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Grizz1219
MemberSadly in MaPosts: 424 Member
Anyone do long range black powder shooting??
Grizz1219
MemberSadly in MaPosts: 424 Member
Thinking of starting to work on my T/C BP to get it out to 200 yards.... Using Blackhorn 209 so thinking I can measure the charges to fine tune that... anyone have any projectile suggestions?? I might try bringing it to Africa if I go again...
Replies
Some of the oldtime BP cartridge rifles like the .45-90, .45-120, etc. were used for long range shooing, so I can't think of a good reason not to use a front-stuffer the same way, but if you're shooting conical bullets you're going to need a faster rifling twist than you'll find on most of the front loaders. A 1:48" will be the absolute minimum twist rate for conicals, and 1:36" or faster will be better. Unless you're willing to custom order a barrel from someone like Rice Barrels or Ed Rayl , long range accuracy might be a hard game to play. Ed makes my target barrels and he usually has a 10-12 month backlog from order to delivery.
Jerry
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
I decided some years back to make a muzzleloader to duplicate the .45-70 since I cast for the .45-70. I took a Lyman GPR and had Hoyt reline the barrel in .458 with the thought that I'd limit my powder charges to 70 to 80 grains of black powder. I wanted to keep my bullet weights right at 350 to reduce the chamber/nipple pressures to a more reasonable and manufacturers design. This caused a little trouble. The original twist Hoyt put in was 1 in 22 and it caused terrible bullet stability with the shorter 350 grain cast bullets. To use it, I would have to reduce my powder charges and slow the darn thing down. I didn't want to go longer bullets as this would significantly increase chamber pressures.
Back to Hoyt. He changed the twist rate to 1 in 33 and things settled down. Then I lost interest. I suppose I'll have to pull the rifle out of mothballs now and see if it works as intended.
Dan
What TC do you have? If it is the encore, i am having good results so far with Hornady 300 gr FPB and BH209. Still have to try out th 350's and 385 Great Plains. I am under the max charge on the 300's by a good bit, i think wih a scope and a bigger charge 200 yards is attainable. With sabot bullets it would probably be even easier
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.
I don't know about higher pressures but generally they do have faster twist rates. Designed for use with sabots.
I will share my opinion of 200 yard shots on game with BP. Just because you can hit something that far away doesn't mean you can kill something that far away. I have no idea how fast a given projectile would be going by the time it got there. But I know in the early days of sabots and jacketed pistol bullets people had problems because the bullets weren't designed to expand at lower velocities. And when I say people I mean me. This is similar to people shooting deer way out there these days with the lighter carbon arrows. There's just not near the energy left at impact.
I've killed a lot of deer in my life and unfortunately lost a few, all to a muzzle loader. So I'll still use my scoped inline but with full caliber lead bullets, .54 in my case. If I can find them.
I consider a BP rifle as having just a little more reach than my bow. Again, just my opinion.
The long barrel could properly utilize larger charges of black powder or substitutes and burn that charge more completely in the barrel rather than spewing unburned powder out the muzzle from a short 26" barrel. The faster twist could stabilize longer heavier bullets of full bore size.
The old long range shooters from the 1800s in to the early 1900s used long barrels and heavy bullets in 1000 yard matches, and did very well with them. That was with both percussion and cartridge rifles.
― Douglas Adams
Grizz, the heart of the black powder rifle is the barrel and its ability to burn the powder charge almost completely in the barrel. A short barrel can't efficiently burn the powder charge before the bullet leaves the muzzle.
I shot both my T/C Hawken and T/C White Mountain carbine over a chronograph. The Hawken has a 32" barrel and the carbine a 20 1/2" barrel. With the same powder charge and bullet, the Hawken with the 32" barrel beats the carbine by several hundred feet per second regardless of bullet used. And the muzzle flash from the carbine is huge compared to the rifle because a lot of powder is burning after exiting the muzzle. Shorter barrels just aren't capable of efficiently burning the powder charge needed for that long range velocity.
― Douglas Adams
Yep, you need a barrel stretcher- - - - -smokepole barrels start getting interesting at about 40"!
Jerry
Where are you finding Black Horn 209 load data for the 385 gr Hornady Great Plains bullet? Also, any load data out there for the .338 gr Power Belt Platinum with Black Hon 209? The BlackHorn website quits at 300 gr bullets. Is there a minimum velocity for the Power belt Platinums to open up properly?
Edit to add: Duh, opened up the Hornady and Power Belt bullet packaging, still no BH209 load data.
The BH209 pdf has Hornady 350's on the very bottom of the Hornady list. For the 300's I used the THOR 300charges at the very bottom of the page. I just went with 85gr on the 385, since its at the lower endof charge weights, and that big bullet does not need to move fast. I had decent results with the great plains, not good with the 350 FPB....at all. Still had the best results with the 300 FPB so I am going to go buy another pack and throw down as many as i canbefore opening day.
For the powerbelts, i would try to stay under 100 gr, its basically a plated lead bullet, not a jacketed bullet. Seems all the negative reviews I have seen, people push them too fast.
Fire at least 5 of your favorite charges and then take a look at the sheets/plastic sheeting. It's pretty eye-opening experience for short barrels and big powder charges.
― Douglas Adams
Thanks, PowerBelt and Hornady are getting back to me, I finally had some time during their business hours to fiddle with this.
Blackhorn 209 burns much faster than regular blackpowder, it also builds more pressure. We use a lot of it in my wife's Winchester bpcr, it takes magnum primers to get the most uniform velocity.
The biggest problem you'll encounter getting to 200 yds is adequate sights.
I also own a Pedersoli Tryon Creedmore replica, with a 1-18 twist. It's good with the same cast 535 grain bullets, but I've never shot it farther than 500 yards.
With a .50 caliber the twist rate runs to about 1-25 for optimal results, and heavier cast bullets.
I used to own a Pedersoli replica Sharps 1874, chambered in .45-120. I've rung bison silhouettes at 1000 yards, using Soule tang rear and globe front sights. The arc is like a rainbow. The 120 grain loads are really painful to shoot, so I used to download it to 90 grains, which is still plenty to get to 1000 yards.
In .50 caliber muzzle loaders, such as the T/C Hawken, the 1-48 twist is a compromise. It's a bit too fast for round ball (1-66 is probably "ideal"), and 1-48 is probably a bit slow for conical bullets. However, my T/C Hawken has been loaded with 200 grains of FFg, and a T/C Maxi Bullet. It was very accurate out to 150 yards (5" group), but the recoil was horrendous. The breach in the T/C traditional muzzle loaders is extremely strong.
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