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chickenmcnasty said:
52Bore said:
First 3 places at the 500 yard any gun match at the NMLRA Championships shot 45 cal Knight's 1:20 with Black Powder and 500+ gr bullets.
Good scope is critical for elevation and windage changes - repeatability. The load has to work in the gun!
But aren't these highly customized with a lot of money invested? I'm just a guy with a stay at home wife and 3 kids. I just want to pop a deer at 200 and maybe over. I just don't have the money to invest in state of the art equipment at the moment.
To say these rifles are 'customized' is an understatement. The bullet are also 'customized'. Wouldn't you guess those winners have thousands and thousands of dollars invested?

It could be one of these might work for you, or not. That 50 caliber rifle you mentioned previously would be just fine for 200 yard and some longer shots. After you purchase a rifle and a scope, you yourself will have plenty of dollar invested, and it won't stop there. Hopefully your stay at home wife can keep the 3 children family going by utilizing garage sales, coupons, sales, luck, and sacrifice on your part. Just kidding.. enjoy!
 
ronlaughlin said:
chickenmcnasty said:
52Bore said:
First 3 places at the 500 yard any gun match at the NMLRA Championships shot 45 cal Knight's 1:20 with Black Powder and 500+ gr bullets.
Good scope is critical for elevation and windage changes - repeatability. The load has to work in the gun!
But aren't these highly customized with a lot of money invested? I'm just a guy with a stay at home wife and 3 kids. I just want to pop a deer at 200 and maybe over. I just don't have the money to invest in state of the art equipment at the moment.
To say these rifles are 'customized' is an understatement. The bullet are also 'customized'. Wouldn't you guess those winners have thousands and thousands of dollars invested?

It could be one of these might work for you, or not. That 50 caliber rifle you mentioned previously would be just fine for 200 yard and some longer shots. After you purchase a rifle and a scope, you yourself will have plenty of dollar invested, and it won't stop there. Hopefully your stay at home wife can keep the 3 children family going by utilizing garage sales, coupons, sales, luck, and sacrifice on your part. Just kidding.. enjoy!
Ha! Thank you for the kind words. My wife is pretty thrifty and that allows me to spend more money on my own obsessions!
I'm sure the day will come when I can really spend the money on an awesome range toy, but until then I just try to get the best bang for my buck. I have done well in my traditional muzzleloading habits, but I'm a little lost in figuring out the best value vs cheap garbage in terms of inlines.
 
chickenmcnasty said:
This is great info to have. I'm grateful that you guys have the numbers to back it up.
With all this being said, which of these production guns is best suited?
Is the bergara barrel all it's cracked up to be? Or is it better to get the 30" barrel this getting the higher velocity? Is the t/c omega even in the same ballpark as the accura and vortek ldr?

By the Omega. A better gun in my opinion.

Practice enough to know your gun well. You will have what you've described as your desire.
 
If I understand your wants correctly, If it were me I would stick with what I would say are the big 3, Knight, TC, and CVA. Any of these will last a lifetime if properly cared for. I personally don't care for the Traditions actions, they just don't look like they would hold up to heavy loads over the long term to me. Light loads would be ok but you are not going to be shooting light loads for 200 yard shots.

A Lot of what we can recommend is more than capable of the 200 - 250 yard shots. But there is also a lot of Personal likes too. Before just "Ordering one" online. I would recommend that you go to one of the Bigger shops that have a good selection and actually shoulder one of each if at all possible. The Fit of the rifle to You is a big factor in shooting accurately past 50 yards. As an example, For me Long LOP and Cheek Pieces can cause me to not shoot a rifle well because it is just not comfortable to me. The rifle should Feel good to You when you put it to the shoulder and look down the barrel. If it don't really feel good, look at something else. Standard Verses Thumbhole stocks, Break open verses Bolt action, on and on, see where this can lead. Once you decide on a couple, then you can search for one online or a shop that fits your budget and be ordering with more confidence that what you are getting will feel good to You.

Knight does not currently have a 1 in 20 twist yet for the 45 but it is rumored to be coming soon. The 20 twists were discontinued due to sabot failures of the time but current polymer formulas have came a long way to make them more attractive again.

I would then get a Leupold VX2 with CDS or the SABR model, or a Nikon Monarch with BDC, Prostaff might be good too if $$ are tight. I prefer the Leupold CDS (Less busy to me since it is a duplex reticule) over the Nikon (BDC) and I never cared for the circles in the BDC but others love them.

I would get Loose Powder in either BH209, 777 or Pyrodex (what ever fits your budget and is available to you) so you can easily work up an accurate load. The more accurate you can make your load at say 100 yards the more accurate and confident you will be for the 200 yard shots. These "Modern" inlines can really be very accurate, so I would not just settle on a load that was "Minute of Deer". The Rifles are more capable than that, then it is up to your ability to make the longer shots.
 
Negative on Highly Customized and thousands of dollars. Well, maybe the Ultimates according to their website. I've only read where 1 of the top 5 rifles in the Championship had a replacement barrel - all others factory.
Scopes are critical for adjustment and I've found the Leupold AR scope to do just fine on Knight 1:20's with heavy lead cast bullets (under $300). Nothing special about bullets, Lyman molds available or get pre-casted bullets from Buffalo Arms Co. Cast your own and do it for about $0.08 each. Can't figure out why people always want to buy $1 bullets?
Facebook - InLine Muzzle Loader Nation has all the scores and some rifle photos.
 
thank you all for the help on this. I ended up with the T/C Omega. The package was $249 and I'm happy with it. I took it out with some BH209 and got clover leaf groups at 50 yards and 1.5'' at 125. I still need to work on some load development. I was playing with the hornady xtp 232 and 250 grain and approximately 100 grains of powder since I lacked my good powder measure at home. I tried the harvester sabots in the crush rib and ezload.
The Bh209 is really amazing stuff. It is totally different than the "holy black" but I like the convenience and the power. I can't wait to get back out and really get a load worked up.
 
52Bore said:
Negative on Highly Customized and thousands of dollars. Well, maybe the Ultimates according to their website. I've only read where 1 of the top 5 rifles in the Championship had a replacement barrel - all others factory.
Scopes are critical for adjustment and I've found the Leupold AR scope to do just fine on Knight 1:20's with heavy lead cast bullets (under $300). Nothing special about bullets, Lyman molds available or get pre-casted bullets from Buffalo Arms Co. Cast your own and do it for about $0.08 each. Can't figure out why people always want to buy $1 bullets?
Facebook - InLine Muzzle Loader Nation has all the scores and some rifle photos.

Actually Bestill shot in the last match and his rifle (A Knight) had an aftermarket barrel and a custom LRMP system. It was a Douglas barrel IIRC. Im not sure what his brother's rifle had but he placed even higher. Bestill shoots a Parker .451 bullet with BH209 at 2300fps+ in his custom Knight 45s without a sabot. He did extremely well in the match before this one with another total custom Mountaineer.

I would imagine why some of us buy expensive bullets is BC and the ability to shoot them far faster than soft lead conicals can handle. Ive have two custom non smoking rifles that are basically hold dead on to roughly 200yards. No scope elevation adjustment, no compensating....just acquire a safe target, aim and fire. Some of these expensive bullets are exceeding .300 BC with ease and can handle speeds well over 2500fps.

MatchHunter_large.jpg
 
chickenmcnasty said:
thank you all for the help on this. I ended up with the T/C Omega. The package was $249 and I'm happy with it. I took it out with some BH209 and got clover leaf groups at 50 yards and 1.5'' at 125. I still need to work on some load development. I was playing with the hornady xtp 232 and 250 grain and approximately 100 grains of powder since I lacked my good powder measure at home. I tried the harvester sabots in the crush rib and ezload.
The Bh209 is really amazing stuff. It is totally different than the "holy black" but I like the convenience and the power. I can't wait to get back out and really get a load worked up.

You will likely be very happy with an Omega. They are an excellent rifle for using BH209. Its plug is one of the most reliable igniting it without any modification. The Harvester Crushribs will more than likely be the best choice if its bore is as tight as many of the T/Cs. The MMP HPH-24 sabot may also work just fine with a 300gr bullet. Its loaded OD is close to the Harvester CR but its a longer sabot.

BH209 is great but it still needs cleaning when you are done for the day. It wont rust the bore nearly as fast as other subs but its better to be safe than sorry.
 
You will like that Omega! Even though I have a custom smokeless and a couple other smokers my Omega is still my favorite hunting rifle. There is just something about carrying it in the woods my confidence goes up 10 fold.
 
So far I'm very impressed. I got it shooting great groups at 50, and hitting steel at 200. When we started shooting paper at 125 things got goofy. I remembered at that point that I had not cleaned it. I did a quick swab and was shooting 2" groups.
It seemed to me that 230 grain xtp's were a little light. I want to mess with the 250 grain more and see. I have the crush rib and ez load harvesters and plan on doing some load development when I have more time.
 
The 230gr XTPs are 45ACP bullets. They are fairly fragile at ML speeds. They are also likely .451 bullets vs .452. Lots of MLs shoot better with .452-458 bullets. Less sabot between barrel and bullet is usually a plus. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule. One of mine loves .450-.451 Parkers and .458 (anything) dont shoot nearly as well.

The Hornady SSTs with the red 3 petal sabots will load even easier than the Harvester Crushribs. You can also buy that sabot directly from MMP. They are called 3Petal-EZ sabots and they are black instead of red. Then use any .452 bullet you wish to try.
 
Thanks for the heads up. I guess I didn't look close enough when I bought them. They are indeed .451's. I guess I'll have a few oops moments!
 

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