Starting/Universal load?

[shooter93]

This may be a strange question because BPC rifles are a thing of their own but here's what I'm after. It's been awhile since I've seriously played with them so things have changed a lot I'm sure. I have a friend, an older gent, who waited his two years to get his Shiloh 45-90 with a 32 inch pipe. I told him I'd give him a hand once he got the rifle and we'd round up the stuff.....that didn't work....
During the waiting period he bought a case of powder, all the same brand and granulation, loaded up 200 "various rounds" with a couple different bullets and things of that nature. Gun arrives....he's excited.....nothing worked worth a hoot and he quickly became disappointed. Even talked about getting a scope within 10 minutes of the end of the shooting session.
I FINALLY got him calmed down to where he sort of understands this is not going to be a 3 hour job and we'll be out shooting Quigley (movies are not primers for bpc shooting) Sooooooo can someone give me a good place to start using 500 or so grain Postell bullets as to powder weight, starting compression, lube, wads etc. so I can atleast get it shooting well enough that I can lower his BP and get him on the correct path. Thanks for any assistance.

[wills]

Scoop a case full of the black you are going to use. Weigh it. This is your charge. (Don’t worry about the weight/volume dichotomy business.) Drop tube it into the case. Put a wad on and compress it enough for your boolit to be seated to the depth you want. The boolit should not be touching the rifling, to allow some soot to accumulate.

See how that works. You can go from there and adjust one thing at a time.

[Don McDowell]

Start out with 80 grs of powder, a.030 fiber wad, compress the powder and the wad deep enough to let your bullet seat to the driving band. Use the crimp in the seating die to just take the flare out of the case mouth. Bullets should be sized to .458 and no bigger than 459. If using starline cases it may be necessary to anneal those to get the best accuracy from them.
After he gets used to the recoil/torque of the rifle, then adjust the powder charge up or down to get the groups to tighten up.
Watch how you rest the forend/barrel, that will make a difference on how the gun shoots.

[Gunlaker]

Are the bullets a soft alloy like 20:1 or so? The other things not mentioned are to be really sure there is no distortion of the bullet upon seating.

Fouling control matters a lot. Blow tubing or wiping...

Also, the biggest way to turn a 1.5 moa load into a 3 moa load is the way your friend grips the rifle. Most posts are about load info but how you hold manage one of these rifles is very important. If your friend is used to shooting bolt guns with modern high speed rounds he'll have to spend some time learning how to actually shoot the rifle. As an example, if I keep a tight hold on the pistol grip, pull back into the shoulder consistently, keep the right amount of tension in my shoulder muscles ( and breathing, etc ) then my groups will be excellent. If I bugger up any of these then it's easy to put a flyer an additional moa or more out of the group. In comparison I can be pretty lax about this stuff and still shoot under 1 moa with my modern .223 or .308.

Chris.

[shooter93]

Thanks guys. I'll get him going if it kills me...lol. He just started ALL wrong. He had so many loads with so many things changed there was just no way of knowing. Didn't even have any idea what alloy he had let alone what size they were, and he had several mystery ones going. One of the local "gurus" had ofcourse told him everything he needed to to to be shooting like Quigley in 20 minutes. I have a numbe of books for him to read too. I just need him to Un-learn all he was just taught. He is a shooter but has never worked with this kind of stuff.

[Don McDowell]

If he's shooting off the bench, get him into as much of an upright position as you can. These rifles don't shoot as well as highpower smokeless guns do when you're all hunced over them like a monkey having an amorous moment with a football..

[John Boy]

Shooter, tell you friend he has a lot of practice reloads. Take them all to the range and pull a lot of triggers.
BTW, what brand and grade is the case of powder he bought? Is it mixed brands and grades?

Some folks get good accuracy with the 90' using fiber wads and seated to the crimp groove. My 90' likes dry felt wads and the bullet seated out kissing the leading bore cuts

[wills]

If he's shooting off the bench, get him into as much of an upright position as you can. These rifles don't shoot as well as highpower smokeless guns do when you're all hunced over them like a monkey having an amorous moment with a football..

Get some cross sticks and a mat. Do you know about blow tubes? He should be using a blow tube.

[shooter93]

He dos have a blow tube but that's about it. I shot these things quite a bit back in the day but I figured things had changed a bit since then. Once I get him shooting ok I think he will persue things correctly. He got a lot of bad information and was disappointed to fast.