It sucks!
I purchased a Military Heritage Indian Trade Gun, drilled the touch hole 1/16, added some flint and was off to the races.
I noticed the touch hole went into the breach plug where it's more cone shaped. There's a good amount of metal from the pan to the powder.
At the range the first thing I noticed was that the bore was tight. It was supposed to be a 62 cal gun, but in reality it was 60 cal. I couldn't get a patch on any of the 60 cal balls that I cast for this gun. Even a bare ball was tight. My jag was too big for a cleaning patch, so I couldn't patch or clean the gun. The copper brush could be pushed in but would have locked in if I pushed it all the way in so that was off the table too.
Spark was OK, but getting the main charge to ignite was difficult. A few times I had to stuff powder in the touch hole with a pick to get it to go off. I'm not sure what's going on there. My powder was pretty course to maybe it was stacking in there. I did bang the side of the gun to try to settle it, but it didn't help.
After getting it home I decided to open up the hole in the breach plug and even carved out a channel so powder could sit closer to the touch hole. I don't want to enlarge the touch hole any more than necessary.
Accuracy was very poor, but some of that could have been the constant hang fires, no rear sight and not knowing what charge works the best.
The next size ball down I can get is the Lee .575 which would be more ideal for a 58 cal. Maybe I can powder coat these balls to bump them up?
If round balls aren't an option my goal would be to get it at least reliable so I can use it as a turkey gun with shot. Any suggestions would be appreciated.