steeltoejoe
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After 5 trips to the hunting store and about 15 hours of range time, I have my new Buckstalker ready for gun season.
I'm going to post the information that I felt would have saved me 14 hours of work but I couldn't find online. Much of this advice is very basic, but I learned the hard way.
Put blue loctite on your threads when you install mounts and your scope. <- would have saved 3.5 hours right there. Just do it.
Best load: Hornady XTP 250 gr, 60 grains BY WEIGHT 777 FFFG (triple f), TC black colored sabots (not sure what the name is, came in a 50 pack), winchester 209 primer.
"Best" means out of the the 3 rounds I tried. XTP's are really cheap and can be found anywhere. There are obviously better bullets out there but gun season starts Monday so I worked with what I had.
I have been hand loading for 3 years with pistols and prefer to use a powder scale vs a volumetric charge measuring device. With 777 FFFG a rough approximation is 1 cubic centimeter to 10 grains by weight.
Shot group is about 4 inches at 200 yards but the bullet drops 18.7 inches on average (my scope has markings on it where I can repeat this shot). Sighted in 3 inches high at 85 yards. This was done over the course of 9 hours (including a trip to the store to grab maxi hunter 275gr conicals that proved a poor match for this specific gun).
The crud ring took a lot of my time to figure out. Use water (like the powder jug says to). Solvents don't work on the crud ring. <- that would have saved several hours too
My loading method: Completely clean the barrel with a moist cotton brush, run two dry patches, spray a small amount of hopppes dry lube in the rear of the barrel, one more patch (patches done with ramrod), fire one winchester primer, wait 10 seconds, remove breech plug and blow smoke out with a light dry puff of air, load with 60 grains weight of powder using one consistent stroke all the way down. Crud was wiped from breech plug before firing the primer.
The biggest factor was the cleaning method. A completely clean barrel doesn't group as good as one with 1 primer worth of fouling. The primer is about as loud as a 22lr out of a long barrel. After just 1 shot, loading the bullet becomes difficult with my setup.
Shooting was done from a bench rest with no crosswind, about 12 freakin degrees outside with 6 inches of snow. Yea I spent about 9 hours outside today and my fingers almost fell off but I was able to hit a lisence plate nailed to a fencepost 200 yards away at the end of the day (one inch from the letter I picked out). I joined this forum to make this post. Hopefully it helps.
The buckstalker was 150 dollars new and has a really solid feel, is easy to clean, and has a great trigger.
I wouldn't shoot a deer at 200 yards for fear of not having enough velocity to make a humane kill. I plan on doing some ballistic gel testing at that range first. I sighted it in at 200 yards so I can shoot coyotes.
Extra information: I shot with 70 grains of powder and noticed no difference in windage or elevation at 200 yards from 60 grains (which I take as no velocity gain compared to 60 grains). 60 grouped the best. I tried 50 60 and 70. When swabbing the barrel, some scrubbing is needed at the crud ring, then you need to run the brush all the way down the barrel. Otherwise there will be inconsistent traction with the rifling while seating the bullet. Mark your ramrod when you seat the bullet with a clean barrel so you can verify proper seating distance. Also, cancel all your other plans with people (your girlfriend) if you are going out to sight in a muzzleloader. It takes longer than you would expect (I was shooting by the headlights of my truck until 10:00 PM and I started at 2:30).
At 60 grains weight of powder, ballistic test data was identical to what I found online with 100 grains volume equivalent. This only applies to 777 FFFG.
Joe
I'm going to post the information that I felt would have saved me 14 hours of work but I couldn't find online. Much of this advice is very basic, but I learned the hard way.
Put blue loctite on your threads when you install mounts and your scope. <- would have saved 3.5 hours right there. Just do it.
Best load: Hornady XTP 250 gr, 60 grains BY WEIGHT 777 FFFG (triple f), TC black colored sabots (not sure what the name is, came in a 50 pack), winchester 209 primer.
"Best" means out of the the 3 rounds I tried. XTP's are really cheap and can be found anywhere. There are obviously better bullets out there but gun season starts Monday so I worked with what I had.
I have been hand loading for 3 years with pistols and prefer to use a powder scale vs a volumetric charge measuring device. With 777 FFFG a rough approximation is 1 cubic centimeter to 10 grains by weight.
Shot group is about 4 inches at 200 yards but the bullet drops 18.7 inches on average (my scope has markings on it where I can repeat this shot). Sighted in 3 inches high at 85 yards. This was done over the course of 9 hours (including a trip to the store to grab maxi hunter 275gr conicals that proved a poor match for this specific gun).
The crud ring took a lot of my time to figure out. Use water (like the powder jug says to). Solvents don't work on the crud ring. <- that would have saved several hours too
My loading method: Completely clean the barrel with a moist cotton brush, run two dry patches, spray a small amount of hopppes dry lube in the rear of the barrel, one more patch (patches done with ramrod), fire one winchester primer, wait 10 seconds, remove breech plug and blow smoke out with a light dry puff of air, load with 60 grains weight of powder using one consistent stroke all the way down. Crud was wiped from breech plug before firing the primer.
The biggest factor was the cleaning method. A completely clean barrel doesn't group as good as one with 1 primer worth of fouling. The primer is about as loud as a 22lr out of a long barrel. After just 1 shot, loading the bullet becomes difficult with my setup.
Shooting was done from a bench rest with no crosswind, about 12 freakin degrees outside with 6 inches of snow. Yea I spent about 9 hours outside today and my fingers almost fell off but I was able to hit a lisence plate nailed to a fencepost 200 yards away at the end of the day (one inch from the letter I picked out). I joined this forum to make this post. Hopefully it helps.
The buckstalker was 150 dollars new and has a really solid feel, is easy to clean, and has a great trigger.
I wouldn't shoot a deer at 200 yards for fear of not having enough velocity to make a humane kill. I plan on doing some ballistic gel testing at that range first. I sighted it in at 200 yards so I can shoot coyotes.
Extra information: I shot with 70 grains of powder and noticed no difference in windage or elevation at 200 yards from 60 grains (which I take as no velocity gain compared to 60 grains). 60 grouped the best. I tried 50 60 and 70. When swabbing the barrel, some scrubbing is needed at the crud ring, then you need to run the brush all the way down the barrel. Otherwise there will be inconsistent traction with the rifling while seating the bullet. Mark your ramrod when you seat the bullet with a clean barrel so you can verify proper seating distance. Also, cancel all your other plans with people (your girlfriend) if you are going out to sight in a muzzleloader. It takes longer than you would expect (I was shooting by the headlights of my truck until 10:00 PM and I started at 2:30).
At 60 grains weight of powder, ballistic test data was identical to what I found online with 100 grains volume equivalent. This only applies to 777 FFFG.
Joe
