Two .40 St. Louis Hawken Powder Tests (and others)

[Herb]

I tested some more patch material and determined that JoAnn Drill 40 (#00683532) is not for me.  It blew apart with heavier charges.  I have shot dozens of groups with .40 caliber and 40 grains of Goex 3f, trying to get tight groups, and have been disappointed.  Thus these heavier charges.  This is a copy of an original St. Louis Hawken that was for sale on some broker site.  There were enough photos that I was able to build this rifle from them in July 2006.  I sawed the stock out of a walnut blank with a handsaw.  Here I tested six powders with .012 pillow ticking (ratchet reading) and CCI 11 primers and CCI magnum primers with one powder.  You can hit CONTROL and the + sign on your keyboard to enlarge photos.  It looks as if three patches blew with the Pyrodex P.

I entered the rifle in the sculpture division of a juried art show and won first place.

Here is another St. Louis Hawken with a 32" Rice barrel.  The bottom target was 70 grains of Olde Eynsford 2F, which it did not like.

Here are 60, 70 and 80 grains of Goex 2F.  Notice the 60 grains gave nearly the same velocity as the other .40 Hawken.

It did not like OxYoke .020 patch and 70 grains of Goex 3F.  Notice that 70 grains of Goex 2F and a linen patch was much faster but the velocity was the same as the target above.

One barrel maker, I forget which one, said his customers used 90 grains of powder in a .40 chunk gun, I believe it was.  I would like to shoot  about 25-30 grains of powder for rabbit hunting, but I have not yet had really good accuracy with light loads.  Will try some more.

[shifty]

  Nice rifles!

[old george]

Nice job on the range reports also. Good luck in your quest for a tight bunny load.

geo.

[LH]

Nice work!   If it was me,  I'd try some .395 balls with those same patch cloths and fffg powder and lose the pyrodex.   

[Candle Snuffer]

Herb, I agree with trying the .395 ball, perhaps even a .400 ball if she'll go. Wouldn't be a bad idea to test the "tweener" charges of 65 and 75 grains.  My .40 cal chunk / table rifle likes 65 grains of 2fg the best for accuracy, but that's neither here nor there with your rifles as we know all rifles have their own loads they like best.

Nice rifles by the way!

[rhbrink]

I have a Rice .40 cal barrel and the only way that I can keep it from blowing patches is to use a felt wad between the patched ball and the powder. I hate doing this as it is easy for me to forget as I have never had to do this before in nearly 50 years of muzzle loading. Also went to Big duck Canvas and bought some Army canvas and some Big Duck #12 this stuff is a whole bunch tougher than anything you can buy at Jo-Anns or Hancock fabrics or any of the hobby lobbies or wallyville. Also I use a .400 ball and have tried the .395 also I'm still working on that right now the .400 ball is the slight winner at 50 yards seems to be much better at 100 yards. But the jury is still out on that one it is just hard to catch a really good day to do some serious work at 100 yards.

RB

[stuart cee dub]

This is timely .My new .40 cal is eating patches too.My .018 canvas duck gets a tear lengthwise down the center,so does the blue pillow ticking .015 .Its not burned just torn.Almost as if the act of seating the ball is ''tearing seat out of the britches'' .And it likes alot of powder too,395 ball 40 grns of 3f up to 60 grns   
Might have to go to an over powder wad until I can find a sturdy  patch material (thanks for the clue RH ).
I have seen some pretty tough looking greenish teflon treated patch material at some of the shoots.Someone must be selling it .Is teflon toxic ?   

[rhbrink]

"tearing the seat out of the britches" Good Grief! That's a new one to me I have tore plenty along the sides of the ball trying to seat too large of a ball and too tight of a patch makes me wonder if the diameter of your short starter is too large and pinching the sides of the patch on the inside of the barrel while driving the ball into the barrel?

The Teflon does help and is probably the most accurate patching material available and it will tighten up your groups some. But I like to develop a really good shooting load with materials available to me and then check it against the Teflon patching sometimes Teflon improves the load and sometimes not. A lot of that comes do to just how well you can see open sights under the available light conditions peep sights do help me, getting old I guess? Teflon isn't cheap about $25 per yard plus shipping so how well do you want to "slightly" improve your load? If you are shooting for national championships well then any thing that you can do to shave a few thousandths off your group helps. I get my Teflon from THE MINUTE-MEN   330.262.5482

RB

[Daryl]

Using a strip of .020" compressed patch thickness, lubed with WWWF and a .508" ball, we easily loaded Taylor's Virginia .50 with the deep, .016" rounded rifling.  He has a nicely radius shaped and smoothed crown, not a cone, as the crown is virtually 1/8" deep - but it as no corners and is smooth.  With the strip of cloth, we were then able to simply pull out the ball and check the patch - no cuts, no tears - perfect with the ball nicely engraved with cloth stick markings all the way around, just as Lyman professed back in the 70's in their book, Black Powder Handbook. Seems a lot of guys who have that book or have read it, missed the part where the ball needs to be impressed by the cloth ALL the way around which means the bottom of the grooves as well.

In my .40 barrel, I load a .400" ball with from .019" to .0235" (compressed measures) ticking and denim without trouble, and without tearing the patch.  The bore is .398"- .002" smaller than the ball itself. This barrel has .010" deep rifling.

My .69 uses a .682" ball with a .030" (compressed in calipers, .025" compressed in a mic) in it's .690" bore with .012" rifling depth.

Due to what I have noted above, many of us up here who used similar loads, have a great deal of difficulty understanding why some guys have difficulty loading much looser combinations, balls .005 to .010" smaller than the bore and a thin .015" patch.

Perhaps all of these 'trouble' rifles have extremely rough pitted bores from shooting Pyrodex or other chlorate or perchlorate powders - or possibly from poor cleaning practices? Something is different - much different.  It is not a matter of strength - our women also use the same combinations we use, albeit slightly looser - .005" under sized balls with wet (not just damp or merely licked) .020" to .022" patches.

Might be the crown's shape?

[stuart cee dub]

Thank you for the simple and great suggestion Daryl .
Namely using a strip seating the ball then pulling it to check the patching to see if the ''seat'' is torn .The balls easily seat with a single strike,
the bore is a buttery smooth match grade barrel.The barrel is my cleanest shooting barrel needing only an occasional patch and cleans as quickly as a round groove gun.
 2f is a good idea also.RH ,I'll try a different short starter.
 
Herb, your Hawkens are lovely especially the iron mounted one.I know there are lots of long rifle aficionados here, but that is a very fetching half stock,and well proportioned.
I apologize for interruping  your thread but you and I were having similar issues, last Saturday too it looks like .I was trying to get it dialed in before the Hatchet Jack shoot this coming Sunday .

[Herb]

When I bought my .40 iron-mounted Hawken back from Ron's widow, I tried it out with 40 grains of 3F powder.  It did not group to suit me so I pulled the solid patent Hawken Squirrel breech (which I had installed when I built it a few years back) to check the bore.  It is as new.  I also checked the crown and radiused it a bit more.  There is nothing wrong with the bore or crown or cleaning.  I like trying different powders and charges and patches and ball sizes to see what shoots well.  Of course this means that some combinations do not group well and some patches blow.  I have no desire to find one load that will shoot nickel sized groups at 50 yards and then quit, because I have little to use my rifles for except experimental shooting.  It takes one hit to kill a deer or antelope, and if I don't find an elk, no shot there.  Our social shooting matches (another coming up Valentines Day) take 15 to 20 shots, and they better be through a flintlock or some people get ruffled.

I have pounded enough thick patches down my .40, .45, .50, .54 and .58 bores that I want something that loads easier.  I have used .380, .390, .395 and .400 balls in the 8 or 10 .40s I built.   I thought there was not much difference in accuracy or velocity between a .395 and a .400, but I have a .390 mold so that size  is what I am shooting in these tests.

[Herb]

Here is a .40 Vincent I built for my dentist.

[rich pierce]

Herb, what is the distance on these targets?

[Herb]

50 yards from rest.

[Herb]

Here are some more powder tests with .40s I built.  The Bedford is a copy of Thomas Oldham rifles (features from three of them).

The Wigle rifle is a copy of a Jacob Wigle rifle made in Westmoreland Co., PA and found in a dry cave Indian burial near Vernal, Utah in the 1920s.  I cleaned it up for a museum displan and made three near exact copies of it.  This is my third with a 44" barrel.

[awol]

Herb,
What are the rates of twist in your Hawken barrels? Thanks.

[Herb]

The first Hawken, the Bedford, the Wigle and the Vincent all have Green Mountain 1 in 48 twist barrels.  The iron mounted Hawken has a 1 in 48 square bottomed rifled Rice barrel.

[Herb]

Here is another .40 I built.  For my friend Carole, custom sized to her and decorated with her eagle totem.  Sterling silver and copper and brass.  Rice 36" barrel, 11 3/4" LOP with 1/2" cast-off.  She needed a light rifle with a short trigger reach.  She killed a good mule deer buck with a double ball load up on Diamond Mountain, where she and Carl went with me on my hunt last fall.

There are four silver hearts on the wrist for her family.  A Monarch butterfly in the cheekpiece.  Tang-bolt  mounted penny peep sight.

Tests with her rifle and husband Carl's Lancaster from a pawn shop.  I did not make this one.  You can enlarge this photo by holding down CONTROL and hitting the + key.  Notice that Carole's rifle got the same velocity with 35 grains of Swiss 2F as Carl's 6 inch longer barrel did with 35 grains of Goex 3F.  Also notice that 35 grains of Swiss 2F shot a tighter group than 35 grains of Swiss 3F.

The Swiss 2F target.

[hanshi]

Herb, these are interesting data and I've studied them carefully.  FWIW, my .40 x 38" fired with 35 grains of JBP (3F), mfg by Goex, gave near 1500 fps.  But going up to 40 grains, a 5 grain increase, gave over 1700 fps.  It still amazes me how velocity vs charge is often anything but a uniform slanted line.

[Herb]

Who would think that patch thickness could make so much difference in accuracy and velocity.  And sometimes you get quite different velocities from the same rifle and loads on different days.

[smylee grouch]

Herb, did Carole use the same load when deer hunting with the double ball? How did it perform terminaly on the deer?

[WadePatton]

Herb, did Carole use the same load when deer hunting with the double ball? How did it perform terminaly on the deer?

'twas FATAL!   




sorry I couldn't resist.  Yes I too am curious about the double-ball load, thanks.

[Herb]

Carole has a .50 TC or some such, but it has a long trigger reach and is too heavy and too hard to load.  She wanted a rifle fit to her, so I made this .40.  A game warden friend suggesting using double ball loads to get up to legal ball weight for deer hunting.  I experimented extensively and found that I needed to double the charge of Goex 3F  from 35 grains to 70 to keep the same velocity, nearly 1700 feet per second.  She had a flank shot at this buck from about 80 yards.  One ball hit a hip bone, if I remember, but the other just missed the bone and penetrated to the heart-lung area.  The buck walked a few steps, laid down and died.  There are risks in shooting double balls, that they might separate and the front one would then be a bore obstruction.  But they can shoot very accurately, both balls patched and seated together.  They lose about 450 fps when doubled.  Her husband Carl had me build her a custom .50 Lancaster style flintlock for their 50th wedding anniversary.

[Herb]

I can't find my photos of Carole's rifle and double ball targets, but here is the Wigle.  I shot several dozen double-ball loads in testing and the middle bottom one is the only time I ever had two balls go wild.  I used .380 balls for Carole to load more easily.  Top left, 70 grains of Goex 3F and pillow ticking gave 2201 fps, 36 spread.  Below bottom left same but double patched balls, 1765 fps (436 fps slower), 9 fps spread.  Middle top, 70 grains of Swiss 3F, 2361 fps, 40 spread.  Bottom middle, ditto but double patched balls, 1863 fps, 15 spread.  One pair went wild, only time in dozens of targets shot.  But two went through the same hole.  Top right, 70 grains of Swiss 2F, 2271 fps, 41 spread.  Bottom right, ditto but double patched balls, 1784 fps, 14 spread.  I was using an adjustable powder measure here, not weight-calibrated measures.  I now know the Swiss loads were heavier than the planned 70 grains, but I don't have my notes handy to tell how much heavier.

[Herb]

I just checked my weight-calibrated 70 grain Goex 3F measure (a 7mm  Rem Mag case cut off at the shoulder) and it holds 70 grains.   I did not check to see what the adjustable powder measure holds in weight of Goex 3F when set at the 70 grain mark, but it will be off a few grains.  The 70 grain Goex 3F measure holds 75 grains of Swiss 2F by weight.  That is why the Swiss is so much faster- there is 5 grains more of it!  I am out of Swiss 3F.