Not grouping

[Robby]

I had a pretty long session yesterday and tried many combinations. At the end I left cautiously optimistic. For now, I have to cast up some more ball and see if I can locate more patching material that seemed to work, only had enough for seven shots. I took five at the paper and the last two at clay pigeons on the berm, dusted them.



Like I said, cautiously optimistic, I'll have to be able to repeat this and gain some confidence in the gun before i would hunt with it. I've sighted over thirty of these guns and never had anything like this happen before. It sure would be nice to have a definitive answer, never had a barrel this finicky before. Heck, maybe it is as Dave suggests and the barrel if finally shooting in. I honestly don't know.
Dennis, I have tried variations of that idea and it had no impact on the scattering.
I'll let you know how it turns out after I get myself resupplied. Thanks!!!!
Robby

[recurve]

 

[Daryl]

Those patches are REALLY blacked up, Robby. They appear as if you cut them from a strip of cloth on the muzzle.
Good luck.

[Robby]

Daryl, The patches are dark due to my poor picture taking, and yes I do cut at the muzzle. Thanks for the help!
Recurve, you might want to try a long bow.
Robby

[BillF/TRF]

Robby I had that same type of scattering at the beginning of the summer.  I tried almost everything I could to get the proper load, ball size, patch thickness, patch lube; and although, as soon as  I "think" the grouping is getting better, I'll get one or two "flyers".  I think part of my earlier problem was barrel fouling--and it still does foul-"out of the blue".  So for me and my rifle (York County replica, .45 cal) the jury is still out.  I have probably shot 200-300 balls at paper targets this summer and burned about 3-4 pounds of black powder.  One question, are you shooting from a rest position?  Good luck,  Bill

[Robby]

Bill, off the bench, good and solid.
Robby

[martin9]

You may check and see if your rifle is self priming with the 3f. my 36 started self priming so I replaced the touch hole. I was happy with how it shot but the new touch hole made quite a difference. the rifle went from squirrel head accurate to squirrel eye accurate.

[Daryl]

The smaller the bore, the more difficult the " working up of an accurate load."
Ml'ding is not different that modern stuff, in that regard.
There is some commonality in "accurate" loads & we know of standard combinations that seem to work well in the majority of rifles, however now and then, more detailed "work" needs testing.
Appears you are on the right track, Sonny.

[bob in the woods]

After reading this entire thread, I'm going to mix things up with a real strange notion concerning ramrods. I had a .36 cal 42 in barrelled rifle which would throw the occasional shot off from a group and it drove me nuts trying to figure out why. I found out that the tapered ramrod was not concentric at the breach end and also would be a tighter fit in the entry pipe, depending on the orientation of the rod . This put enough pressure on the barrel , which wasn't bedded perfectly, to affect the point of impact by a small bit. Strange, but after rescraping the rod, the rifle shot true consistently. 

[Herb]

Robby, you never said what brand of 3F and 2F powder you are using.

[Bob Roller]

Robby, you never said what brand of 3F and 2F powder you are using.

Uniform loading methods are a must and did you weigh the balls after they were cast?
Make and granulation of the powder is important as well.Back in my days of a lot of
shooting we had DuPont and once in a while,Curtis&Harvey from England which seemed
to have more power and was cleaner.Now we have a wider variety of brands or at least
it seems that way.
Bob Roller

[Robby]

Herb, I use Goes powder and have been for fifty years with no problems.
Bob, No, I don't weigh the balls I cast and believe the way I cast them would leave them very consistent in weight. I try to do everything the same every time, especially when working up a load.
I have been using this powder measure for as long as I can remember to work up loads,  when I get there I make a static measure, engraved with that weight, it goes with the gun.


Not that his has anything to do with the problem at hand. I use the amounts indicated in the measure for reference purposes and never thought about their accuracy. Just out of curiosity, last night I decided to weigh a 65gr. of 3F load as indicated on the device. Using my RCBS reloading scale that 65gr. weighed in at 59.5 gr's. Huh! 10gr's is a lot, I thought it would have been more accurate than that. Gee, all those measures I made over the years are wrong, ah well, they work for the gun.
Robby

[wolf]

Robby, I don't have a lot of building experience building muzzleloaders. but I do have a whole lot of experience bedding centerfire rifles. and that first group is stringing sideways. my first thought, there is pressure on one side of the barrel. what I would look at it the bedding. just a poor ol country boys thought,,,,,,,,,,,,

[Robby]

Wolf, I'm not sure what you mean. I understand the term in reference to modern rifles.
Robby

[Pete G.]

Try a piece of business card under the bottom three flats at the breech.

[Dennis Glazener]

Robby, I don't have a lot of building experience building muzzleloaders. but I do have a whole lot of experience bedding centerfire rifles. and that first group is stringing sideways. my first thought, there is pressure on one side of the barrel. what I would look at it the bedding. just a poor ol country boys thought,,,,,,,,,,,,

Wolf I agree totally. Robby has checked things pretty well but I still think bedding somewhere is the culprit.
Dennis

[wolf]

Wolf, I'm not sure what you mean. I understand the term in reference to modern rifles.
Robby

Robby if there is more pressure on one side of the barrel along the channel "somewhere" it will cause it to walk the shots sideways. if it strings vertical then your pressure is wrong pushing up. the way we get around this problem of a centerfire rifle with half stock is free float the barrel so the wood isn't touching the barrel at all but it is screwed down tight in the action. of course you can't do that with a full stock muzzleloader. so it needs to come out of the stock and make sure it lays in the channel without any high spots putting pressure on the the barrel at one point or several areas. it most likely is pushing the barrel and putting uneven pressure to the left or right side especially when it is screwed down tight and the pins are in place. it needs to lay in the channel without excess pressure anywhere. i hope this helps,,,,,,,,,,,,

[little joe]

Depending on how dirty a rifle shoots,  you should wipe between shots, as a dirty bbl builds resistance, more resistance equals more pressure, more pressure equals a vertical group. With todays ultra lite bbl,s ,the bbl needs to be straight and the inlet needs to be straight. As  a bbl heats it will crawl around to suit itself if everything is not perfect Heavy bbl equals less problems, lite bbl,s can equal more.

[Robby]

Thank you Wolf. I have addressed that idea but your description makes me think it needs a re-visit.
Robby

[WadePatton]

Thank you Wolf. I have addressed that idea but your description makes me think it needs a re-visit.
Robby

Yes, was my thoughts too, but you said you'd re-examined the bedding a time or two.  Maybe the bbl could be shot outside the stock for testing. Would take some rigging but could be done and should show you something in a few shots.

Not sure how Hugh, Blacksmoke, shoots his new barrels for group, but he does. It should show you where the issue ultimately lies.

[Daryl]

I believe they are shot in a clamping arrangement with a high powered scope mounted above.
Most would call it a "machine" rest.  He posted a picture of it some time ago, here or on another site.

[flinchrocket]

I believe the term is universal receiver.

[Daryl]

 A Universal Receiver is a fixed & oversized breaching system that uses screw-in barrels of different calibres for pressure testing of modern ctgs.
It (or they used to be) is rigged for the copper crusher pressure system.
Hugh's system was for testing the accuracy of his "hand rifled" barrels not in stocks, but held rigidly on a bench.
Thus, it was a "Machine Rest".

[flinchrocket]

Rifle bullet manufacturers use UR to test for accuracy of their bullets.
It doesn't have to have a copper crushing attachment.

[Robby]

I have done it before. I made a simple carriage to hold the barrel, sweat a plate to the barrel and mount a scope to the plate. I was regulating barrels on a double barreled rifle but the principle would be the same. I'm not quite there yet.
Robin