I was watching a local TV show here in MI early this summer and they were shooting a custom muzzle loader that used 4 pyrodex pellets behind a saboted bullet. does any one know who makes these or knows another muzzleloader that takes this charge?

IT might have been one of the new 45cal guns that use the 30grain pyrodex pellets behind a 40cal in a sabot.Check Traditons and Knights web pages

They also make 30 grain 50 caliber pellets too.4 30 grain pellets is only 120 grains equivelent.

Brian.

This was definitely a .50 cal. that took a full 200 grain charge of pyrodex pellets and was shot over a chronograph with a 240 grain sabot at around 3000 fps. I am in the process of getting a copy of the show right now!

That thing must kick like hell. I was shooting three pellets in my Encore and finally gave up on pellets and went back to loose pyrodex. It kicked like hell and I couldn't get it to group. What kind of accuracy were they getting?

i have a tc omega and use 300grn hornady hollow points it shoots 1" groups at 100 yards with the 3 pyrodex pellet load.

remember when shooting sabots keep the barrel as dry as possible any left over lub in the barrel can distroy accuracy

The groups were very impressive they shot a couple of different sabot combinations and they all shot around 1". I decided that I have not done anything stupid in a while so I took my knight disc out yesterday and loaded it with 4-50 grain pellets to see how it would shoot. The first 3 shot group measured 1.29" and the second group measured 1.18" center to center.
I used 180 grain pr sabots with the polymer tip.
I am posting this just to let you know what I have done and I DO NOT recommend that anybody go over the max. on their guns, but I have been told by several people that the weak link is the sabot when it comes to a muzzle loader.
P.S. it still does not kick as much as my .300 remington ultra mag so it does not really bother me to shoot the load!

I forgot to mention the groups were shot at 100 yards off of a bench rest and sand bags!

well hell why dont we just though 6 down the barrel and see what that dose or we could just use a 375 rem ultra mag and be done with it

I hunt in a shotgun/muzzleloader zone only. Believe me if I could use a centerfire rifle I would, but for now I will just have to get as close to it as I can without smokeless powder!

dav01 If you would like smokeless powder buy a Savage ML II they shot great

If the regulations here would allow it I would, but it has to be black powder or a black powder substitute.

3000fps should be impressive on both ends. Hypothetically, using lighter projectiles and lots of powder, what would be the upper end potential velocity for a non smokeless rifle???

Good question MFH. You can't just add more powder and expect more speed. I almost bet that the last pellet in a 4 pellet load is burning OUTSIDE the barrel. I have seen this several times when firing 50cal pellets in a 54cal barrel.In developing a load for a muzzleloader you will reach a point where more powder will cause the velocity to go DOWN not up, because you can't burn that much powder in that length of barrel and you are pushing unburnt powder along with the bullet out the barrel. Now what is the max velocity ?....3000 fps....I don't think so, not out of a hunting length barrel. Also as you lighten the bullet to gain speed you cut the balistic coefficent of the bullet, so that extra speed is wasted pushing a less efficent bullet through the air.The only way to over come this is to go down in bore size(ex.50 to 45)or change specific gravity of the bullet(ex.going from lead to all copper).It think I'm going to dust off the chrono and see the max I can obtain.....

Actually, it could be quite possible to put 200gr or more in a MZ designated for 150gr. Manufacturers put a factor of safety into the design. Say that the barrel was designed orginally to handle a certain pressure level. Well, the engineers add in a factor of safety, like 1.5, which means the pressure it was designed for can be multiplied by 1.5 and that would be the actual limit for the barrel. I do not know the FS that they would use, but it is best to stay under it due to metal fatigue. It maybe able to handle the pressure, but prolonged exposure will fatigue the metal and shorten the barrel life.

cyberhick

DISCLAMER: I do not know the FS that the designers used. I do not suggest loading a ML more than the manufacterer's recomendation. I am only a student of engineering, but i am very capable of designing a barrel like you want. Any attempt to find the maximum limit for the ML based upon my information that results in injury or destruction of property is not my responsibility.

Wisdom is power, knowledge is dangerous.

[ 11-21-2002, 18:49: Message edited by: cyberhick ]

I ran all of my loads over a chronograph and out of my knight disc I was able to gain almost 500 fps over the 150 grain load. the reason I ran all of the loads over a chrono was because I didn't believe the barrel would burn all of the powder, but I would say that 500 fps more is burning the powder pretty well.

FWIW, I suspect that if you wish to explore the upper ends of velocity in a muzzleloader that you switch to fine granulation black powder. Am clueless as to the burn characteristics of Pyrodex pellets but doubt seriously that you'll get out-of-bore-burn with FFFG. Note that the U.S.Navy generated over 100,000 psi w/ black powder during tests many years ago, so don't do this with the conviction that it is safe, or that your rifle will remain in one piece. Or for that matter, that you will remain in one piece if you insist on firing it by hand.

Regarding safety margins: There is no requirement in the U.S. to proof test barrels. ZERO. Yes the big players in the industry will for obvious reasons, but there is NO STANDARD. Any safety margin built into a gun barrel has no thought in mind regarding metal fatigue, but rather the elastic limits and ultimate load limits of the steel. The objective is not to exceed elastic limits or things will stretch, and perhaps look a bit odd afterwards. Ultimate load limits are self explanatory. The two are very close neighbors on the psi scale in any steel.