I took my .62 Chamber's Colonial Virginia Rifle out today to work on load development. I took it out once before with a buddy to make sure if it exploded I at least had someone else around. Good news, it didn't explode. So I tried some serious shooting today.
I went to a public range, my membership application to a range suggested by a member here has not yet been approved, although it has only been a week so no complaints about that. I had the usual AR shooters blazing away but I will say my rifle got a lot of people to come over and ask questions about it so the interest is there in the shooting public. No takers on my offers to shoot it though. 25 yard range was full of people shooting at shorter ranges so I was forced to go to the 100 yard range to work up a load.
I was shooting .61 balls from TOTW, they appear to measure that same size with my Harbor Freight calipers. I was using .018 pillow ticking patches from TOTW as well, which also measured .18 when pushing down hard on the calipers. I experimented with a number of charges and load and unfortunately stumbled across a potential load at the end of the day after about 4 hours. I tried straight Ballistol and Hoppes 9+ at first and then switched to a moose milk combo. I was using 1:4 Ballistol to WWF with wet patches and 110 or 100 grains of powder (2F Schuetzen). I started at 125 grains and down to 100 grains in 5 grain increments before I seemed to find something that might work. I ended up with a 7" group at 100 yards with 100 and 110 grains, a slight windage difference but elevation was about the same. That difference may be due to wind.
Unfortunately at this point I had already shot about 30 rounds and the wind had picked up (15 mph, although I tried to fire between gusts). I can normally shoot a reliable 2" group with a 1903A3 at 100 yards off a sandbag if I do my part (I mention this because my flintlock also has a peep sight so I used that center fire reference as a bench mark). At this range I did not have target distinction issues.
My questions are as follows:
1) I noticed that during wind gusts I frequently had a hang fire/failure to fire. I'm in ND so winds are a common occurrence, but it seemed as if the priming would ignite but not hit the main charge? Vent appeared clear, sometimes I could even see a grain of the main charge poking out of the vent after a FTF. If I was facing North, I had a gust out of the North West blowing across the rifle, which seems to be the optimal direction for the priming to blow away. Is this a problem others have experienced? I was using 4F Goex as prime which during still moments gave great ignition.
2) 7" groups at 100 yards aren't going to cut it for hunting. I was shooting off a sandbag but resting the gun on my hand rather than the bag as suggested here. What groups are others shooting at this distance so I can know what goal I should set?
3) Following numerous posts by members here, I was able to shoot without having to wipe between shots, with no appreciable difference in difficulty loading. I would not describe loading as difficult, but I would also not describe it as particularly easy either. I was able to recover 25 patches from shooting, none appeared to have any burn through. Does that mean that a sufficient seal has been made between ball, patch and rifling?
4) Final question. Does any one have any load suggestions? I'm not sure if I am shooting low power, middle of the road or what charges? I have searched here and found a good bit of smoothbore loads, but not much on rifles.
Below is a picture of the final target for the day with the patches. This is not a target I would hang on the fridge... Ruler is 6".
Thank you for any advice you can provide.
JT
