Shooting the Optima pistol

[deermanok]

I spent the morning at the range today with the Optima pistol. I added a set of CVA Durasights and want to see how it did.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with the setup. Shot out at 50 yards.
I started off with BH209 but after just a couple shots, the 209 didn't seem to work. My third shot was a dud. Swabbed the barrel, and cleaned the breech plug. Reloaded, fired. Hang fire!
Put that stuff away and grabbed my small flask full of Pyrodex.
No problems with it. Maybe the BH209 I have is old? Only had it about 10 months.
Anyway, 70 grains of pyrodex, 200 grain traditions smackdown bullets. Not the tightest group. But not horrible either. I had to tinker a bit with the sights and got pretty close. Ran out of powder so I called it a day.

 

[dbowling]

BH209 doesnt get old like pyrodex, did you clean breechplug with 1/8 in drill bit.. 209 needs very firm seating pressure cant load like a normal load. Ive shot bh209 out of my Knight Disc pistol a bunch and never had a hang fire or failure to fire, never had one in any of my rifles either, have to pay attention to loading pressure more with it..

 

[Chris W.]

Not bad for open sights. Practice and a little load tinkering should tighten things up. Hard to say what was going on with the BH209. I've used the stuff well over a year old in my pistol and rifle with no issues. It's always gone bang. What primers are you using? Are you using the stock breach plug or a loose powder plug?

 

[bamawoodsman]

I’m not a fan of blackhorn. I had the same experience you did. My sabot was fully seated and my breechplug fire channel was clean. I can understand why a target shooter uses it. You don’t have to swab as much or any as you do with 777. But. I’m a hunter. I’m not taking a chance of blowing a hard earned shot on an animal because my gun misfired. I’ve shot probably 200 loads of 777 through my guns. I don’t even clean the breechplug very often. I just swab the barrel. I’ve never had a misfire or hesitation. I didn’t see hardly any difference in accuracy between the 2 Plus. 777 doesn’t change between lots that I’m aware of. I’m not a fan of that either. To each his own though but I’ll stick with 777

 

[fourbore]

I think BH209 is worth the effort. I forgot, does the OP have the BH209 breech plug. The down side of 209 is hard ignition. The upside is very clean burning and relatively non corrosive. It cleans up with the exact same procedure as any center fire rifle with Hoppes No9. I was doing 3 shot groups in mine then wipe down the bore and clean the plug a little. I pushed it over 5 shots a few times. Never a glitch.

That is respectable shooting for open sights at 50 yards. I was shooting round balls from my 1:66 twist TC for the first time this week. I did not that good. apples and oranges, bp from a rifle. I was disappointed. That is looking pretty good and with a gun that will be much easier to carry. That accuracy will kill a deer at 50 yards. I like small groups. I get it. At the end of the day, there are practical considerations. Eventually my scope is coming off he Omega pistol. Probably going reflex red-dot.

 

[MrTom]

Dbowling brings up a good point in that 209 can like a good solid pack. I'm going to add that since converting my breech plugs to vent liners, hang fires or mis-fires are a thing of the past but one does have to clean the flame channel after 20-30 shots. Not the fire hole, just the channel right behind the primer pocket. I've had exactly one bad fire since converting all of my inlines to vent liners and that was in a .45 after shooting about 20 rounds at the club a couple days before the season began and not taking time to clean the plug before hunting the gun. MY fault, not that of the powder..

 

[deermanok]

Kind of a mystery for me. I've used BH209 in a couple of inline rifles I previously owned and it worked great.
I do have the BH209 breech plug. I packed it down tight. Made sure the plug was clean.
Winchester 777 primers. I always liked the CCI 209M primers but couldn't find any.
Maybe it's the primers?
I got plenty of pyrodex so maybe I'll just stick with that.

 

[ronlaughlin]

................Maybe it's the primers?...........

If you use a drill to clean the flame channel; it is virtually certain it is those 'weak' primers. Use any standard shotgun primer; you will have 100% ignition.

 

[HC]

 

[Idaholewis]

Copied & Pasted from Western Powders

Blackhorn 209 is designed to work with standard 209 shotshell primers. For the best results, we recommend the following brands:

• CCI 209M
• Federal 209A

We DO NOT recommend any of the 209 primers designated for muzzleloaders (Winchester Triple 7, CCI MZL, Federal Fusion, or Remington Kleanbore). These primers are all weaker than standard shotshell 209 primers and do not provide adequate ignition for Blackhorn 209 – especially when used in a poorly designed breech plug system. We also DO NOT recommend #11 percussion caps or musket caps.

Primer Recommendations « Blackhorn 209

 

[Idaholewis]

As dbowling 1st Stated, BH209 Needs Very Firm seating pressure. This was my problem with it back when i tried it, I mainly shoot “Bore Rider” Bullets for My Target/Bench Shooting, They Go down the Bore with Virtually No effort, The Ramrod alone will Send them to the Powder, and on top of that i use a Wool Felt Wad which gives no Compression to Speak of on the Powder. I couldn’t get BH209 to Go off with my Target Loads, I had 2 of them “Pop out“ of the Barrel from the Primer Going off, and Roll down the Rd In front of me

Fact is, BH209 Didn’t Fail me, i failed it By not Following The Powders requirements.

Below is Taken from Western Powders Site

when compression of the powder is lost the result is a misfire or poor accuracy.

We recommend a quality tight fitting sabot for the most consistent accuracy and ignition.

 

[rgell1017]

I learned the hard way about BH 209 after lots of calls complaints and misinformation from Knight I have Disc Extreme with factory vented breech plug Knight said it would work with BH it doesn't hang fires misfires you name it even BH said it would work personally I think it stopped up the vents on factory breech plug switched to bare primer conversion use Winchester 209 no more problems. Now knight figured out there vented breech plug doesn't work. Any suggestions on clearing out knight plug in case I switch back to 777

 

[HC]

Use a 5/32 drill bit to clean the flame channel. Do that every 10 shots or so regardless of what powder you are using.

 

[fourbore]

I forgot to mention, I am using Federal 209A. I am lucky to have an inline mentor. He took me to cableas and had me purchase 209A primers and said dont use anything esle. There are so many variables, I was grateful to have a place to start: blackhorn powder, special plug, 209a primer, Harvester black rib and XTP bullets. He is big on Barnes bullets but said I should be ok to start with XTP. I am going with those. Given the component selection, I still need a couple range visits to get an acceptable result.

I guess we could delete all our posts and simply leave those two by Idaho. Then what would be the fun in that?

I have two drill bits in my range bag. The powder side is very clean but the primer side does get very dirty and I get most of it out every so many shots or preceeding any series fired for group. The primer residue was a big surprise. Even my mentor did not prepare me for that. he uses carb cleaner and welding tip cleaners. We called that cancer in a can! I am stayting with Hoppes and drill bits. I also found various size and shape q-tips helpful.

 

[JIMYJAC]

Could you please explain what vent liners are. I use the BH209 plug with BH209 and nevr had a problem.

 

[ronlaughlin]

Vent liner is a screw with a hole drilled through it. The vent liner replaces the flash hole. Breech plug needs to be drilled, and tapped to receive the vent liner.


One way to make them. Easier to purchase them.

 

[deermanok]

Definitely sounds like the primers are the cause of my issues with the BH 209. I do like the blackhorn although it's expensive.
For now, I'll use the pyrodex and save the blackhorn.
I also got some new bullets to try.
Hornady xtp, 240 grain hollow points.

 

[rgell1017]

Good hot primers BH told me use magnum and keep the flash hole open

 

[bamawoodsman]

I had the same experience as you with the misfire as I stated earlier. I just wanted to comment on the primer theory. I was using cci mag primers. I loaded the sabot / bullet with plenty of pressure and fully seated it. It was a Barnes tez spitfire 250 grain I had shot the gun maybe 3 or 4 times from a clean start and it misfired. Bh209 is too finicky for my taste. Especially in a hunting situation. I personally have a friend that misfired bh209 on a trophy buck. It’s not a big deal when you’re shooting at a cardboard box but it is if you have your sights on a trophy animal.

 

[deermanok]

I had the same experience as you with the misfire as I stated earlier. I just wanted to comment on the primer theory. I was using cci mag primers. I loaded the sabot / bullet with plenty of pressure and fully seated it. It was a Barnes tez spitfire 250 grain I had shot the gun maybe 3 or 4 times from a clean start and it misfired. Bh209 is too finicky for my taste. Especially in a hunting situation. I personally have a friend that misfired bh209 on a trophy buck. It’s not a big deal when you’re shooting at a cardboard box but it is if you have your sights on a trophy animal.

Heard that. I always used good ole black powder. It goes boom all the time. Over the years, I only ever owned a couple of inlines. The Traditions Buckstalker I had only had 2f powder in it and it shot fine.