Hi coupe. A 2 1/2” group at 49 yards is not a “good group.” In fact it’s a pretty poor group! No point in shooting farther than that until you solve the problem.
You are right My Pennsylvania rifle is a tack driver at .490 and a tight patch with 75 3fg
Will find lots of opinions on most any subject on forums.
I certainly do agree with Kmcmichael on sights & eyesight deficiencies. Many sights on repros are ideal for short range hunting but way too coarse for shooting tight groups on targets at 100yds & especially if your eyes are not the best.
During my 60+ years of owning & operating M/L store fronts & even more years of hunting & competing it was great fun testing almost all brands of factory mfg. repros that surfaced from the 60s & on.
Most customers starting out reserved purchases of more costly custom firearms with higher quality barrels & components until they became hard core .
During that period I principally collected, hunted & competed with original rifled English & European hunting & target rifles & pistols mfg during the 1700-1800s because the quality of steel & tight group accuracy obtained by their barrels & the deeper & faster rifling styles were tough to beat.
Most of the original & most accurate rifles & pistols I've shoot have close to one-turn in the length of their relatively short barrels.
Example; my orig. tack driving .70 cal. Jaeger has as I recall has .014 deep rifling with 7/8 of a turn in it's 29" long swamped barrel.
With it's fairly fine & forward set express sights & 80 grs. of 2F it has no problem providing excellent one shot kills on big game @ 200 yds.
When TC first came out with their version of the Hawken Rifle it was a big hit as they mimicked the 1in 48"rate of twist found in many original Hawken rifles.
However due to much shallower rifling depth of about 008 & less that is also found on many of today's modern factory produced MLs, these barrels require a slightly oversized RB dia. & thinner patch combo to shoot well & prevent having the ball skid & patch cutting especially with heavy powder charges..
As most vintage forum members will recall Thompson Center & lee Molds in the early days recognized this issue & came out with various bullet mold designs that worked very well in barrels with shallower depth rifling for hunters in states that allowed ML hunting with bullets.
All forum members are correct in that ML barrels with longer rates of twist & shallow depth rifling are less picky to get to shoot reasonably well.
Those of us who strive for top notch accuracy & the tightest groups are usually any firearm forum's trouble makers .
The makers of barrels for our Civil War our era mini-ball shooting rifles & carbines were sharp cookies.
They choose shallower depth rifling for shooting bare projectiles because the shallower depth rifling produced less fouling & more rapid loading & led the way to development of those un-mentionable cartridge firearms
Relic shooter
I have the same experience with Minnies, now that is all I shoot in my .50 cal 1/48. I use either just crisco in the base or grease (beeswax/crisco) in the grooves (using a Pedersoli greaser) depending on temp.. regularly shoot 20 plus rounds without cleaning. Why bother with patched balls if you get good accuracy with easy loading Minnies.
Why so much powder 3 fffg 80 gr would have been just about right
You have a lot of good information in your post. Thanks! There is no way I could study and learn everything there is on rifles due to how much there is, time it would take and most of all knowing where to start? One true statement of your is dead on,""Those of us that strive for top notch accuracy and the tightest groups are usually the trouble makers"" !Will find lots of opinions on most any subject on forums.
I certainly do agree with Kmcmichael on sights & eyesight deficiencies. Many sights on repros are ideal for short range hunting but way too coarse for shooting tight groups on targets at 100yds & especially if your eyes are not the best.
During my 60+ years of owning & operating M/L store fronts & even more years of hunting & competing it was great fun testing almost all brands of factory mfg. repros that surfaced from the 60s & on.
Most customers starting out reserved purchases of more costly custom firearms with higher quality barrels & components until they became hard core .
During that period I principally collected, hunted & competed with original rifled English & European hunting & target rifles & pistols mfg during the 1700-1800s because the quality of steel & tight group accuracy obtained by their barrels & the deeper & faster rifling styles were tough to beat.
Most of the original & most accurate rifles & pistols I've shoot have close to one-turn in the length of their relatively short barrels.
Example; my orig. tack driving .70 cal. Jaeger has as I recall has .014 deep rifling with 7/8 of a turn in it's 29" long swamped barrel.
With it's fairly fine & forward set express sights & 80 grs. of 2F it has no problem providing excellent one shot kills on big game @ 200 yds.
When TC first came out with their version of the Hawken Rifle it was a big hit as they mimicked the 1in 48"rate of twist found in many original Hawken rifles.
However due to much shallower rifling depth of about 008 & less that is also found on many of today's modern factory produced MLs, these barrels require a slightly oversized RB dia. & thinner patch combo to shoot well & prevent having the ball skid & patch cutting especially with heavy powder charges..
As most vintage forum members will recall Thompson Center & lee Molds in the early days recognized this issue & came out with various bullet mold designs that worked very well in barrels with shallower depth rifling for hunters in states that allowed ML hunting with bullets.
All forum members are correct in that ML barrels with longer rates of twist & shallow depth rifling are less picky to get to shoot reasonably well.
Those of us who strive for top notch accuracy & the tightest groups are usually any firearm forum's trouble makers .
The makers of barrels for our Civil War our era mini-ball shooting rifles & carbines were sharp cookies.
They choose shallower depth rifling for shooting bare projectiles because the shallower depth rifling produced less fouling & more rapid loading & led the way to development of those un-mentionable cartridge firearms
Relic shooter
Thanks for your kind words LME.
Well said. I love shooting the old guns, too!Thanks for your kind words LME.
I think most vintage ML shooters on this forum want to see our historical sport grow.
Shortening the learning curve by sharing our experiences with those who are new is the best & most enjoyable way we can contribute.
Must admit that at 80 I can't help but envy 200+ year old firearms that I own that still remain in the same condition after all that shooting, while our carcasses don't age so well.
Can imagine all of their previous caretakers had the same thoughts
Relic shooter
OK you guys have me interested...been using crisco & bees wax, mattress ticking & 495 balls...never had a problem but will try the TOW mink oil...thanks
Glad you got that ironed out. Mink oil is a fantastic lube all year long and it’s easy to apply to the patch. I watched my groups improve a lot when I switched to this lube.
Agree … mink oil is excellent. Had some quality Eastern Maine Shooting Supplies .015 linen patches I lubed with TOTW mink oil that had sat in a 35mm film canister for 5 years after I lost wife to cancer and hadn’t picked up a muzzleloader in that time. Shot this at range from bench last week PRB with 65 grains of 2f Goex I had left over and I’m happy, since the eyes aren’t what they used to be. Used my .50 GPR, which shoots way better than my abilities at the range.
It might need a re-crown job to make it perk up. The patch seems overly thick in my opinion. What do the shot patches look like? If they are torn or have holes in them than the crown may need attention or you may need to go down in patch thickness to say .018 or so. I have had good success with tight weave cotton (about .018) shirt felt I cut from my worn out work shirts.
Nice shooting, SgtMaj65! Good to see you are making smoke again. You got those sights lined up right
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