Your Favorite Muzzleloader loads

[AMR]

I am in the market this year for a new muzzle loader, it is a really tough season here in CT, is is late and the woods have been hammered by the time it arrives, but it sure is fun.

I have been muzzleloader hunting for 15 years and have only killed one deer with it, round ball, but have another 6 or so clean misses to show for my effort. We have the option to use a bow during muzzleloader season, generally I opt for that and have killed 6 or 7 deer during the muzzleloader season with it, I have much more confidence with it. All of my hunting is from a tree stand and almost all of my shots, even with a rifle are at bow range anyway.

I use a Remington 700 MLS and have tried everything in it, I have to say round ball works about the best with 100 grns of pyrodex, best use for this gun is tomato stake.

 

[czechsonofagun]

it appears that the Hornaday XTP is a very popular bullet - it was highly recommended by quite a few other ppl on another forum..

I have found about 3 different companies selling the XTP with different color sabots.. Is this the same XTP, but just being packaged with a companies own sabots?

Powder - How inconvenient is it to use loose powder? I can buy a 1lb can of loose for the same price of 100 pellets (6 oz or so)... It would also make it easier to tweak the loads..

thanks for the advise

Brian

I shoot T/C Omega using wally world bullets - no sabbots but with plastic tail, since they feel easier to load and they fit me better.
Together with 777 loose powder (110 grains) they make load that suits me for the typical distance and bearable kick.
One thing I learned: clean Omega shoots about 1-2" higher on 50 yards than dirty Omega. I.E. shot #2 and any after that is very consistent, but shot #1 is higher. After realizing that, I hunted only with a dirty Omega.

The Omega is sweet and troublefree and easy to shoot, but I was always eyeballing this rifle:


Cabela's Kodiak Express Double Rifle

 

[thatguy]

I was able to pick up my rifle yesterday, but havent gotten to fire it yet.. Im still trying to figure out what all i need first.. LOL

I watched the DVD that T/C put out about how to clean the rifle and then i looked online and got a bunch more ideas for cleaning it..

T/C has the bore butter (that is suppose to 'season' the barrel - but reading online some believe that is bunk).. T/C also makes a T-17 cleaning line of products.. From what i can gather the bore butter type are all natural and the T-17 appears to have some petroleum products in it..

What is everyone useing to clean their ML? The natural stuff, petroleum (such as CLP) or what??

thanks

Brian

 

[czechsonofagun]

I use T/C cleaner, few bucks at Wally world

 

[GaryCrowell]

It's depends upon how traditional and old school you want to be. If you just want to hunt and are looking for the easiest/best way to do it then the 777 pellets are great, two 50 grain pellets behind the 240 gr hornady sabots are the way to go. My main hatred of muzzleloaders is the cleaning if you use blackpowder or pyrodex, the 777 helps a lot in that regard. I killed a lot of deer in my youth with an old 45 caliber CVA kentucky rifle shooting FFG blackpowder with patched round balls. When the 45 caliber balls didn't kill so well I switched to maxi balls and they worked a lot better, still I hated shooting the thing every night after hunting and scrubbing it, but you had to if you wanted to be sure it would work the next day. I'm from Mississippi and a couple of years ago they legalized the 45-70 NEF handi rifles for "primitive weapons" season, I've now got a 45-70 buffalo classic with a 3x9x40 scope on it and believe you me it beats the heck out of scrubbing that danged muzzleloader every night. It's not very traditional but it's sure more effective.

 

[thatguy]

Changing topics to Sabot/Bullets..


If you want to mix/match your own bullets/sabots what do you need to know? I sorta assume you must match the bullet width to the sabot width to your gun caliber.. I saw online that you may have a .44 bullet with one or two widths and if they are not big enough for a certain sabot you may have to go to a .45 bullet to get the needed width ..

I was looking at the Hornady XTP 240/250 gr pistol bullets and playing around with the idea of using the T/C .50 Super Slide sabots .. The Super Slide sabot requires a .452" bullet - The Hornady XTP comes in .45 caliber XTP/Mag 240 gr OR HP/XTP 250 gr bullet both in width .452"

Is that all there is OR since the true barrel diamater is different by mfg, it may not be that easy?

thanks for ALL the great advise/help.. I certainly appreciate it

brian

 

[Will_C]

Brian,
I clean my Encore just like a regular rifle, with bore solvent and oil with CLP when I am done. It is just as easy for me to do as using water (which you are supposed to be able to do with T7.) When I used blackpowder in other guns, I used very hot water and the bore butter after.
Will

 

[xlr82v2]

Changing topics to Sabot/Bullets..


If you want to mix/match your own bullets/sabots what do you need to know? I sorta assume you must match the bullet width to the sabot width to your gun caliber.. I saw online that you may have a .44 bullet with one or two widths and if they are not big enough for a certain sabot you may have to go to a .45 bullet to get the needed width ..

I was looking at the Hornady XTP 240/250 gr pistol bullets and playing around with the idea of using the T/C .50 Super Slide sabots .. The Super Slide sabot requires a .452" bullet - The Hornady XTP comes in .45 caliber XTP/Mag 240 gr OR HP/XTP 250 gr bullet both in width .452"

Is that all there is OR since the true barrel diamater is different by mfg, it may not be that easy?

thanks for ALL the great advise/help.. I certainly appreciate it

brian

Barrel diameters should be very close between all the different manufacturers... certainly not off by more than .001.

Really, the only thing you need to know is be sure to use sabots made for .45 cal bullets with the .45 cal bullets, and likewise for .44 cal bullets. That's the thing you have to watch with a .50 caliber muzzleloader... you can get sabots/bullets in both sizes. If you had a .54 caliber, I think nearly all of those sabots are for .45 caliber bullets...

IIRC, the Hornady XTP 240gr is a .44 caliber bullet (.429-.430 diameter) whereas the 250gr XTP is a .45 caliber bullet (.452 diameter)... and as such, you have to make sure you're using the correct sabot.