I believe this is currently called the "big bore Kentucky." It differs from recent 50 calibers in that the sights are not quite as huge. It also has a 3.5 pound trigger pull which is much lighter than the .50 I have used. It hits about 3 inches to the right of the sights at 25 yards and is on for elevation.
I started out shooting over the chronograph with a milpac target at 40 yards. I was sitting on the ground, back rested with the gun held in both hands over my knees. This confirmed the point of aim/impact relationship so I knew what to do off-hand at 25 yards.
In general, ignition was fast and consistent. I found that either of the 3fg varients ignited as fast and reliably as 4f when used as priming powder. The gun does have a heavy frizzen spring which seems to be consistent with the Pedersoli Kentuckys and is the probably reason that the gun goes through flints fairly quickly. four or five strikes and it is necessary to attend to the flint- by knapping it sharp and, when the bottom edge begins to get two rounded for this- by flipping it over to bevel side down orientation. The flint needs to be absolutely square with the frizzen face and (at least for this individual gun) needs about 1/8" remove from the frizzen face when set at half cock.
The pedersoli multiple-gun -multiple language instruction book is much like other Italian manuals. It differs from them in that when you finally find the load recommendations, it appears that they are actually knowledgible about the matter. The suggested 25 grain charge worked very well both with goex fffg and swiss fffg. and charge weight experimentation did not seem necessary.
I was shooting .535 inch speer balls with .015" of un-lubricated pillow ticking pre-cut patches. This arrangement was quite tight in the bore.
This pistol is much more shootable and inherantly accurate than my high dollar LePage Flintlock and shoots on a par with my LePage caplock pistol
I started out shooting over the chronograph with a milpac target at 40 yards. I was sitting on the ground, back rested with the gun held in both hands over my knees. This confirmed the point of aim/impact relationship so I knew what to do off-hand at 25 yards.
In general, ignition was fast and consistent. I found that either of the 3fg varients ignited as fast and reliably as 4f when used as priming powder. The gun does have a heavy frizzen spring which seems to be consistent with the Pedersoli Kentuckys and is the probably reason that the gun goes through flints fairly quickly. four or five strikes and it is necessary to attend to the flint- by knapping it sharp and, when the bottom edge begins to get two rounded for this- by flipping it over to bevel side down orientation. The flint needs to be absolutely square with the frizzen face and (at least for this individual gun) needs about 1/8" remove from the frizzen face when set at half cock.
The pedersoli multiple-gun -multiple language instruction book is much like other Italian manuals. It differs from them in that when you finally find the load recommendations, it appears that they are actually knowledgible about the matter. The suggested 25 grain charge worked very well both with goex fffg and swiss fffg. and charge weight experimentation did not seem necessary.
I was shooting .535 inch speer balls with .015" of un-lubricated pillow ticking pre-cut patches. This arrangement was quite tight in the bore.
This pistol is much more shootable and inherantly accurate than my high dollar LePage Flintlock and shoots on a par with my LePage caplock pistol
Last edited: