New TC Omega

[Mr Bernoulli]

I just purchased my new Omega and had some black powder questions as this is my first black powder rifle. I know you guys are all talking about cleaning your bp with warm soapy water but can I do this too since I shoot pyrodex pellets? Also I was thinking about getting the 385 grain hornady great plains conicals. Was wondering the kind of range I could get with these and the expansion etc with them. I have TC shockwave sabots that I am shooting would these or the conicals be better for hunting? Thanks in advance.

 

[Seafarer12]

I am not sure about pyrodex. Personally I would use black powder. It is easy enough to clean up. That and I am a traditionalist when it comes to powder.
As far as hunting bullets I would just get some sabots then run some hornady xtp bullets. Don't get the stuff that is made up already. You can buy the sabots for about 8 bucks per 100 and bullets 50 for 12 bucks or so. They are a lot cheaper doing it that way than paying 8 bucks for 20. You can get sabots for 44 or 45 caliber handgun bullets. I run .44 cal 300 grain xtp bullets.

 

[alemonkey]

I shoot both Pyrodex and Holy Black. I use soapy water for both with no problems. You can specialized Black Powder cleaners, but as far as I know they're all just water based.

 

[arcticap]

I think that you should stick with the Shockwaves because the Omega is reputed to be an excellent sabot shooting rifle. IMO, conicals don't always provide as reliable 1st shot accuracy out of a cold clean barrel as sabots do.

Here's a picture of 3 - 300 grain Shockwaves shot at 100 yards (in the center of the target) from an Omega:

http://www.the-gleasons.com/tcshockwave300g.htm

It's from Post #3 in this thread along with other Omega pictures: http://www.huntingnet.com/forum/tm.aspx?m=2882013&mpage=1&key=

There is a new Hornady conical bullet that is reported to shoot very accurately, but like any conical one never knows how it will shoot with their rifle & powder. Conicals can be more easily loaded for quicker follow up shots while hunting though:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=367963

Folks use a variety of methods and products to clean their guns. With inlines I think that it's important to keep [dirty] water away from moving parts like the trigger mechanism if at all possible. I use several different substitute powders and BP solvents to clean with but not water. It's just a personal preference. Some cleaners require more elbow grease and others are more effective for removing different powder residues. The important thing is too remove as much fouling as possible.

 

[Mr Bernoulli]

hmm sounds good so far. I think im going to play around with some different loads though. So what one guy said you can actually buy undersized bullets and put them in a sabot and this is much cheaper? One more thing I was curious about, my rifle is ignighted using 209 primers and after 20 shots I took out the breech plug and man was it dirty! To the point though the hole in the breech plug where the fire rushes through to ignight the powder, how do you clean that or is there any need? The way I was thinking is that it too would get fouled and the powder would not ignight as well after a while. Problem is its the size of a pin head... How do I clean this? Hope to hear some more... really any tips or tricks are welcome. Thanks.

 

[arcticap]

Soak it in alcohol or another cleaning solution and use a nipple pick, a piece of wire, a toothpick or anything else that will help to scrape out any fouling that may remain.

Sabots are made to fit a specific caliber of bullet to a specific bore size and are sold in bulk.

They're usually made to fit either .429/.430 bullets (.44 magnum),
or .45 bullets (.451 -.452). Then you can try out bullets of different weight, profile and composition with them. But there's usually an amount of trial and error required to match the performance of the factory sabot/bullet combinations.

Just look at some of the different sabots that are made by these outfits:

http://www.mmpsabots.com/

http://www.harvesterbullets.com/sabots.htm