I have a .50 caliber Bedford style rifle I recently finished and am getting it ready for deer season. I coned the barrel, and can thumb a patched ball in, but it still goes down hard. The rifle is very accurate with a tight load, but I want to be able to quickly and easily reload.
Today I tried an easy loading combo for accuracy. 70 grains 2f, behind a dry felt wad, .020 pillow ticking square patch with bear oil lube, with a .480 ball. I can easily ram down that combo with the 5/16” hickory ramrod. There seems to be no loss of accuracy at 50 yards and the point of impact is the same as the tight load.
