Getting accuracy out of conicals

[taco650]

i have hunted with TC Hawkens in 54 and Renegade in .50 and .54, exclusively with Maxi ball types, including the TC varities, and the Hornady Great plains boolits, along with the Lyman in both calibers. I have taken around 50 deer with them at ranges from 35-185 yds. I finally sold all my molds except for the Lyman in .50-390 grs and .54-450 grs. All my rifles with 1-48 shoot great with these bullets, with scopes they will cut cloverleafs at 100yds, from a bench. They all shot slightly better with a veg fiber wad lubricated, but not a must have. The charges mentioned above, are all to light, from my findings. With a .50 I shoot 90-95grs 2ffg, with the nod going to 95grs. For the .54 I settled on 105 grains. I went up and down the whole spectrum of powder charges, and the hotter loads, shot the best, I assume because of upsetting the bullet better, or makin the bullet fill the lands better due to the hotter loading. This info was gleaned from time at the bench and afield, and a lot of powder burned, hope this helps.

Thanks, it does! Sounds like more time on the range which is good thing IMO!! ����

[charlie b]

I would think that some kind of wad will do the sealing, and the boolit will not be expanding because of the cushioning effect of the wad.
But I could be wrong.
Maybe we need to test the loads into a deep water source and look at the fired boolit.
Dang,
I don't have access to the police Crime lab I built years ago.
That would have been the perfect place to test the boolits.
But I don't think they would let me fire BP inside the building.

Well, I did recover some bullets fired at 100 yd. 450gn PP bullets. 80gn Pyrodex Select, Veggie card wad, Oxyoke lubed felt wad (about 1/8" thick) and bullet. I load the powder and set the veggie card wad, ram it down tightly on the powder. Then the felt wad and bullet. Those two slide down the bore with just the weight of the rod. Bullet is seated with very light pressure. After the bullet was recovered I found that the rifling was marked on the bullets, despite the paper patch. So, the felt wad does not really 'cushion' the bullet and it definitely does not prevent the bullet from being upset into the grooves.

Sorry, I don't have pictures.

PS there is a minimum powder load to get the upset necessary. You have to experiment to find out what works the best. When I used Hornady Great Plains bullets (385gn, lubed and sized to .501, bore is .502) they liked 100gn best. After digging them out of the backstop they looked just like a cast bullet fired from a breechloader.

PPS my rifle is the Lyman GP Hunter, 1:32 twist. The 450gn are marginal stability unless pushed hard.

[Good Cheer]

I never tried conicals but some of the most frustrating barrels to shoot boolits in has been the Green Mountain .40 calibers with a 48" twist.
The GM .50 and .54 barrels worked fine but the .40's are heart breakers. Ran tests with a hollow base design, with .41 caliber revolver boolits, with paper patched...
There would be some good results (eureka!) and then the inconsistencies would show up. Finally concluded that it becomes an almost insurmountable difficulty as the bore size decreases and the rifling groove depth does not. Second part is that for .40 caliber the 48" twist is by ratio very slow as opposed to having a 48" twist in a .50 or .54 such as is so common from the famous Hawken Brothers and coming forwards in time through Spain and Italy. So any way, looking back it really was fun and after experimenting with 16" twist and 48" twist in .40 caliber rifles I'd really love to have some twist in between!

[Good Cheer]

Was looking through notes from 2011...
The Lee .41 SWC 195 grain was giving 2" groups at 50 yards (light weight boolits make it difficult to get consistent expansion into the rifling).
The deeper the rifling is the more inertia the boolit needs to have to get the lead base to spread out. Oh but wait, the twist is too slow to be shooting a heavier boolit...
And so it goes.

Got no doubt there's a design that will work well in the GM .40 barrels, something like a REAL but with a hollow base.

[megasupermagnum]

I finally had promising results today. I was shooting two conicals, the Lee REAL and the TC maxiball, both from a 1:48 twist 54 caliber renegade with peep sights. I had been using felt wads in the past, today I was using .070" 28 gauge nitro cards under the bullet. Both bullets I lubed by hand with bore butter. It's too early to call it, but the maxiballs shot into about 4" at 80 yards, and the REAL's into about 3". I forgot patches to swab between shots, so just loaded a dirty bore. The maxiballs I bought from October country, and they are junk castings. I'll be calling them, they are very bad. I picked out 6 acceptable ones out of the 20 they sent me. They still shot decent though, so who knows what a good cast maxiball would do.

I think the key in my case was more powder. Either they obturate better or they stabilize better, or both. At 70 grains they don't shoot for squat. I shot the maxiballs to 100 grains, and the REAL's to 110 grains. I may be willing to try up to 120 grains if accuracy continues to get better.

Besides higher powder charges, I also made two other changes. One, I was using Goex Old Eynsford FF, rather than Goex red bottle FF. I doubt this made a huge difference at the 80 yards I was shooting, but the stuff seems stronger than red bottle. The other change was on the REAL bullets, I beagled the mold. I've tried them in the past cast of pure lead, 40:1, and 20:1. None ever seemed a good fit in the bore, even casting WAY hotter than needed. Finally I beagled the mold, and cast them of 40:1, beagling made all the difference in the world. They don't load hard at all, but before they would just fall down the barrel once engraved. Now they might take 5 pounds of pressure.

[taco650]

Thanks for posting your results. If I can’t get my T/C Hawken barrel in .50 to RB’s good enough, I’ll start trying conicals. Did you try 3f with either of those bullets?

[megasupermagnum]

No. What would be a safe maximum of FFF in a 54 caliber? 90 grains?

[725]

Follow published data from the manufacturer for loading. Some use FFFg in .54 but it seems too fast for me.

[arcticap]

No. What would be a safe maximum of FFF in a 54 caliber? 90 grains?

Here's a TC Sidelock owner's manual with suggested loads at the end for balls, conicals and sabots.--->>> http://www.dakotaskipper.net/ebay/Sh...owder_Guns.pdf

120 grains of FFg is max. for balls and conicals.
110-120 grains of FFg for sabots depending on bullet weight.

A person would reduce FFFg loads by 10% to equal FFg.

[megasupermagnum]

Where did you come up with the 10% figure? From what I'm seeing, it's more around 20% based on velocity. I'm sure FFFg is plenty safe used in reasonable amounts, but I don't see a good reason to try it with conicals. If I were to try it in a 54 caliber, it would be for round balls. If anything, I was thinking of trying the Fg Swiss powder I've only tried a couple shots of.

[arcticap]

Where did you come up with the 10% figure? From what I'm seeing, it's more around 20% based on velocity. I'm sure FFFg is plenty safe used in reasonable amounts, but I don't see a good reason to try it with conicals. If I were to try it in a 54 caliber, it would be for round balls. If anything, I was thinking of trying the Fg Swiss powder I've only tried a couple shots of.

Look at the 3rd velocity chart for .54 caliber loads plotted for Goex 2F & 3F and it shows less than a 10% velocity difference for Goex round ball loads of 40 - 120 grains.--->>> https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/t...ocities.40427/

Notice that the Lyman chart provides data for a load of 120 grains of 3F Goex with a .54 patched round ball and it's less than 10% faster than 2F Goex.

Yes, there can be a difference for conicals but I was only providing you with the "rule of thumb" for powder reduction.
Also, Swiss powder is 11% denser by volume than Goex, so the amount of reduction could be double or 20%.

I'm not advocating maximum powder loads or recommending how much anyone should load.
You asked a generic question: "What would be a safe maximum of FFF in a 54 caliber? 90 grains?"

I simply provided the generic answer which is based on the Lyman Black Powder Handbook velocity data.

There's more info. to be found about shooting different .54 conicals but most only list 2F.
Maybe someone who has the Handbook can list more specific 3F info. for .54 if you need it.

Here's another thread with some .54 conical data for a Knight .54.--->>> https://www.huntingnet.com/forum/bla...ity-chart.html

[megasupermagnum]

Well the first link doesn't list powder charges. Assuming each point is 10 grains, and max is 120 grains, I can extrapolate. It looks like FFFg provides similar velocity with 20 grains less powder than FFg. The second link is more telling. With 80 grains of FFFg, the load provides 1300 fps, and 11,800 PSI. The same bullet with 110 grains FFg provides 1430 fps and 11,700 psi. That's a 27% drop in charge with the same pressure, and a significant drop in velocity.

This isn't to start an argument, but it looks like my original guess of 90 grains is closer than I realized.

[arcticap]

Well the first link doesn't list powder charges. Assuming each point is 10 grains, and max is 120 grains, I can extrapolate. It looks like FFFg provides similar velocity with 20 grains less powder than FFg. The second link is more telling. With 80 grains of FFFg, the load provides 1300 fps, and 11,800 PSI. The same bullet with 110 grains FFg provides 1430 fps and 11,700 psi. That's a 27% drop in charge with the same pressure, and a significant drop in velocity.

This isn't to start an argument, but it looks like my original guess of 90 grains is closer than I realized.

Please check your math.
The chart shows that the velocity for 120 grains of Goex 3F is approx. 1780 FPS and for 2F approx. 1680 FPS which is a difference of 9.4%.

There are some lesser velocity differences between the other .54 Goex powder loads.
It's not about pressure since the pressures are all "safe".
120 grains of Goex 3F can be a safe round ball load if a person wants to shoot them.
But who would want to?

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

never trust in charts. Do the chronographing yourself and see actual results.

[megasupermagnum]

Please check your math.
The chart shows that the velocity for 120 grains of Goex 3F is approx. 1780 FPS and for 2F approx. 1680 FPS which is a difference of 9.4%.

There are some lesser velocity differences between the other .54 Goex powder loads.
It's not about pressure since the pressures are all "safe".
120 grains of Goex 3F can be a safe round ball load if a person wants to shoot them.
But who would want to?

See, I don't agree with that at all. If 120 grains of FFg black powder is the safe maximum with most loads, why on earth would 108 grains (10% reduction) of FFFg, which is most certainly a higher pressure, be safe? If it is safe, then why isn't the safe maximum of FFg higher? Velocity is an indicator of pressure, but matching FFg velocities with FFFg powder seems outright foolish. That's no different than trying to match 2400 velocities with Bullseye.

I double checked my math. 120 gr FFg is listed at about 1675ish FPS. Assuming each point is 10 grains, 100 grains of FFFg is 1675ish FPS. That's a reduction of 17%, and is still most certainly higher pressure than FFg.

After seeing this data, I'm going to a rule of 25% myself.

[arcticap]

I did make an error by overstating how much faster 3F is than 2F for 120 grains of Goex.

It's only about 6% faster with that 120 grain load and not 9.4%.

2F is 94.38 % as fast as 3F [with the velocity of 3F being 100%].

And the velocity of 3F is 105.95% above that of 2F [with the velocity of 2F being 100%]

That percentage represents about a 7.2 grain powder difference out of a 120 grain Goex load.
While using a flat 10% would be a difference of 12 grains of powder.

"If you want to know what percent A is of B, you simply divide A by B, then take that number and move the decimal place two spaces to the right.
That's your percentage!
To use the calculator, enter two numbers to calculate the percentage the first is of the second by clicking Calculate Percentage."--->>> http://www.csgnetwork.com/csgpercent.html


The percentages could change for other loads depending on their charted velocities.
.

[Edward]

Please check your math.
The chart shows that the velocity for 120 grains of Goex 3F is approx. 1780 FPS and for 2F approx. 1680 FPS which is a difference of 9.4%.

There are some lesser velocity differences between the other .54 Goex powder loads.
It's not about pressure since the pressures are all "safe".
120 grains of Goex 3F can be a safe round ball load if a person wants to shoot them.
But who would want to?

Start at 90 gr of OE 3F I did in my 54 and shoots fine,let the gun tell you when accuracy peaks(or your shoulder)but 120 works /just sayin

[brewer12345]

So I spent the morning fooling around with maxi balls, pyrodex select, and black mz. After a lot of shooting, I found this rifle hates pyrodex. Couldn't do better than 4 or 5 inches at 50 yards. I gave up and tried black mz. Lo and behold, 100 grains put the shots at an inch and a half at 50 yards and on a pie plate at 100. I was avoiding this powder because it is supposed to be less energetic, but its hard to argue with accuracy. Sound ok for a hunting load?

[Edward]

OE 2F sounds much better

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

Its about 200 fps slower than pyrodex. You'd probably get good accuracy if you would drop it down to 80gr.