Range Report Long range muzzle loader must be Black powder

[waveslayer]

So my old man drew a sweet Muzzle Loader rage for unit 15 in New Mexico, his 3rd tag in 3 years! Lucky bastard!

I want to get a new long range muzzle loader. I will buy it and give it to him, cash is tight for him. It has to be BLACK powder, no smokeless allowed.

What would you guys recommend?

 

[Dogsniper]

Jeff Hankins custom rifles . He builds some of the best.

 

[tea&jam]

I can see the headline now: "ATF vs waveslayer: despite straw purchase laws, SCOTUS confirms that the Founding Fathers didn't give a shit about sons buying guns as a surprise gift for their dads"

 

[tt123]

I've no experience with them at all, but what about one of the Whitworth replicas from Pedersoli? I think they get quite good reviews.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

I own this rifle. I hunted deer with it in Upstate New York for years before centerfire rifles were finally written into law, as well as shooting it in Turkey Shoots very successfully. This is a genuine shooter's rifle. This is the rifle I lusted after.

Patched ball is very accurate out to about 75yd, then tends to veer by as much as 8" to a foot at 100yd. With Powerbelt bullets, they can hit and bring down a whitetail at 125-150yd very effectively.

Long range with a traditional Muzzle loader is an oxymoron.

Modern muzzle loaders are basically larger bore centerfire rifles shooting caseless ammunition, loaded with Smokeless BP Substitute that's really mostly like granulated solid rocket fuel, triggered by a shotgun primer, and running at nearly twice the velocity of the traditionals. I've shot them too. They are genuinely amazing, but they ain't traditional by a.. by a long shot. One was even marketed for use with regular smokeless powder, and I got myself elbow deep in that too. Years ago that was a really popular topic here; but there were problems, too.

BP's big issue, the bores foul very quickly, and ten shots without a cleaning is iffy. That is the main reason why BP substitutes were developed. Must clean the bore within 24 hours of firing or corrosion/pitting can get intense.

Goex the big name in true BP. If Percussion caps are OK, go with them. Always use patches with balls, never use patches with bullets. Bore Butter is a must.

Seasoning a new bore is a BP tradition.

And yes, even though I haven't fired it in a couple of years; I did bring the Shenandoah Rifle on down with me on the trek to AZ.

Greg

 

[Hagen]

I would check out Bestill Creations. He builds some super accurate rifles. Pretty much a go to guy as far as Blackhorn powder goes (not sure if thats allowed there). If he cant build what you want he probably knows who can.

 

[waveslayer]

I can see the headline now: "ATF vs waveslayer: despite straw purchase laws, SCOTUS confirms that the Founding Fathers didn't give a shit about sons buying guns as a surprise gift for their dads"

Glad blackpowder doesn't require a FFL transfer. Otherwise that'd be a good headline. Can't use smokeless in NM. So I'm safe, I can even buy one for you, legally

 

[EXTREMEPREJUDICE]

Going another direction here. Not sure what you are really wanting to accomplish but I left the traditional muzzle loader a few years back and now hunt with an in-line, optics (verses irons) , rifled barrel, primer ignition, pellet propellant, power belt projectile, etc. So, if you're looking for a modern rifle that functions with black powder/pyrodex take a look at the TC Encore or TC Encore Pro Hunter.

 

[FatBoy]

Going another direction here. Not sure what you are really wanting to accomplish but I left the traditional muzzle loader a few years back and now hunt with an in-line, optics (verses irons) , rifled barrel, primer ignition, pellet propellant, power belt projectile, etc. So, if you're looking for a modern rifle that functions with black powder/pyrodex take a look at the TC Encore or TC Encore Pro Hunter.

I run a CVA Optima inline. With 2 Pyrodex pellets (100gr black powder replacement) and Barnes 250gr T-EZs. Rifle will put 3 shots into an inch at 100y with a 4x scope. Like EP said, if you can use something like this, it's like a regular single shot rifle to about 120 yards. Accurate and deadly.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

I used to run a Savage 10ML, and ran it on actual smokeless rifle powder. A few discoveries. Sabots and smokeless don't work; there isn't enough bore friction to allow the charge to build pressure and burn fully. Power Belts do work and work very well.

Reading the 209 primer for pressure signs is tricky but can permit some insight.

The charges that come in the included literature are all basically for pistol/shotgun powders and correspond largely to pistol type charges for similar weight bullets. Doing workups with rifle powders got us to well over 2000fps and were very effective and accurate out as far as 250yd.

So what happened? A bad thing and a sad thing happened.

First, we (this was a club/group project) started to see unaccountable deep pitting in the area of the barrel that would account for the "chamber" area. It got really serious and we put on the brakes. It was reported here.

Then, some time later, Savage withdrew the 10ML from its product line. We figured the handwriting was on the wall, and the 10ML's became wall hangers.

I repeat this now as a clear warning, the Savage 10ML was unique in its being designed and marketed for use with non-BP-substitute smokeless powders. IMHO, Its withdrawal should be interpreted as a warning that this was maybe not such a good idea, and should not be continued of you should happen to come across one these days. No other Factory BP rifle that I am aware of was ever made to be, or should be, tried or considered safe to operate with non-BP-substitute smokeless powders.

Greg

 

[spaniel]

I used to run a Savage 10ML, and ran it on actual smokeless rifle powder. A few discoveries. Sabots and smokeless don't work; there isn't enough bore friction to allow the charge to build pressure and burn fully. Power Belts do work and work very well.

Reading the 209 primer for pressure signs is tricky but can permit some insight.

The charges that come in the included literature are all basically for pistol/shotgun powders and correspond largely to pistol type charges for similar weight bullets. Doing workups with rifle powders got us to well over 2000fps and were very effective and accurate out as far as 250yd.

So what happened? A bad thing and a sad thing happened.

First, we (this was a club/group project) started to see unaccountable deep pitting in the area of the barrel that would account for the "chamber" area. It got really serious and we put on the brakes. It was reported here.

Then, some time later, Savage withdrew the 10ML from its product line. We figured the handwriting was on the wall, and the 10ML's became wall hangers.

I repeat this now as a clear warning, the Savage 10ML was unique in its being designed and marketed for use with non-BP-substitute smokeless powders. IMHO, Its withdrawal should be interpreted as a warning that this was maybe not such a good idea, and should not be continued of you should happen to come across one these days. No other Factory BP rifle that I am aware of was ever made to be, or should be, tried or considered safe to operate with non-BP-substitute smokeless powders.

Greg

Do you base this off of keyboard commando experience, or REAL experience? I ask because I have extensive, real live experience.

I have a smokeless barrel with over a thousand rounds of SMOKELESS, SABOTED rounds through it. Accuracy was sub-MOA with duplex AA5744/H322 loads and Shockwave 200gr bullets. Killed deer out to 420 yards. The factory rifle was discontinued due to the small market and a handful of idiots who loaded incorrectly and blew barrels due to blatant stupidity.

The fact that you reference sabots as having "insufficient bore friction" clearly shows your lack of actual experience with these arms. I have 1000+ such rounds down the barrel and sir, they work quite well. The biggest improvement was to barrel a .45 rather than a .50, which blew sabots.

State laws changed, I no longer had a need to depend on the SML as my main hunting rile, and so I've changed the action to a 243AI. But I have the barrel sitting here with 1000+ rounds on it and no breech plug. There is no pitting. I can post pics. Can you post pics of these pitted barrels??

There are a lot of people who continue to shoot smokeless muzzleloaders with non issues, custom built, as they don't need to be concerned with the liability of a major manufacturer...

NOW...to the OP...I shot a stock T/C Omega with the only modification being bedding the stock. 325Gr FTX bullet over 110gr 777. Just over 1 MOA at 500 yards on my first try, 5 shot group. Frankly it would have been tighter if I thought I stood a chance of shooting as well as I did and took my time. Never had a chance to repeat that, but I was seriously impressed with the potential.

 

[waveslayer]

Going another direction here. Not sure what you are really wanting to accomplish but I left the traditional muzzle loader a few years back and now hunt with an in-line, optics (verses irons) , rifled barrel, primer ignition, pellet propellant, power belt projectile, etc. So, if you're looking for a modern rifle that functions with black powder/pyrodex take a look at the TC Encore or TC Encore Pro Hunter.

I'm looking for something more modern. I spoke to some guys that are building some of these that can run either blackpowder or smokeless powders... I currently have a CVA Electra, its shooting sub MOA 3 shots at 100. Just a bit under power at distance past 150 yards. I have taken two bills with it, both were at 70-80 yards. It knocked the crap out of them! Using Barnes TMZ bullets

 

[Wyfox]

Ultimate Firearms is the way to go, ive taken game out to 500yds with them. Several outfitters in New Mexico keep them in Camp for hunters to use on elk. Remington bought the patent and name, now they're called Johnston Muzzleloaders. Its by far the best blackpowder system on the market.
http://ultimatefirearms.com

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Spaniel, with serious respect, calling me a keyboard commando is not going to earn you any points here.

Yes, your experience undoubtedly exceeds mine on this subject. Mine was gained as a part of a small group of club shooters/hunters and our sole chosen factory firearm was the Savage 10ML .50 caliber. We put several off-season months into exploring the potentials of using smokeless powder in a muzzleloader primarily designed with smokeless propellant as well as more conventional BP substitutes in mind. Ours was never intended to be a definitive study, we just wanted to see what was going on in this narrow area. We found problems, and reported them at the time. Up until then, we had hunted using the concept with spectacular success, but seeing the internal chamber/bore pitting/voids anomalies stopped us in our tracks.

We tested saboted rounds with loads that had worked well using power belt type projectiles and both conventional smokeless as well as Pyrodex propellants. The Saboted projectiles simply went bloop, and cleared the bore with very meager performance. This, except in a number of situations where the smokeless powder failed to ignite at all.

We doubly checked that the saboted projectiles were adequately rammed home into the powder. No manner of loading would make them work satisfactorily for us. We tried hard to make it work, and no inexperience should be assumed surrounding this. The interpretation that the bore friction could be the cause was not something we could measure or confirm, but was our likeliest candidate for the performance differences.

Between us, we probably fired somewhere around 600-700 projectiles with smokeless, and while this does not exceed your claim, it's also not an unreasonable number of examples upon which to base the determination that smokeless and sabots, for us, was a dead end. We simply moved on to the more acceptable results using power belts and closed the sabots episode.

I for one, and very impressed that you managed to find success where we failed. Well done.

We were all Muzzle Loader shooters with many years combined hunting experience using those firearms Of them, I am the only one who still survives.

But if you wish to claim primacy in the subject, please be my guest.

So at this point, are you referring to your own experience with small scale (Custom?) manufactured barrels, or with more widely marketed barrels like the Savage? I tried carefully to note above the distinction between mass produced factory barrels as opposed to others. Honestly, I have to this date been unaware of any mass produced muzzle loaders in 45cal.

We did not use 45 caliber barrels as you did, and although you note that the 50's "blew sabots", you fail to give any explanation as to what the phrase means.

I can only guess about your experience (and you can only guess about mine, too; not precisely a valid basis for blaming another for 'inexperience").

Your entire post comes across as arrogant and provocative.

If I have misinterpreted your intent, I apologize profusely. But I am also not going to engage you further in this matter.

Best fortune to you in your further exploits.

Greg

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Crickets...

 

[waveslayer]

I have a good bowl of popcorn