Muzzleloader Max Loads.....maybe not what you think!

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52Bore said:
1874sharpsshooter said:
I shot Blackhorn in my .451 English Sporting rifle with #11 cap
460 gr conicals . Excellent accuracy . 10 gr black powder for igniter and 70 gr Blackhorn . Worked for me

Reverse duplexing to get ignition just doesn't make since!
Makes sense to me if i want to shoot blackhorn with a #11 percussion cap :)
 
Interesting thread and a lot of info. That being said my .45s shoot between 60 and 80 gr of FFFg by vol and my 50s between 80 and 100 of FFg. My 58s both shoot 120 gr of FFg.
I can see no reason to shoot 150 gr in any muzzleloader
 
I can see no reason to shoot 150 gr in any muzzleloader

I'm in your school of thought. All of my long guns at 150 grain capable but none get shot at that charge size. My 50's pretty much have sweet spots for accuracy at 110 grains of BH209. My .45 Kodiak does superbly with 90 grains of BH209. I get almost identical results using the 3F T7 granular at the same charge sizes for each respective rifle.

On another note, opposite of the high end loads, I watched a fella at the club shooting a .58 ball and cap enfield with maxi ball using a 25 grain charge of FFG black. He was wondering why he had such crappy accuracy. lol I told him to try 100 grains of powder and he shuddered and said the recoil would be horrid. So I did three shots at 100 and had all 3 shots nearly touching at 50 yards. He tried a couple shots and agreed that the recoil wasn't near as ugly as he thought. He was smiling at his shooting when I left. Accuracy is generally found somewhere in between too light and the max.
 
I didn't read through all of these posts to see if it was mentioned but what about the correlation of powder charge vs barrel length?
For example; an 80 grain by volume charge of whatever powder, shot from a 28 inch barrel as opposed to a 20 or 24 inch barrel. Would you get the same performance, velocity and energy or would the shorter barrel tend to be more inefficient?
 
I didn't read through all of these posts to see if it was mentioned but what about the correlation of powder charge vs barrel length?
For example; an 80 grain by volume charge of whatever powder, shot from a 28 inch barrel as opposed to a 20 or 24 inch barrel. Would you get the same performance, velocity and energy or would the shorter barrel tend to be more inefficient?
Just in case you're interested ;) ML-Barrel-Length-Velocity
 
That was an interesting article. It seems like there was minimal velocity differences from 30 to 24 inches but below 24" the vel difference was more dramatic.
 
In my 54-120 (20") i get around 1875fps with a 325gr bullet. That is with a max load of BH209. So im basically shooting a 50 Beowulf load. From what ive seen i would never spend extra money for a 30" tube if the same rifle is offered in a 26". Really no need to go over 28" for 99% of loads/shooters.

My NULA for an example is a special order 26" but the standard 24" makes as much fps with several of the commonly used loads. Those loads are small amounts of faster burning powders. The extra 2" only helps with larger amounts of slower powders in that rifle. Same pretty much goes for BH209. Start using larger amounts and the fps difference grows. Guys shooting typical loads wont see a bit of fps gain. All you paid extra for was a heavier rifle.
 

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