Second day with the Lyman T.R.

[Raider2000]

Today was a planed day for me, got up with the lil ones, had my coffee & breakfast, when Moma got up I cleaned up some leaves & trash, then went to the range around noon.

Ofcorse having no spot really to do any bench shooting was not in the plan but I was going to have fun anyway.

I shot a cupple of ball with the .010 patch off hand & when they hit kinda off my mark thought it could be me but then I decided to whip out the .015 patches.
Man did my shooting improve there cept for a flier which I can really say was my fault my 10 shot group was looking pretty good, found a patch or two & decided to try my luck at the 100 yard spot.

Well the I thought to hold a little high on my first shot at 100 yards & it paid me back by hitting high & slight right "the shot closest to the dent in the cardboard" but holding the sight as dead on as I can I think I did pretty good conciddering it was all off hand & with the one shot that I tried a .010 patch there it told me that they are not for this rifle.

Although you can't see it in the picture the 2 patches that I did manage to find are cut by what looks to be the rifling so tonight I swabbed the bore with some 0000 Steel wool about 20 times, also it looks good on the burn at least I think it does.

After 25 shots today I have a great feeling that this rifle will be a good friend, easy to shoot & swings nicely, I even made a guy with a T.C. Omega "brand new to him" slightly upset because at 100 yards "that is where he decided to sight it in instead of starting closer" he couldn't get it on paper & after the 6th shot he was having problems loading due to a crud ring from the 777 pelets & sabots he was using, where I swabbed my bore once every 5 shots & was keeping a some what consistent group.

Thoughts?

This will more than likely be my hunting rifle next year with as good as she shoots now, I can only imagine that by Muzzle Loading season November 2009 she'll be having all those shots tighter.

 

[Hawg]

Not bad at all but you'll need to bench it to find how well it really does. You can experiment with different powder charges and patch thickness until you get a load it really likes. Generally the thicker the patch the better they shoot but they're also more difficult to load so you may have to compromise. It's good enough to hunt with as is tho. Cut patches indicate sharp edges in the rifling which TC is infamous for. Best thing to do about that is lap the bore.

 

[redwing 40]

The rifle is not quite there? "But its good enough to Hunt with" now what kind of city boy advice is that. Damn paper targets don't suffer bleed out out and die in the brush. If a fire arm is ever at it best its when you pull the trigger on living game. Close is never good enough.

 

[Raider2000]

Redwing instead of badgering, why not something constructive as in advise?

Now granted these shots were done off hand with a slight wind & my guess is that this rifle needs to find it's happy spot as I need to as well with it so I see HH's point of needing to bench her & I may need to play a little with the powder charges but I do see with those shots that the tighter .015 patches were better suited than the .010 patches.

 

[Sarge]

That's some real good offhand work Raider, and your 'zero' is good enough to hunt as-is. I'd try to keep my shots inside 50 yards, maybe 75 on the outside, mostly because deer lack clearly defined scoring rings and they're a damn sight harder to see than those targets They are also often partially-obscured by prairie grass or undergrowth.

Pick your shots and you'll be fine; you'll make meat with that setup. I take it as a fact of life that anything I turn a gun on is going to "suffer, bleed out and die in the brush". The important thing is that they suffer as little as possible, bleed out plenty so they'll die quick or leave a good blood trail, and if they don't die on the spot-and they often don't-you find them. Good tracking skills were just as important to the primitive hunter and I think we can all take a lesson from that.

Good luck & post us a pic of your winter meat.

 

[redwing 40]

Raider that is good advice. If you think close is good enough, you are not ready to hunt.

 

[Raider2000]

I'm an Archer by heart & been hunting with Archery gear for over 27 years so I know all to well about shot placements & waiting for the close in shots, thank you for the reminder.

As far as keeping my shots under 75 yards & more twords 50 & less at Deer I fully intended to being that this is a .50 caliber PRB load at only roughly 1650fps. I don't think the energy would be sufficient to cleanly take a Deer much past 75 yards.

Now with the comment of:

If you think close is good enough, you are not ready to hunt.

This rifle is brand new "just had it for a week" so if I do hunt with it, it'll be real late in the season when I've had more time with her.
I have another rifle that I have more time with & have tighter groups than this but unless you think that a average off handed group of 2" at 50 yards & 3.5" at 100 yards isn't ready then please let me know.

Maybe my average group of 4.5" with broadheads at 60 yards isn't good enough to hut out to 40 yards either.

 

[Hawg]

The rifle is not quite there? "But its good enough to Hunt with" now what kind of city boy advice is that. Damn paper targets don't suffer bleed out out and die in the brush. If a fire arm is ever at it best its when you pull the trigger on living game. Close is never good enough.

A deer has an eight inch kill zone. I do believe his rifle is good enough to get the job done. Instant kills with a muzzleloader aren't an every day occurance to begin with. A good many with clean hits have to be tracked. I've followed Raiders posts for some time now and I don't think he's the type to take a shot he's not sure he can make. I'm not a city boy by any means, never have been. I'm just a good ol country redneck. You don't have to like me.

 

[redwing 40]

You may live out side some small town but you are after all and Easterner. I think thats the problem. You don't really know what living in the Out Back is.

 

[Raider2000]

You may live out side some small town but you are after all and Easterner. I think thats the problem. You don't really know what living in the Out Back is.

Do you?
As the saying goes "Don't judge a book by it's cover" just because a person lives on the east coast doesn't mean that they have no skills on survival or general hunting for that maner.

Now I can not speak for anyone else but I can tell you that I have survived the Out Back if you will, in the wilderness with nothing but a knife, a compass, the cloths on my back & the knowledge in my head to keep me on the right path for a week and a half.
Have you done the same?

I admit that sometimes I still have a temper & can be pig headed at times but my experiences & my family have taught me to curb my emotions as much as possible, but you seem to want to make an argument over nothing but to prove that you can bring on a fight.

 

[Hawg]

You may live out side some small town but you are after all and Easterner. I think thats the problem. You don't really know what living in the Out Back is.

I consider myself a SOUTHERNER not an Easterner. I understand you're miffed cuz I took you to task but lemme tell ya right now. You don't know me, you don't know anything about me. You don't know where I've been or what I've done or what I've been through. So why don't you just suck it up and get over it.

 

[eastbank]

what does living in the south or east have to do with a man shooting,hunting and enjoying his muzzle loader? i have killed 14 deer with a tenn poor boy flinter in 50 cal. with 80grs FFF and a PRB and i never shoot past 70-75 yds as thats all the further i can keep my shots on a 8 inch pie plate and that kills deer. eastbank.

 

[GoldenRoyBoy]

Hello Raider!

I'd say off-hand, that's really good shooting! Especially being, you are shooting fixed sights!

Myself, I'm more a smokeless powder sort of dude; bp is just a little messy but sounds to me, you have the cleaning regiment whipped. Thanks for giving us some good details. It's been years since I've shot black powder; buying a TC Hawkin back in the 70s; it sure was fun to run to one side to see if I hit anything!

In my RBs, Sharps, and Trapdoors, I reload to keep everything under 1200fps. I really like IMR's TrailBoss.

GRB