Many moons ago when I bought my first 32 cal, a Traditions Crockett, little did I know I was going to get totally hooked on squirrel hunting with it. I liked the little rifle so well it became my everyday plinker and walk about rifle. I bought Lee’s copy of the TC Maxi and found out it would not shoot the maxi at all. I love the little gun but my heart is really with the flintlocks. Enter the Pedersoli Pennsylvania Frontier 32 flintlock that a bought after Christmas. I was messing around shooting conicals out of my revolvers and I had found a few of those 32 maxi balls. I thought why not let’s give it a go.
I dumped 40 grs of Goex 3F down the tube and pushed the maxi home. I gave it a couple good thumps with the Rod to expand it a bit into the rifling and took aim at a fresh new 1.5 inch dot on clean white paper at 50 yds away from the bench and sandbags. I set the trigger and relaxed. At the perfect moment I touched the front trigger and instantly felt the recoil. I thought to myself, man that lock is sweet. I looked up from the rifle and couldn’t see anything in the 18x18 paper. I’ve been down this road before, so I took a walk down to the frame and there was the hole, dead center of the 1.5” red dot. Ok, I’ve got one good shot let’s see if it’s not a fluke.
On the second shot I didn’t have it quite perfectly aligned and the shot was a bit high and to the right but still within the 1.5” dot. The third shot things went south, real far south like about 10 inches, and the next was still 10 inches low but more to the right. I swabbed the bore with a couple of wet patches, followed by a dry one, and reloaded. Bam! Right where it belonged, back in the red. The second shot same thing, I had 4 shots within an 1.25” group. The fifth shot back down south about 10 inches with the other three.
I am not exactly happy about having to swab after 2 shots, I was hoping I could get at least 3 off, but 2 is better than 1 so I will take it. I’ve seen guys have to swab after every shot when shooting Conicals out of their rifles. At least I get a pretty quick follow up shot. I can be happy with that. Now for sure since it will shoot the Maxis without issue, the Pedersoli Frontier can now officially take its place as my do it all, walk a bout rifle. At 27 yds it will cut bullet hole with a PRB, and 20 grains of powder, and at 50 yds I will shoot under 1.5 inches with the 110 Maxi. I am very pleased with my decision to buy that rifle. It is the first 1:48 twist I own, that will shoot conicals well.
