Traditions Crockett 32 cal Pistol

[hankfannin]

I searched but couldn't find anything on the forum about this pistol. Does anyone have any experience shooting the Traditions Crockett 32 cal pistol? What's a good starting load? I tried 15 grains of 3F Goex and it was all over the place. (on the bench,.315 ball and 018 Wonderlube Patch). Is this pistol a possible target shooter or would I be wasteing my time working up a load for this thing?

Greyhawk

 

[don hepler]

I am not familiar with the pistol. I shoot a .32 Cherokee, and that loads sounds good, to me. Is the pistol flint or cap? How is the trigger pull? What size groups and what distance? I shoot 3 BP pistols. One is a 45 Patriot, and a CVA 50 Kentucky, and a custom flintlock 45. All have very good sights and trigger pulls. The 25 yard group is just slightly larger, than high quality modern pistols. However, I have shot handguns competitively most of my life. And I have had success hunting, with pistols. My 32 has a ruff bore, and I have to use Black MZ powder, to reduce the fowling. The real black, is just too fowling, to get realiable groups.

 

[hankfannin]

It's a cap lock and has a fairly good trigger. It's adjustable and I've polished the sear bar and trigger contact point. Nice and smooth trigger actually and I added a trigger spring just to get rid of that annoying slop.

What bothers me is that at 15 yards, shooting from a solid bench rest, it's shooting 8 inch groups. I can usually do better than that shooting off-hand and at 50 yards with either of my other two pistols, both 45 cals.

It is a new barrel, only maybe 10 shots so far, but I can't believe it doesn't shoot better that what I've seen so far. The barrel is clean, smooth as a baby's butt, good clean crown, nothing obviously wrong that I can find.

I'm giving it another try tomorrow and maybe try some different powder charges to see if maybe it's just very particular.

Thanks for the reply. Have a great Christmas.

Greyhawk

 

[bearbullets]

Try a .310 in round ball. Thin .010 patching material of your choice and 15 grains of powder.

 

[azmntman]

What bothers me is that at 15 yards, shooting from a solid bench rest, it's shooting 8 inch groups

Not acceptable, gotta be a bore issue? Maybe it will get better after "broken in" but that seems pretty bad? Dang near beat it with a sling shot! Keep plugging away and see what happens, maybe try over powder wads or grits...er cornmeal (me n Alden don't believe in wasting good table fare)! Maybe bump up the charge to 30 grains and see? Gotta be better than that!

 

[tnpaw]

According to Traditions 20g of FFFG is Max! They recommend a .310 ball, .012 patch and 10-12 g of powder for best accuracy! That is from their handbook! I just received The Trapper in .50 cal today! Probably be Friday before I have decent weather to see how it does! :thumbsup:

 

[bpd303]

What do the fired patches look like?

 

[Zonie]

bpd303 has asked the important question.

If the fired patches are blown apart, cut or burned, that is the reason for the large groups.

When looking at the fired patches, ignore the tattered outer edges. Look at the place where the ball was contacting the bore.

Cuts can happen if the edges of the bore or rifling grooves are sharp where they meet the muzzle crown.

Cuts can happen if the rifling grooves inside the barrel are too sharp.

Burns can happen if the shooter is using 777 powder or not enough patch lube.

 

[thecoyote]

I've had a.32 Crockett for a while now. I use 10-20 gr of Pyro "P", .010/.015 patches with BoreButter and .310 ball.......I thought accuracy was good....2-3" at 15yds.....About as good as I can shoot on a good day. I like the gun.

 

[mooman76]

I'd try lowing the powder charge and more importantly check your patches. I got a 32 I'm trying to get to shoot good and it destroys patches that work fine in my other guns. I went with a stronger patch and have been working the issue. It's getting better but not quite there yet.

 

[hankfannin]

Actually the patches looked just fine using either 10, 15 or 20 grains of 3F. I tried a .012 patch (uncompressed measurement) and a .311 ball and it seems to shoot much better. Got an average of 3 inch groups out of 20 shots bench rested.

I've heard of using cornmeal over the powder but I don't understand what difference that would make in a single shot barrel. Can anyone enlighten me on this. I wouldn't mind giving that a try.

Thanks to all for the help and have a great Christmas.

Greyhawk

 

[mooman76]

Corn meal or an over powder wad helps seal the pressure keeping it more even which in turn makes for better accuracy. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.

 

[azmntman]

Try grits instead. The ball will believe a fine southern gentlemen is behind the trigger and just try harder :grin: