the screw is to long or the screw hole is not drilled and tapped deep enough. I haven’t taken it off yet to see which one it is but did try to tighten it on down but it feels like it’s bottomed out.Barrel key goes in about half way and gets to tight to go on in which may be due to the gap. Putting it up to a light will show any gaps.
 
On a couple of Green Mountain barrels I’ve had to put thin washers ‘tween the barrel and lug to get the wedge to insert properly. On another one I had to file a bit on the bottom surface of the lug for clearance for the ramrod to pass.
 
If you call GM and confirm that they did the drop in adaptation they will have you ship it in for repair and pay shipping both ways. If someone else did it may or may not be warranted.

Another option would be to grind the screw shorter or get a shorter screw.
 
I purchased a Green Mountain 32", 1-66, percussion Thopmson Center drop in from TOW a little over a year ago. I've only shot it on four or five occasions. A persistent problem I've had is failure to fire. I've often had to remove the nipple to sprinkle in some 4f to get it to fire. It's frustrating but I'm patient. You learn patience with muzzle loaders. I haven't heard of anyone else having this problem with this barrel. When I have the time I'll figure out the problem and resolve it.

The rear sight elevation doesn't adjust well at all either. Again, not a deal breaker.
 
I purchased a Green Mountain 32", 1-66, percussion Thopmson Center drop in from TOW a little over a year ago. I've only shot it on four or five occasions. A persistent problem I've had is failure to fire. I've often had to remove the nipple to sprinkle in some 4f to get it to fire. It's frustrating but I'm patient. You learn patience with muzzle loaders. I haven't heard of anyone else having this problem with this barrel. When I have the time I'll figure out the problem and resolve it.

The rear sight elevation doesn't adjust well at all either. Again, not a deal breaker.
Your trouble in in the patent breech probably which is no fault of the barrel.
 
Have you verified with TOW the barrel is actually in stock?

TOW shows a Green Mountain Drop-in Barrel for the .54 caliber T/C Hawken (1 inch flats) in their catalog, for "only" $219.
I sent TOW an email to confirm the price, and that it is still available.
"It has been out of stock for about 2 years."
(Shame TOW can't or won't update their catalog)

From my email conversations with Green Mountain, Green Mountain no longer makes the T/C Drop-In Barrels, for any caliber.
Whatever TOW (and other dealers) had in stock is/was it.

The 1:60 or 1:70 twist is "Ideal" for PRB. They might do O.K. with a short conical, (no promises or guarantees) but will do best with a PRB.
The longer sight radius should improve accuracy.
The extra barrel length should give a slight boost in velocity, using the same powder charge as in the shorter factory barrel.

With the proper load, a .490 PRB is "sufficient medicine" to take pretty much any big game animal in North America.
I know in Idaho, .50 caliber is the minimum for larger than white tail deer, mountain sheep and goats, and a few other critters, including black bear.

Obviously, you will have to sight in and work up the most accurate loads again, if you get a new barrel.
 
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