Thompson .54 Renegade hunting load/experience

[arcticap]

The .54's effective hunting range is basically limited only by your accuracy. Heavy hunting loads with the 1 in 48" could suffer stringing with or without the patch shredding. You made a lot of progress. Maybe the previous owner was using another powder or patch & ball load.
From this point it's recommended to only switch one variable at a time when testing out new loads. There's ball, patch, powder, wad, lubricant and not too much else. Remember that the barrel temperature can vary from season to season and that when hunting it's the first shot out of a cold clean barrel that counts the most, and not the size of the groups or whether the patches get shredded or not.

 

[El Chivato]

I measured the I.D. of the barrel. It is .550. (Groove to Groove) A .530 ball with a .020 Patch would then be .570 creating .020 crush. Like I said, the .010 patches were way to small and this next step I took (.015) seemed to work, up to a point. I agree, more work needs to be done, but I believe I'm on the right path. Hopefully shooting again next weekend.

 

[OrangePwrx9]

90 gr. RS behind two pre-lubed bore buttons and a .535 roundball with an .018 pre-lubed pillow ticking patch. Shoots like a laser in my .54 Hawken and in a .54 GPR. However, both are slow twist with cut rifling; so you may have to back off that powder charge to 75 or 80 grs. to get them to shoot well in your 1:48, button rifled barrel.

Almost as good are the lighter weight Power Belt bullets. For deer, I'd stick with a 295 gr. Power Belt over 90 gr. RS. They'll be easier and quicker to load than roundball, but they're not cheap. I don't use bore buttons with Power Belts.

Although I took a nice buck with a 350 gr. Maxi-Hunter, they and the Maxi-Ball are at the bottom of the list as far as I'm concerned. Accuracy is way too inconsistent.

I like to get a BP rifle working at 75 yards from a seated field rest (not bench) position - elbow of supporting arm on knee or thigh. Once it's dropping them in a consistent 2" to 2.5" group at 75 yards, I then plan my hunt around shots of less than 50 yards. So far this approach has worked like a charm over several seasons.

Actually, the RB load is capable of 1.5" groups at 100 yards with iron sights, if loaded carefully. However, I've always been sceptical of how much power remains at that range when shooting RB.

 

[El Chivato]

Frustrating day at the range.

I went to a .020 patch, same box of .530 round balls and RS powder. I used between 80 and 100 grains of powder and was lucky to hit a 2' square piece of wood at 100 yds.

This is confusing me. It will damn near cloverleaf at 50 yards. I'm thinking about trying some "great plains" bullets from Hornady.

I weighed some sample projectiles. Interesting. They were not very consistent. I'm thinking air pockets in the balls which could cause them to spin off course down the way. Opinions?

P.S. I got some "Muzzleloader Originals" brands patches, and they were pretty shotty. They look like "Ox yoke" brand but they are different. These patches were crap, the weave was very loose and were no where near advertised thickness. Luckily, I had some good .020 patches stashed.

I'm beginning to think that this is going to be an under 100 yd. situation. My next option I believe will be to go to a different projectile. If it turns out that I cannot group at 100 with anything, I will use the heaviest most accurate combination.

 

[El Chivato]

Much better

425 grain Great Plains bullet, 105 grains RS. This is doing a 3 in group at 100 yards. If I had a scope on the rifle, I could probably do better. I still have time before the hunt, so I am going to experiment with Select and see how that does.