BCRider
Member
So after something like two years of hauling my two flintlocks out to the club black powder trial days and shooting at gongs out to the side of the trail against the hillside and not having a good idea of where they were hitting I FINALLY took a day to shoot them at paper and get a handle on what charge they like with the ball sizes and patches I've got.
One is a Lyman GPR in .50Cal. The other is an older custom gun with carved details and silver wire inlay that a local builder made to be his own gun. Sadly that was way back and he's no longer with us.
So I start with 30 grains and move up in 5 grain steps. Shooting off a rest block at 25 yards so my eyesight and shaky arms are not much of an issue.
Both of these shot really neat tidy three shot groups of less than 1 inch with 30 grains. And going up from there to 45 the groups opened out progressively worse. I went down to 25 grains with the nice custom gun. And the two shots I took were touching each other like a figure 8. But that amount felt like I was spitting the ball instead of shooting. There HAS to be limits you know...
So what in heck is going on? I'm happy as a clam in butter to find that I've found a frugal charge that provides good groups. But how in blazes would either of these ever be used for hunting? Is it common for the accuracy to open up at first and then close down? Like if I'd kept going up to 55 to 70 grains that I'd be back to having a tack driver?
Meanwhile the sweet spot for my cap lock underhammer turned out to be a pinch over 60 grains. Should I have kept going with the two flint locks up to that amount?
Looking foward to reading what others found that have done this stair step testing and gone further than what I did today.
One is a Lyman GPR in .50Cal. The other is an older custom gun with carved details and silver wire inlay that a local builder made to be his own gun. Sadly that was way back and he's no longer with us.
So I start with 30 grains and move up in 5 grain steps. Shooting off a rest block at 25 yards so my eyesight and shaky arms are not much of an issue.
Both of these shot really neat tidy three shot groups of less than 1 inch with 30 grains. And going up from there to 45 the groups opened out progressively worse. I went down to 25 grains with the nice custom gun. And the two shots I took were touching each other like a figure 8. But that amount felt like I was spitting the ball instead of shooting. There HAS to be limits you know...
So what in heck is going on? I'm happy as a clam in butter to find that I've found a frugal charge that provides good groups. But how in blazes would either of these ever be used for hunting? Is it common for the accuracy to open up at first and then close down? Like if I'd kept going up to 55 to 70 grains that I'd be back to having a tack driver?
Meanwhile the sweet spot for my cap lock underhammer turned out to be a pinch over 60 grains. Should I have kept going with the two flint locks up to that amount?
Looking foward to reading what others found that have done this stair step testing and gone further than what I did today.