rsrocket11
Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2013
- Messages
- 14
- Reaction score
- 0
Hello Frontier Muzzleloading.
Roy here from Sacramento. I've been shooting since I was about 12 years old and shot in to the 1980's. Marraige, work, kids took me away from shooting for 25+ years, but I started again about 5-6 years ago with a vengeance. I've been casting and loading handgun/rifle/shotgun and learning everything I could about shooting (the Internet is great, thanks Al :scratch: ).
I have a CVA Kentucky Rifle Muzzleloader kit that's been sitting around unbuilt for over 30+ years and was thinking about building it to shoot, but I didn't know if I wanted to spend the time only to find out I didn't like muzzleloading.
I found a used CVA Optima Pro locally and bought last Friday it to see if this would be a fun thing to do. I also did some research and saw that Blackhorn 209 was a good alternative to BP, Pyrodex, T7 and Black MZ.
The gun:
I got a 10 ounce bottle of BH209 on Saturday and tried it out today using Winchester 209 primers. I have several k each of Fed 209A, Win 209 and CCI 209M for shotshell loading so if one didn't work, I could try another. A headspace check showed that the Win primers were still leaving a gap between the seated primer face and the firing pin face. Oh well, try it first before trying to fix something that already works. No mods were done to the breech plug and no shims were added to the firing pin housing.
For projectiles, I used my Lee TL452-230-TC bullets from my 1911 which drop at ~240g and are 0.453"+. I use the T/C yellow sabots and the fit is pretty snug going down the muzzle. I started with 80g (by volume) of BH 209 which should get me close to 1700 fps.
Here's the setup. 25 yards just so I can get it on paper:
Here are the results. I aimed for the upper left target, but the 1st group was way low:
Yes, it's only 25 yards, but not bad for open sights and the front sight obscured the center dot.
No cleaning at all during the shooting, but by the last shot, the bullets were pretty hard to push down the barrel (I used a 3/8" delrin rod with a brass jag on the tip and a homemade 1" wooden handle on the end).
Post range time.
Here are the bullets without the jacket and with the jacket. The recovered sabots showed good rifle engraving. I found a couple about 15 yards from the muzzle.
Here are the spent primers. There was one misfire (#6) out of the 11 shots. A second primer shot it just fine, the rest of the shots went off perfectly. You can see the primer metal flow into the firing pin face.
Clean up was very easy with a light presoak of Breakfree CLP, Hoppes #9 and 4 patches followed by a couple of drying patches and one patch with light Rem Oil at the end. I was amazed at how quickly and easily BH 209 cleaned up. Hoppes was also used to clean off the light fowling on the breech plug. I'm sold on this powder!
If I do build the CVA cap lock kit, I'll need to use something other than BH209, but that's OK.
For plinking, the cast 45ACP bullets cost almost nothing and may even work out decently to 100 yards. This would be a great alternative to $1 bullets just to put holes in paper.
I normally shoot about 200 handgun rounds once or twice a week or 100 shotgun rounds in trap or skeet. Even rifle shooting eats up a lot of ammo when you are target shooting. Muzzleloading is very deliberate and methodical and a good change of pace.
I like it!
Roy here from Sacramento. I've been shooting since I was about 12 years old and shot in to the 1980's. Marraige, work, kids took me away from shooting for 25+ years, but I started again about 5-6 years ago with a vengeance. I've been casting and loading handgun/rifle/shotgun and learning everything I could about shooting (the Internet is great, thanks Al :scratch: ).
I have a CVA Kentucky Rifle Muzzleloader kit that's been sitting around unbuilt for over 30+ years and was thinking about building it to shoot, but I didn't know if I wanted to spend the time only to find out I didn't like muzzleloading.
I found a used CVA Optima Pro locally and bought last Friday it to see if this would be a fun thing to do. I also did some research and saw that Blackhorn 209 was a good alternative to BP, Pyrodex, T7 and Black MZ.
The gun:
I got a 10 ounce bottle of BH209 on Saturday and tried it out today using Winchester 209 primers. I have several k each of Fed 209A, Win 209 and CCI 209M for shotshell loading so if one didn't work, I could try another. A headspace check showed that the Win primers were still leaving a gap between the seated primer face and the firing pin face. Oh well, try it first before trying to fix something that already works. No mods were done to the breech plug and no shims were added to the firing pin housing.
For projectiles, I used my Lee TL452-230-TC bullets from my 1911 which drop at ~240g and are 0.453"+. I use the T/C yellow sabots and the fit is pretty snug going down the muzzle. I started with 80g (by volume) of BH 209 which should get me close to 1700 fps.
Here's the setup. 25 yards just so I can get it on paper:
Here are the results. I aimed for the upper left target, but the 1st group was way low:
Yes, it's only 25 yards, but not bad for open sights and the front sight obscured the center dot.
No cleaning at all during the shooting, but by the last shot, the bullets were pretty hard to push down the barrel (I used a 3/8" delrin rod with a brass jag on the tip and a homemade 1" wooden handle on the end).
Post range time.
Here are the bullets without the jacket and with the jacket. The recovered sabots showed good rifle engraving. I found a couple about 15 yards from the muzzle.
Here are the spent primers. There was one misfire (#6) out of the 11 shots. A second primer shot it just fine, the rest of the shots went off perfectly. You can see the primer metal flow into the firing pin face.
Clean up was very easy with a light presoak of Breakfree CLP, Hoppes #9 and 4 patches followed by a couple of drying patches and one patch with light Rem Oil at the end. I was amazed at how quickly and easily BH 209 cleaned up. Hoppes was also used to clean off the light fowling on the breech plug. I'm sold on this powder!
If I do build the CVA cap lock kit, I'll need to use something other than BH209, but that's OK.
For plinking, the cast 45ACP bullets cost almost nothing and may even work out decently to 100 yards. This would be a great alternative to $1 bullets just to put holes in paper.
I normally shoot about 200 handgun rounds once or twice a week or 100 shotgun rounds in trap or skeet. Even rifle shooting eats up a lot of ammo when you are target shooting. Muzzleloading is very deliberate and methodical and a good change of pace.
I like it!
