The perfect western muzzle loader

[dotman]

Maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing. If a Knight Mountaineer will stabilize a conical and shoot sub MOA then problem solved! I'll just have to do my part

dirtdarte,
May I ask exactly what conical you are using for that kind of accuracy? I have zero experience in shooting conicals. I do cast some bullets and other lead objects, just never played with conicals.

My ultralight stabilizes 465gr lead conicals from no excuses bullets, I have used Thor, Federal and Hornady conicals as well.

The ultralight saves almost 2lbs over the mountaineer, mine if I remember correctly is just over 6lbs and my buddies mountaineer is over 8lbs.

 

[longrangelead]

I appreciate all the input. I'm a process guy to. I reload my own, make y own slugs and buckshot, tie my own flies, make my hunting knives, even done a few stocks so they were exactly like I wanted them.

I'm already shooting 250 with sabots but they destabilize between there and 300. I just didn't know what direction to go with lead bullets, Aerolites or conicals and so on. I was avoiding the "typical" lead bullet because I shot a few out of a Hawken as a teenager and accuracy was horrible. Now that I know more, it was probably just a bad combination. I'll check out the conicals mentioned. Maybe shoot those as I work into swaging and powder test for more accuracy.

I know the Mountaineer is heavier, I'm a thumbhole guy for long range stuff. It helps soak up some recoil too. I don't mind an 8lb muzzle gun, most of my center fires are 8-10 lb anyway.

Dirtdarte, I am really curious to see if the extra barrel on the mountaineer gives a little extra velocity. It may not be enough to mention, but every bit helps. With winter coming, trying stuff like that keeps me sane through the months of cold and dark.

Thanks for sharing all your experience!

 

[dirtdarte]

You certainly wont be disappointed with the Mountaineer... that's for sure. It's really a fine shooting rifle. Although it is heavier than the Ultralight, I enjoy shooting it more as the recoil is more manageable... especially when a scope is mounted on it. I also think....i can't prove at this point... that the accuracy potential is probably better with the Mountaineer.... I just find it ever so slightly easier to make hits out past 150 yards with it... But that is just me... Both platforms are excellent and worth their premium price in my opinion. I will say that carrying the Ultralight around is really nice... You hardly notice the weight.

As far as velocity, I'm confident that there is a slight velocity advantage with the Mountaineer, but I don't think that will make an appreciable difference practically speaking... But a few feet per second can't hurt. With open or receiver sights, you do gain a few inches in the sight radius department and that helps too.

I wish you luck with your project. I think you have a great goal that is absolutely achievable and I think you will be surprised how quickly your objectives will be reached... then you'll be setting up targets further away and reaching for greater distances. Gotta love those winter projects... If you're always preparing for the next hunt, you will be prepared and focused... and the season never ends.

 

[Idaho Lefty]

My ultralight stabilizes 465gr lead conicals from no excuses bullets, I have used Thor, Federal and Hornady conicals as well.

The ultralight saves almost 2lbs over the mountaineer, mine if I remember correctly is just over 6lbs and my buddies mountaineer is over 8lbs.

YUP, we found, 460 Grain "No Excuses" conicals, to work great, too ! We have .50 Cal Knight, BP Rifles.
77-80 grains of Black MZ Powder, CCI / Rem. caps, .50 cal. "Wads" (OX yoke ).
ONLY "open Breach" with percussion Caps and NO scopes are Legal, in Idaho UNLESS,.. an Optometrist "Waiver" then, a "NO Power" Scope, can be used.

 

[warrbuk]

longrangelead I will throw a curve at you. Knight will sell you a fast twist 1-20 45 caliber mountaineer that is really accurate if you are will to shoot full bore copper loads. It wont be legal in Colorado as its not a 50 cal, but it will be super accurate with BH 209 and shoot Parker or Pittman bullets really fast and accurate. When iron sights are the rule your range is reduced. If you allowed a scope I will hunt with the 45. I spoke with the guys at Knight and they have a couple prototype 45 caliber 1/20 ultra-lite's being tested and will likely offer them sometime in 2018?

But then you have 45 and a 50or a couple of each.

Happy New Years

 

[COLOelkman]

Surprised not to see White muzzy's mentioned in this thread. If you check out Monster Muleys, and look up posts by Marley, he shoots a White S91 with open sights out to 400 yds at a steel gong and has taken elk out close to 300 yds. I agree with others in that eyes can be the limiting factor....at least for me.

 

[hoppyumr]

Good morning all,

I'm new to the forum and not intending to hijack this forum in any way, but am in a similar boat just with a slightly different approach. Being new to the forum, I don't see how I can send a PM to another member, so I'm coming here. Anyway, I'm interested in a bit more information from member Dirtdarte about his rifle set up, specifically twist rate, and barrel length.

Here's the dilemma: I have a Thompson Center Hawken that I'm looking to get a .50 cal barrel made for, since I can't find any fast twist barrels; the intention is to remove the 45 barrel, which I want to keep for fun, and have the 50 for hunting (Elk in CO). I've found new drop in barrels from Green Mountain. They have basically whatever you want, but the twist rates are all super slow and clearly only applicable to round ball ammo. SO, I need to get smaller 45 barrel and send it off to get custom work done to rebore to 50 and rifle it in a fast twist. This is where it gets interesting. Over the things I've read lately, I personally associate fast twist with anything 28"/twist and faster; I realize there may be a different break point on slow to fast twist, but that's just what I seem to have been finding. Anyway, I'll say a very prominent name in custom smoke pole barrels indicated to me that he'd like to make me a barrel with a twist rate in the low 40's, which I wouldn't really claim as being all that fast. In fact, I'm worried about bullet stabilization at that rate. I'm thinking I want to shoot full bore all-lead conicals, but may consider some trying of the more modern type skirted and jacketed conicals. So with regards to the stabilization I've played with the calculators online, and perhaps I don't have some of the information correct, so if someone could help me with the inputs to help me sort this twist rate issue out I'd be super grateful. Below are a few outputs from the JBM stability calculator (
https://www.jbmballistics.com/cgi-bin/jbmstab-5.1.cgi).

First , I recognize that I'm making an assumption at velocity, but for comparison (good or not) I've set it at 1500fps. I can increase, but increasing velocity appears to better the stabilization as the bullet rpms would naturally increase. Temp, pressure all left equal for comparison sake.



Using a Hornady Great Plains 385g at 40"/twist:
Input DataCaliber:0.500 inBullet Weight:385.0 grBullet Length:1.000 inPlastic Tip Length:0.000 inMuzzle Velocity:1500.0 ft/sBarrel Twist:40.0 inTemperature:59.0 °FPressure:29.92 in HgOutput DataStability:1.173

Same bullet, if I increase twist to 28"/twist it looks much better:
Input DataCaliber:0.500 inBullet Weight:385.0 grBullet Length:1.000 inPlastic Tip Length:0.000 inMuzzle Velocity:1500.0 ft/sBarrel Twist:28.0 inTemperature:59.0 °FPressure:29.92 in HgOutput DataStability:2.393



*****Different Bullet*******
If I use the bullet Dirtdarte mentions using (I've tried to put in more accurate information, as it was all listed on the mold):
Input DataCaliber:0.502 inBullet Weight:500.0 grBullet Length:1.011 inPlastic Tip Length:0.000 inMuzzle Velocity:1500.0 ft/sBarrel Twist:40.0 inTemperature:59.0 °FPressure:29.92 in HgOutput DataStability:1.490


Same bullet, if I increase twist to 28"/twist it looks pretty fantastic:
Input DataCaliber:0.502 inBullet Weight:500.0 grBullet Length:1.011 inPlastic Tip Length:0.000 inMuzzle Velocity:1500.0 ft/sBarrel Twist:28.0 inTemperature:59.0 °FPressure:29.92 in HgOutput DataStability:3.040



So the question is why would he recommend cutting the barrel to a ~40" twist? I don't want to start a debate, but iIt is a gain twist barrel. I just know that there are much faster barrels out there, probably getting into the low 20's and possibly into the teens - I don't want to go too crazy, because my guess is it could maybe become picky at those twists, and I don't want that.

Any help or commentary from experience would be great. I need to get my new barrel ordered, and shipped so it can be put in line to be worked on.

Mark

 

[hoppyumr]

By the way, I just say COLOelkman is in Lakewood, CO. We are neighbors!!!

 

[COLOelkman]

Hi Mark - Just curious why you want to get a new barrel in lieu of getting a used muzzy that shoots conicals well however you might not want that either if you really like your current TC. Not sure of the price difference but you could consider looking for a White or a Knight as they both shoot conicals well typically. Where bouts you at? You can PM if you'd like. Doug

 

[hoppyumr]

Hi Mark - Just curious why you want to get a new barrel in lieu of getting a used muzzy that shoots conicals well however you might not want that either if you really like your current TC. Not sure of the price difference but you could consider looking for a White or a Knight as they both shoot conicals well typically. Where bouts you at? You can PM if you'd like. Doug

Doug, the issue is that I was given these (one of them being the TC) by my father in law, and I know it's because he was excited to be able to give them to me for the purpose of using them/it to hunt; he just didn't know 50cal was minimum, rather than these 45 cals. Obviously, I uncovered pretty quickly that they wouldn't work at the caliber they were, but wanted to honor his intentions - that and the TC seems like a fairly decent starting off point and would probably be great with the right barrel. Anyway, I just feel like it would be a bit of a slap in the face to him to shift gears entirely by getting a completely different rifle. I realize the end result would be 3 rifles rather than two, but technically with the drop-in nature of the TC that'd still generally be the case.

As for PMing, it doesn't appear my account lets me do that, so I don't know if I need have more posts or what. Generally, I'm at Wads and Hampden. If you know how to do the PM thing, I'm all ears.

Mark

 

[COLOelkman]

I understand and I'm sure you can figure out something that will work. I'm near Wads and Yale so you're really close by! I know several people have run into the issue of TC's not designed to shoot conicals so I'm sure a little searching will give you some ideas! You could also search on Modern Muzzleloaders as there's lots of guys there that might be able to help as well! Good luck! Doug

 

[30338]

Doug, the issue is that I was given these (one of them being the TC) by my father in law, and I know it's because he was excited to be able to give them to me for the purpose of using them/it to hunt; he just didn't know 50cal was minimum, rather than these 45 cals. Obviously, I uncovered pretty quickly that they wouldn't work at the caliber they were, but wanted to honor his intentions - that and the TC seems like a fairly decent starting off point and would probably be great with the right barrel. Anyway, I just feel like it would be a bit of a slap in the face to him to shift gears entirely by getting a completely different rifle. I realize the end result would be 3 rifles rather than two, but technically with the drop-in nature of the TC that'd still generally be the case.

As for PMing, it doesn't appear my account lets me do that, so I don't know if I need have more posts or what. Generally, I'm at Wads and Hampden. If you know how to do the PM thing, I'm all ears.

Mark

Hoppy, So you informed the guy doing the rebore that you wanted to shoot conicals and he recommended the twist? If it is the guy with last name Hoyt, I'd probably follow his lead. I've had 1 in 48 twist T/C barrels that shot conicals great for example. If it wasn't Hoyt, I guess I'd have to ask around a bit more. If it was Hoyt, I'd ship him the barrel. He has a great reputation.

 

[ENCORE]

…….. I know several people have run into the issue of TC's not designed to shoot conicals so I'm sure a little searching will give you some ideas! ...…….

The QLA is generally what keeps a TC from shooting conical bullets. Those who are determined to shoot conicals through their TC rifles, normally cut off the QLA and recrown. Most all problems are solved.