Leonard Day Club Butt Fowler at the range - updated

[Tommykid]

I took the Leonard Day .62 Fowler to the range for the first time to see what load she likes best. It was me and a range full of ARs…not too out of place..haha. I set up at 25 yards and shot four shot groups, seven times with various load combos. The most fun was when you find the best combination and the groups tighten up. I played around with English and French flints and found this gun shoots better with the English flints. My next trip will be to try .60 and .601 bare balls with various powder/grain combinations, but I’m not sure I can do better. I really enjoy the process and look forward to more experimenting.
Tom

[Daryl]

Good work Tom, especially with only changing one thing(mostly), the patch. The smaller .580 ball might have done better with a thicker patch in the .030" range such as 12 ounce denim.

[Bob Gerard]

Nice methodical work.
My .62 fancies the .595 with .018 patch as well. It sings with 3f.

[Tommykid]

Nice methodical work.
My .62 fancies the .595 with .018 patch as well. It sings with 3f.

I had 3F with me, but I ran out of steam. I’ll try that the next time I go.
Tom

[Flint62Smoothie]

FYI, that is the Enoch Bolton ‘paddle butt’ fowler by Leonard Day.

[Daryl]

Nice methodical work.
My .62 fancies the .595 with .018 patch as well. It sings with 3f.

I had 3F with me, but I ran out of steam. I’ll try that the next time I go.
Tom

One of the locals here uses .595 RB with .020 patch and 85gr. 3F GOEX in his Penn. fowler. He is hard to beat on the trail, even when using a rifle against him. Mostly gong targets from 15 yards out to 110 yards. String  cut, cards on edge eggs, golf balls  4-way wrench st 35 yards,  etc.

[Tommykid]

Nice methodical work.
My .62 fancies the .595 with .018 patch as well. It sings with 3f.

I had 3F with me, but I ran out of steam. I’ll try that the next time I go.
Tom

One of the locals here uses .595 RB with .020 patch and 85gr. 3F GOEX in his Penn. fowler. He is hard to beat on the trail, even when using a rifle against him. Mostly gong targets from 15 yards out to 110 yards. String  cut, cards on edge eggs, golf balls  4-way wrench st 35 yards,  etc.

Thank you. I’ll definitely add that to the next range session.
Tom

[Tommykid]

Part 2 of the quest to figure out the LD Fowler. This time I tried 80 grains of Goex 3F with .595 balls and .018 and .020 patches. I also tried .610 bare balls with felt wads over 80 grains of 3F. I gave 70 grains of 3F a try with the .595/.020 combo. The results were similar to 2F, but if I removed the one outlier, the results were better. Bottom line is I think I need to head back to the range and try the combos that seemed promising, once more. I shot a string at 50 yards and the grouping was pretty bad…about 12 inches. How do people shoot fowlers so well at distance! Haha.
My local range was very busy and I didn’t get done everything I wanted. Plus, having modern rifles banging away in close proximity doesn’t make for a relaxing range trip. I’ll regroup and try again.
Tom

[Daryl]

Good try.  It is difficult to concentrate on testing  with the distraction of others shooting near by.