A New Report on my .50 cal Lancaster w/pictures

[La Longue Carabine]

  It seem's the good Lord blessed us with an incrediblely beautiful weekend, highs in the mid to upper 70's...  So i hollared at the ole lady to get ready and lets load the truck with my shooting gear and go do some shooting. I reckon the load i had worked up this past fall on my rifle still held true. I was hitting every shot in the red cirle, but i was a little right of center. I figured that was the case due to the fact that i was shooting off a bench rest, from the bed of my truck and it was slanted down hill to the right. Anyway, this is what i came up with:

I was shooting 70grs. of 2f "Goex", OP wad, .018 wonderlubed patch, .490 roundball, 4f in the pan, at 45 yards...

Now after about 4 shots, i saw that i was in the big red ring and had a fine group, but again, just a little right of center. I was now ready to shoot a few free hand shots and saw that i had ran out of the .018 wonderlube patches, so i dug around in my shooting bag and found a few .020 pre-lubed pillow tick patches. These things were hard to get down the barrel and for some reason, the first 3 shots i made using these patches, all went waaaaay right... ... So i went to my shooting box and found some .018 pre-lubed pillow tick patches, these were a little bigger in diameter than the other patches, but they wasn't as hard to get down the barrel. I started hitting back in the red circle, and had 2 touching each other just above center....  

I just hope i got this figured right. The .018 and .020 refers to the thickness of the patch and not the diameter, "Correct"??

Anyway's here are a few picture's, that my picture taking happy wife took...:wink: And please disregard that elephant that snuck into my overhauls...


Off the bench rest & my truck, at 45yds.












Here's a picture of the first 4 shots i took off the bench rest, at 45yds.




The next 8 shots were shot freehanded at 50 yards.

















The 3 circled to the right, are the 3 that were shot with the .20 pillow tick patches... ... The 3 on the left,(yes their's 3 there, 2 in the same hole) was me trying to hold over a bit to see if i could get in the center circle, but i kept holding over to far...





I guess we had better not forget my Big Ole Boy, "Jericho", he's playing dead after one of my shots...




 

[Ben I. Voss]

Carabine, the .018 and .020 etc. refer to the thickness in thousandths of an inch. Have you tried spit for patchlube? Traditional, cheap and it works well. Put the patch in your mouth for a few seconds to get it good and wet (I always wash my patch material before I use it- for that and other reasons!) Just don't leave a spit patched gun loaded for very long or it could rust. I like mink oil for hunting patch lube. By the way, does that big dog fit in that little pet carrier at your feet in one of the pictures?! Looks like you had a fun day!

[Roger Fisher]

Ol Jericho knows what he's doing.  What was he rollin in

Well now we are all glad you shot to the right side rather than low,. you would have had a venilated truck body!!

Serious,  bump that rear sight to the left a frog hair and try her again from a rest...
Full detailed written report in triplicate required....

[La Longue Carabine]

Carabine, the .018 and .020 etc. refer to the thickness in thousandths of an inch. Have you tried spit for patchlube? Traditional, cheap and it works well. Put the patch in your mouth for a few seconds to get it good and wet (I always wash my patch material before I use it- for that and other reasons!) Just don't leave a spit patched gun loaded for very long or it could rust. I like mink oil for hunting patch lube. By the way, does that big dog fit in that little pet carrier at your feet in one of the pictures?! Looks like you had a fun day!

  Naw, that was our little chiwahwaha's pet taxi, we had to bring her along also, because our insect guy had came out to spray, so she went with us...

[La Longue Carabine]

Ol Jericho knows what he's doing.  What was he rollin in ???Well now we are all glad you shot to the right side rather than low,. you would have had a venilated truck body!!

Serious,  bump that rear sight to the left a frog hair and try her again from a rest...
Full detailed written report in triplicate required....

We were shooting at a real good family friends farm and the land butts up to the "Nolichucky" river and all that is old river bottom land, which is what he was rolling in and loving it. Now as i was aiming over the truck bed, immediatley to my right and about 50 yards on down, was the rolling river. A canoers paradise....

  And my truck was safe, but thanks for caring...  

[C. Cash]

Looks like a great time! Thanks for sharing those.

[Daryl]

Looking pretty good - Roger's right about the sights - however, try the wet spit patch for 'target' shooting. You may find a zero change. I've used the mink oil from Track for hunting and found it to worked just fine, as well, however it did require re-working up a load (from the target load with a wet patch when using mink oil for hunting as well as re-zeroing the sights - I experienced windage as well as elevation changes.

The '3' hit 4" right of the first 4 - that's a lot of windage for .002" patch thickness & I'm rather surprised you found any loading difference, let alone a shooting difference.  Most of us use a ball only .005" smaller than the bore with a .020" or thicker patch. I think perhaps your crown is a bit sharp and possibly cutting the slightly thicker patch - hence the larger group. 

[La Longue Carabine]

Looking pretty good - Roger's right about the sights - however, try the wet spit patch for 'target' shooting. You may find a zero change. I've used the mink oil from Track for hunting and found it to worked just fine, as well, however it did require re-working up a load (from the target load with a wet patch when using mink oil for hunting as well as re-zeroing the sights - I experienced windage as well as elevation changes.

The '3' hit 4" right of the first 4 - that's a lot of windage for .002" patch thickness & I'm rather surprised you found any loading difference, let alone a shooting difference.  Most of us use a ball only .005" smaller than the bore with a .020" or thicker patch. I think perhaps your crown is a bit sharp and possibly cutting the slightly thicker patch - hence the larger group. 

Thanks Daryl, i guess i should have told it a little better. I orginally had my rifle cleaned with the Mink Oil, but between shots i swabbed the barrel down with "Moose Milk".

I totally agree also, that its hard to imagine that a difference of .002" in patch thickness would make much of a difference, but thats why there's 3 holes over there to the right. Because after the first one hit over there, i said "What the $#*!" was that. Then i fired 2 more shots using the same .020 patches and they went over there too.... I then found the .018's which were larger in diameter than my wonderlubed patches but the same thickness and "Boom" i was right back in the red circle.... Things that make ya go hmmmm!!!