I told one of my buddies on my deer lease that I was going to get a muzzle loader. He gave me his. He has not used in in about 20 years, as he is now an archery hunter.
It is a Thompson Center 50 cal.
It is in new condidion.
Today I got some Pyrodex RS [the store was out of 777, but will get some soon], some No 11 caps and some Hornady Great Plains 460 grain HB-FP bullets, along with a powder measure, bullet starter etc.
My plan is to start with 90 grains of Pyrodex [by volume] as recommended by info with the bullets.
Cannot wait to get it sighted in and take her down "Pig Alley".

if you can contact tc and up grade to the musket cap ignition.......is far hotter and easy to ignight if you plan on using pyrodex or 777 youll need it

the 460 grain conicals will have a vaery hard time stabalizing out of the 1-48 twist the heavyest i would go would be tc's 370 tc maxie ball

get your self a few tubes of bore butter to youll need it remember never to use gun oil on the in side of your smoke pole itll leave a tar like fouling thats a real bitch to get out.

you might wanna try the 320 grain lee real bullet with 80 grain of fffg and a bore button very accurate load in most hawkens for that matter.

if you want to shoot heavy conicals you might wanna have green mountain make you a faster twist drop in barrel for about 250-300$ i think cant remember.

I guess, I pretty much have to disagree across the board. Your TC, whatever model it may be, is almost certainly a 48:1 twist. It will probably shoot both roundballs and conicals of reasonable size (e.g., the HGP 460s) quite accurately.

Bore butter is okay - at best. I used it for years. I never use it now, and every rifle and shotgun I own (about 30, excepting .22 rf) are bp guns exclusively. All get oiled with conventional gun oils or ATF. No tar forms. I believed in that myth for years.

I also wipe any gun barrel before taking it out of storage to shoot or hunt. Hoppe's #9 or similar will do a fine job of keeping the barrel happy while it is en route to the range or carried in the field.

I would ditch Pyrodex so fast, you'd never know I owned it. Horrible stuff that ignites poorly in cold or wet conditions, degrades on the shelf, and whose fouling is so corrosive, battery acid would be safer. If you do use, and I have, scrub your barrel good, scrub it some more, and scrub it again. Then scrub it the next day and see what your nice white patch shows.

I have never used or seen 777. So, no comment.

I do use real gun powder. About 20#/yr. In a 180 yr old english percussion double rifle, right up to my "modern" rifles, like an original .38-55 highwall. The stuff works every time. Fouling is easily removed with water (add soap if you wish). And it fires under all conditions, is not hydroscopic in unfired form, and generally just makes me feel good.

Anyway, good luck with the TC. The conicals will probably work well. If not, try a .495" roundball and a .015" lubed patch (patches prelubed with bore butter work just fine). The roundball will kill anything you need out as far as you need to shoot.

Brent

Thanksgiving week I took the rifle to the deer lease.
I had a 20 round box of Thompson Center 370 Maxi Balls, so I tried them first with 90 grains [volume equivilent] of Pyrodex RS.
First round off hand at 25 yards hit dead center. Three other shots at @ 60 yards hit in the black so I was ready to hunt.
The Lyman Plains bullets did not group very good. The small pring in the box stated they were best shot in a faster twist bbl. Tound ball and patches were also not good shooters.

Thanksgiving afternoon I went hunting. I was about 40 yards fron where I parked the vehicle. I was walking down one of our deer lease roads where I could walk quitely. Suddenly I saw a p[ig, about a= 90 pounder. I raised the rifle and fired. He went right down, the diatance 33 yards, stepped off. I walked back to the road looked at the dead pig, at the vehicle, was admiring my work on such a good "stalk" and killing close to the veh. when I liiked bacdk at the pig I saw another one walk up right behind the one I had just shot.
So I raised the rifle and fired. Through the smoke I saw the pig "hump up" and walk away as I reloaded.
ig, blood or hair. I decided to hunt the direction I thought the pig might have gone.
I saw a black object in some thich brush, looked at it with binos and saw a pig ear attached to it. As I walked up and was about 4 yards away it moved so I shot it in the head. It was the same pig I had shot at before as it had a hit in the shoulder.
I had to drag the pig 40 yards or so to the road so I could later recover it. I then saw a doe deer about 80 yards away. I had not shot the rifle that far so I crou9ched over and walked toward the deer. From about 44 yards as the deer faced me I fored a short from kneeling which struch the deer just to the left of center, knocking her down. I reloaded and she,was dead when I reached her.
So in less than an hour I had killed 2 pigs and a deer with my black powder rifle.
What great fun. I cannot wait to hund Idaho Black Bear with my 50 cal.

AS a side note I waqs "banned" from leaving camp with the BP rifle after that hunt.
See what happened 2 days later with my 475 FA revolver in the handgun hunting forum.

I have cleaned the rifle a couple of times with TC's cleaner and find the rifle is much quicker to clean than a center fire rifle.
After cleaning I use Bore Butter for a rust preventative.

I hope to shoot the rifle at 100 and 200 yards soon just for info purposes, will report on the results.

Congrats on the good hunting NE450!

These things do get kinda addicting, don't they?

Mark,
Yes they do. I cant wait to hunt Black Bear in Idaho next June with the 50 cal BP rifle.

Did a little digging around the house and found an old article on the Thomson Center 50m cal Hawken.
Seems the writer had accuracy problems with the patched ball with any Pyrodex charge over 65 grains [volume of BP].
So I tried 60 grains at the deer lease. Bingo, the patched balls shot very good. So now I will used some patched balls for rabbits and small varmits and thje 370 Maxi-Balls with 90 grains of Pyrodex for big game.

By using MMP Sub-Bases with my 50 cal. 410gr. Hornadys, my 100 yd. groups were reduced in half.

I have found that 'most' slugs shoot better with some type of 'wad' under them. [cardstock, fiber or felt]

Some of the WAD links that I have found

http://www.buffaloarms.com/browse.cfm/browse.cfm/4,4964.html
http://www.sagebrushproducts.com/ShootingProducts.htm
http://www.circlefly.com/
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/categories/tableList.aspx...subID=37&styleID=118

Some of the more expensive " Veggie" wads are made from:

Vegetable fiber gasket material engineered to resist high heat & compression
and water resistant.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Did a little digging around the house and found an old article on the Thomson Center 50m cal Hawken.
Seems the writer had accuracy problems with the patched ball with any Pyrodex charge over 65 grains [volume of BP].
So I tried 60 grains at the deer lease. Bingo, the patched balls shot very good. So now I will used some patched balls for rabbits and small varmits and thje 370 Maxi-Balls with 90 grains of Pyrodex for big game.

My 50 cal Renegade shoots a PRB well with 75 gr volume Goex FFG powder and my 54 Renegade likes 70 gr volume Goex FFG.

Tony, looks like you had a great first days hunting with a ML. Follow Brents advise and get the real stuff, if you are going to ML.... When are you going to get a SxS ML?

Hog Killer

I'm with Brent on most of it...seeming to recall my TC Renegade had a 1:36 twist for some reason, mebbe not. Everyone I've known that had one of those, or the Hawken, found 90 gr. of FFG to work magic with the .50 cal Maxi ball, 370 gr IIRC. I used 50 gr with patched round balls, the gun being one of the most accurate I've owned, 3 holes touching at 50 with iron sights using both loads. BP substitues likely won't lite off as reliably as black, if you want to "hi-tech" a low tech gun...have fun. Keep the nipple clear and you wont have any problems with ignition using #11 caps. Be sloppy and you will.

And the substitute powders smell like...cat crap. Geez, I hate that stuff...

I started off using "pyro-fake" powder and did find it easier to reload after several shots, but! Ever since I bought a pound of FFFg real black I will never go back to pyro-fake again. My gun (Traditions Hawkin) never hesitates or misfires at all now. My favorite load of 60gr. of FFFg and a patched RB has accounted for more snowshoe hares than all of my other rifles and shotguns together. I recently started using a thinner patch for easier loading and have not even needed my short starter since and accuracy is still minute of rabbit skull at twenty yards.

As far as lube goes during the hot summer monthes I use bore butter but but find it a bit hard when cold. Any time the weather is cool enough I use fat from black bear rendered down to a lard like greese. This is my favorite patch lube so far.

Now all you need is a shootn' buddy, a 2x2 foot steel gong, and some place to shoot out to 300 yards and you got a great way to pass the summer. "Bang.....wait.....wait....wait for it........Bong!! Have fun.

I may have to try some "real" black powder.
NBHunter, good shooting.

I am going to try and round ball me some cottontail rabbits next time on my lease.

NBhunter, NICE hunting indeed.

If you have trouble reloading a fouled barrel, I suggest putting your fist around the muzzle and blowing 3-4 long breaths through your fist and down the barrel - pull the hammer back to half cock first.

The moisture from your breath will soften the fouling and allow MUCH easier loading.

Some folks get a bit excited at the sight of a guy holding a muzzle up to his mouth, so substitue a piece of flexible plastic tubing for your fist when at the range.

The art of "blow tubing" is well developed in bp breech loaders but works even better for muzzlelloaders.

Brent