I have some free time and a nice glass of chardonnay to my left, so here goes on sighting in my flinter.
A couple of weeks elapsed between the final decision on what patch material and thicknesses I needed. A rendezvous with a "woods walk" was quickly approaching so I needed to get that rifle sighted in!
I was getting a nice clover leaf with my final patch/ball combo using 55 gr of 3F at 25 yards; about 4 inches down and 3 inches left of POA (Point of Aim). So I took a brass 1/4" rod and a finishing hammer to my rear sight moving it one whack to the left. Shot three rounds. Yupper, the Point of Impact was moving right.
I continued this procedure until the POI (Point of Impact) was on the North/South longitude of POA - Again about 4" down from POA.
During this time I did clean my barrel using a "moose milk" dampened cotton patch, followed with a dry patch. To keep things consistent I swabbed the barrel twice with a dampened patch and then twice with a dry patch -
Between every shot. Consistency is the name of the game here.
Now that I was in line with POA I increased the powder charge to 70 gr of 3F. The clover leaf was still there and the POI moved up about 1". Next I jumped up to 80gr 3F and again my POI moved up about 1". I started to notice a minor separating of the impact on the target. Instead of a nice ragged one hole I was seeing three distinct target impacts.
At this point I figured either I was at the maximum amount of barrel length that this barrel could handle (Burn all of the powder efficiently) or I was tired for the day. After all, 80gr of black powder is a hefty load. Remember a .45/70 Government round only took 70gr of 2F powder and we all know that 3F is a hotter burning powder. So I left for the day.
The next day I looked at my self in the mirror and my right shoulder was a big black & white mess. I had forgot to adjust for a hold of the rifle to my shoulder. The typical rifle hold of this period (Butt plate to shoulder) is where your arm meets your shoulder not from the middle shoulder that we use in modern long rifles today.
The following weekend found me at the rifle range again. My first 3 round set was 80gr of 3F at 25 yards. All impacts were in a 1 1/4" circle about 2 inches south of POA- Not bad.
Now it was time to go for the "mother of all hunting loads".
My next several sets I increased the powder by 5gr until I got to the point of 100gr of 3F. By this time the POI had grown to about 3 inches at 25 yards and my arm/shoulder was killing me. Remember, I also took the time to cleane between each shot to get some form of consistency.
I was flinching because of the recoil and I noticed that my patches had started to burn-through. I knew it was time to back off to a load that was stiff yet I could consistently handle which was 80gr of 3F.
The following weekend was the rendezvous and I used the rifle compensating (Kentucky wind-age) for the lower POI. I got third overall in the woods walk competition not so much for my shooting but because I took over 2 minutes to start a fire using flint & steel. My overall score got debited because of this.
During the event one issue I was having was seeing the front sight clearly while in the woods.
My rifle originally came with a brass front sight. It worked great on the range where there was a lot of sunshine but not so well in the light filtered woods. As much as I hated to admit it, my older eyes needed a silver front sight. I knew ahead that this might be a bit of problem but was to cheap to buy the silver front sight up front.
Anyhow, I called the gunsmith who made the rifle and he had in the mail that day a new silver sight. By the weekend I had the old one tapped out and the new one in place.
Once I was at the range that weekend, I started out with my usual load of 80gr of 3F powder fired at a target 25 yards from the bench. Guess what? Yup my POI now was several inches to the right of the POA. Installing the new front sight had screwed up my sight plane and I had to start all over again moving the rear sight to get that perfect N/S lineup.
Once I accomplished that POI was now about 3" south of POA. I guess the new silver sight was a tad taller than the old one.
Well over a period of shooting I slowly filed away the front silver sight. Great caution was used to keep the part filed away square and level to the barrel.
Once the POA became the POI I said ENOUGH and went home.
Several weeks went by before I could return to the range. However upon the first round I was pleased to see that my lead pellets were impacting in the 2" bulls eye nicely.
At this point I moved the target out to 50 yards. The POI was about a half an inch low at that distance so I started filing away the front sight and then shooting and then filing until I was getting a POI from POA about 1" high - PERFECT!
I moved the target out and my grouping did move out to about 2" and my POI was about 1/4-1/2" high. IMO perfect for deer hunting.
If I aimed for dead center of the boiler plate on a deer it will be meat from 0-150 yards. And as I had written earlier, I can hit a metal 10"gong consistently at 200 yards.
One day for kicks and giggles I chronograph my current load. I set the chronograph out at 50 yards so I wouldn't get any interference from the patch or unburned powder. Currently my "shooting book", that I record all of my stats in; is back in RI. So this is by memory...At 50 yards, using 80 gr of 3F Goex powder I get 1,650 FPS which gives me ~1,350 Bullet energy using that 225 gr .526 lead pill. It's around 1,000 Bullet energy at 100 yards.
Not much but compared to a 45 ACP fired from a 1911, with ~325 Bullet Energy
at muzzle. Or a .44 Magnum with 240 gr bullet at ~525 Bullet Energy
at muzzle; It will get the job done.
Questions?