Setting up a rifle for youngster.. Have a few ?

[Ethan Grotheer]

Hi all,
Close friend of mine the other day informed me that his boy who's 11(And who's very acquainted with firearms) told him that he's very much like to get a muzzleloader and was fascinated by it all. I told him not to worry about trying to hunt down something affordable because I already have one that he can have.
So today,
I pulled the old(to me) CVA Mountain Stalker out of the closet and took to the range. I've never really sighted this rifle in to begin with so after snapping a few caps and confirming breech clearance with a false charge, I loaded 70 grs of FFG with a .490 round ball and a .018 patch and took a shot from 25 yards.. It impacted nearly ten inches low and the next shot agreed with the first, so down to the neighbor's house I went to file down the front blade. Well, being my usual hurried self, I decided "why not just use the belt sander?". This would have been fine had it not been for my lack of attention while I was chatting(yelling at over the noise) with my friend and inadvertently took far more off than I had intended. Back up at the range I found that with both 60 and then 50 gr charges that my round balls are now impacting 4" high at 25 yds.. So here's my question(s):
How can I build the blade back up to accommodate these charges(besides replacing the whole thing)?
Or, how low is too low of a charge to try and compensate for the blade and get the kid started out just shooting(supervised of course)?

I appreciate any input given,
Ethan

 

[bubba.50]

I believe I would get a new sight & start over. but that's just me.

and leave the belt sander at home this time.

 

[cynthialee]

It is a synthetic stock rifle, might as well put an adjustable rear sight on it. Bet you can leave the front sight as is.

 

[Critter Getter]

Are you aiming dead on at 25 yards and hitting 4" high? If so, ( I normally will shoot at a 3" bullseye) I would simply aim with the 6 O'clock hold and hit 1" high at 25. Move out to 50 yards and it MAY be hitting center. Won't know until you try. Or, replace the front blade! Greg

 

[Zonie]

According to my roundball trajectory calculator, you've managed to sight it in for 130 yards with that 50 grain powder load. :grin:

At the roughly 1250 fps that load will give, a rifle sighted in at 130 yards will be shooting 4.5 inches high at 25 yards and it will be shooting 8.1 inches high at 50 yards so it's not getting better at that distance.

At 130 yards, it should be dead on. :rotf:

Sorry but I think the answer is to either buy a new front sight or to build up your ground down sight.

Oddly enough, I just finished answering another topic where the guy wanted to move the point of impact 4 inches at a range of 25 yards.

My answer was to move the sight (or in your case, build up the front sight) by a amount of the distance between your front and rear sight times .0044.

If the distance between your sights is 20 inches you would have to build up the front sight 20 X .0044 = .089" or about 3/32".

 

[azmntman]

Try 35 grains, heck he's only 11. Then as he grows he can buy a new sight :idunno:

 

[Ethan Grotheer]

Yes, I'm thinking that I'll try seeing if an old renegade front blade I have and see if it's the same size dovetail.. Or,.. Do something different and glue a fiber optic bead to the blade and take a smal round file to the notch of the buckhorn rear sight to make it "seat" just right in view..

 

[54ball]

The CVA is metric TC is American.

If this rifle has a simple rear iron sight. With a selection of fine FILEs and maybe a hand held fine cut hacksaw blade, (note...no electricity required) deepen the rear sight notch, this may require reshaping the V.

 

[Ethan Grotheer]

Filed the rear sight down even past the notch and filed in a new "V".. It was very slight off center and so then I tapped the the sight over with a mallet to compensate and took to the range. 50 grs and patched round ball at 25yds had 3 shots were touching each other in the bullseye., first time is the charm doesn't happen often for me so I'll take it! I'll see later what it will do with 70 grs and a Ball-et.