Ultralight Mountaineer First Look

This is a sweet feeling, sweet handling, sweet rifle. It comes to the shoulder quite nicely. The rifle sent me weighs 6.3 pound, not the advertised 6 pound, but i expected such, and was not disappointed. Trigger was 3½ pound, but was readily adjusted to the 1½ pound it is now. Couldn't do a three foot drop, but did do a two foot drop to concrete, and the trigger didn't fail; it is real real nice.

First time out i found the Harvester short black sabot to be too tight, so switched to crush rib sabot. Crush rib sabot worked, but whilst loading, the bore felt very rough, and uneven. Did 50 passes using J-B, and that smoothed the bore nicely; also allowed using the Harvester short black sabot.

Started shooting with the included open sights, and they worked good even for old eyes. However, the Quick Release Knight Rifle Detent Screw came apart whilst shooting. Somehow, luckily, none of the part were lost, because i was unable to purchase a replacement. Happily i was able to put it back together. ☺ Mounted a scope, and it worked good, but i couldn't enjoy cleaning the plug threads with the scope in the way, so it was replaced with a Williams FP receiver sight, which will be on the rifle when we go hunting.

The rifle came with excess head space, and that made me sad. Primers had to be measured, and the longest W209 chosen, so to have them be easily removed with little blow by. It was tricky installing a 0.005" shim in the plug, because the shims, tools, and breech plug were all magnetic. The shim didn't want to stay in place; it seemed to have a mind of it's own, and jumped all over. With the shim now installed, the spent primers fall right out of the bolt; there is zero blow by, the bolt stays clean. The primers can be taken from the box randomly, without measuring.

The brazed vent in this breech plug seems to be a way more durable than the brazed vent in the previous Mountaineer breech plug. Flash hole is now 0.032" after 75 shots.

☺

They sure are a sweet rifle. The more I shoot mine the more I like it. I got mine used and it is a 2 digit SN# so it seems this one had none of the later issues. I did upgrade mine with a Bestill BP though. I am betting since you have the tooling you would change it to one with a Vent Liner later on. I always wanted a Disc Elite when they made them but never could get one to fit me. They had a long LOP and with the Cheek piece it was not really an easy cut down to fit me. The Stock on the UL solved all that for me. Now if they would make one i a fast twist 45.....

Was a bit surprised at this post as I did not think of you as a Knight guy. :wink:

ShawnT said:

.....Was a bit surprised at this post as I did not think of you as a Knight guy. :wink:

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Nor should you.........

Your going to love hunting with the ultralight. I look forward to hearing about your load development. The trigger in my ultralight is just a huge improvement over the X7 and g2.

I think the rough feel of the bore you were feeling was the dynatek bore coating. The coating should have smoothed out over 20 or 30 shots. I think the bore paste may have removed the coating.

Cattledog said:

Your going to love hunting with the ultralight. I look forward to hearing about your load development. The trigger in my ultralight is just a huge improvement over the X7 and g2.

I think the rough feel of the bore you were feeling was the dynatek bore coating. The coating should have smoothed out over 20 or 30 shots. I think the bore paste may have removed the coating.

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CD - I believe you are correct, Knight applies the Ceramic Bore Coat to the bore of the barrel prior to shipping. The coating goes in and it does not dry smoothly all the time. And even when the liquid is dry it is not cured. Knight and Dyna Tek instructs us to shoot the barrel to create heat to cure the Ceramics and smooth out the bore.

I would suggest to anyone else that purchases a new Knight or anyone that treats their own barrel make sure you follow the directions for curing the Ceramic coating.

Cattledog said:

Your going to love hunting with the ultralight. I look forward to hearing about your load development. The trigger in my ultralight is just a huge improvement over the X7 and g2.

I think the rough feel of the bore you were feeling was the dynatek bore coating. The coating should have smoothed out over 20 or 30 shots. I think the bore paste may have removed the coating.

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Hunting load will probably be 65 weighed grain Blackhorn, 265 grain Lehigh Controlled Fracture, Harvester short black sabot, W209 primer. Trigger is wonderful.

Yes, i agree; i assumed the roughness in the bore was the dynatek, and i didn't want it there much longer. Twenty five or so times loading with the rough bore was plenty for me. If the J-B removed the dynatek; dynatek isn't much good; if it just took the roughness away, that is very good.

I agree on the dynatek, it might be snake oil. I have not seen any improvement on the cleaning of the bore. I have been very happy with the lack of corrosion. I am not sure if that could be the outer coating of dynatek or not.

I still hunt salt water coastal rivers by kayak and the knight showed no corrosion after several trips, unlike my blued omega X7.

What is you thoughts on cleaning? I use a Remington muzzleloader cleaning tube. It's just a threaded plastic tube that goes in place of my breech plug. It make cleaning the rifle much faster and neater. I avoid getting any cleaning fluids and dirt into the trigger assembly. Have you found any tricks to cleaning the rifle well?

Your load sound pretty similar to the one I am shooting. My velocity was much lower than I had estimated. Are you going to chronograph the load for a dope chart?

My blue Omega(s) rust even here.

My cleaning procedure is very simple. A couple dry patches first, then a patch with solvent, then a dry patch, then a solvent patch, then a couple dry patches. The second solvent patch i put around a brush, and shove it into the plug threads, and turn it in, then turn it out until it is free of the threads. Cleaning the threads is easy on the Omega. The Knight is much more difficult with a scope in place, but is fine with the receiver sight.

The hunting load was clocked through the Omega Dream Season at about 1700 fps, it should be near that from the ultralight mountaineer. Because of the iron sights there won't be much in the way of long range shots taken, but i have memorized the drop at 125 yard, and 150 yard at 2½ inches, and 6 inches.

The Ultralight Mountaineer made some dead meat. Carried the rifle every day for 27 days; walked many miles, and saw many many white tails waving good bye. The 27th day somehow found me close to a few deer that were calmly eating as they moved through the timber. The hard part was ensuring i didn't shoot a fawn or a spike; of course having good aim when the trigger was pulled, was the harder part. Some days were warm, some days were bitter bitter cold, some days were pleasant, and some days were windy, very windy. The rifle stayed loaded through the snow, wind, and cold. The load of 65 weighed grain Blackhorn went off without hesitation, and the 265g Lehigh evidently worked. The sabot was a short Harvester, and the primer was a W209, which fell cleanly out of the bolt after reloading, when the bolt was opened, and the rifle tipped sideways. There is zero soot on the primer, and the bolt was easily opened.

The rifle was a joy to carry, only twice did i have a need to switch shoulders because of back pain. Seems the average hike was between two, and three mile, but a few days were more. A couple days were short hikes. The front sight nearly looked sharply sharp to old eyes, and worked well with the Williams FP receiver sight. It is conceivable this Knight will be the only rifle, which comes with me, on my dwindling remaining hunts; who knows. One thing is sure, it is a great handling, well built rifle.

☺

ronlaughlin said:

The Ultralight Mountaineer made some dead meat. Carried the rifle every day for 27 days; walked many miles, and saw many many white tails waving good bye. The 27th day somehow found me close to a few deer that were calmly eating as they moved through the timber. The hard part was ensuring i didn't shoot a fawn or a spike; of course having good aim when the trigger was pulled, was the harder part. Some days were warm, some days were bitter bitter cold, some days were pleasant, and some days were windy, very windy. The rifle stayed loaded through the snow, wind, and cold. The load of 65 weighed grain Blackhorn went off without hesitation, and the 265g Lehigh evidently worked. The sabot was a short Harvester, and the primer was a W209, which fell cleanly out of the bolt after reloading, when the bolt was opened, and the rifle tipped sideways. There is zero soot on the primer, and the bolt was easily opened.

The rifle was a joy to carry, only twice did i have a need to switch shoulders because of back pain. Seems the average hike was between two, and three mile, but a few days were more. A couple days were short hikes. The front sight nearly looked sharply sharp to old eyes, and worked well with the Williams FP receiver sight. It is conceivable this Knight will be the only rifle, which comes with me, on my dwindling remaining hunts; who knows. One thing is sure, it is a great handling, well built rifle.

☺

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Great to here is worked well for you Ron. I do love mine too. I was loaded this year with the same bullet but more powder. How far was the shot you took?

After reloading, used the laser to measure 74.7 yard to the deer laying there.

Congratulations on taking the deer! Glad to hear that you like the rifle.

Good job Ron! You deserved it with that kind of effort! :yeah: Congrats!

Them lehigh/bloodline bullets are awesome. I was able to (finally) see first hand how they work this year on two deer. Impressive.

Glad you are liking the rifle... I'm kicking myself for not getting one a while back when I had a chance at a good price. But I have quite a few good rifles, so I am not complaining. Maybe someday one will be in the cards for me. Happy New Year Ron... eat some venison

... eat some venison

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You can count on us eating venison. Happy New Year!!

:mrgreen:

Re: RE: Re: Ultralight Mountaineer First Look

ronlaughlin said:

ShawnT said:

.....Was a bit surprised at this post as I did not think of you as a Knight guy. :wink:

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Nor should you.........

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I got a chuckle out of Rons reply.

Sent from my ME301T using Tapatalk

ronlaughlin said:

... eat some venison

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You can count on us eating venison. Happy New Year!!
:mrgreen:

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Congrats, enjoy both deer and UL - Happy New Year as well.

Happy new year, Rick.

☺

Last Look











Have probably shot the rifle over 200 times; it was time for a new flash hole. Removed the brazed vent liner, and replaced it with a Holo-Krome screw with a 0.028" flash hole drilled through it.

















Been shooting rifles almost every day this year. Some days were windy; some were bitter cold; on some it snowed. This morning was beautiful. There was zero breeze. Because it was only 13°, five shots were made from inside the truck, with one elbow on the window sill, and the other in the steering wheel. Range was 98 yard. Load was 250 grain XTP, 90 grain Blackhorn powder, short Harvester sabot, W209 primer.

nice shooting

Good shooting Ron. Wish I could shoot iron or peep sights that good.

Are those holo-krome screws hard to drill?