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Old October 3, 2005, 04:54 AM   #1
chemist308
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Join Date: July 28, 2005
Location: Pocono Mtns, PA
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how many grains?

I have a 50 cal Traditions hawken style flintlock with stainless barrel (1 in 48). I looked through the owners manual and didn't find any max charge in there. I've got questions thought since this is my first bp experience:
What shouldn't I go over--is there a good rule of thumb here?
What works well for 350 grain conicals?
What works well for 50 cal round balls?

So far I've shot conicals loaded between 60 and 95 grains of bp without problem--95's got a slight bit of kick...
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Old October 3, 2005, 07:19 AM   #2
Remington kid
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Chemist308, You don't say what powder your useing but let me put it this way. The rule of thumb is this .. Start out with equal in volume a load of powder for the caliber your shooting IE: 50 g. of powder for your .50 caliber gun.You don't say if your useing a patch or not or if you cured the bore first but just make sure you clean with a spit patch between shots and use a lubed patch like the ones from wonder lube.
After shooting a few look for the patches and see if there are any burn through on them or if they are tore.If they are tore you need to go down one size on the ball , If they are burnt around the edges you need to go up one size because the gases are escaping around the edge of the ball.
Now that we have all that done,Lol you need to start getting serious about accuracy. Start at 15 yards with 50 g. of say ffg. and see how it acts and set your sights. If all is well then go to 60g. and move out to 25 yards and again adjust sights as needed. Now go to 70g and 30 yards. You get the idea...... Clean your gun offten because a dirty barrel will never give you good accuracy. For my final try I would go to 75 yards and no more than 90 g. This would knock any Deer or bear on his butt in a hurry.
The whole idea is to work up a load and or combo that shoots best out of that gun without to heavy of a load or to light of a load.
Get some good books on BP shooting . You should be able to find a whole lot of info on the .50 Hawken. Good luck and have safe fun, Mike
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Old October 3, 2005, 08:09 AM   #3
Osage
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The max load on my Lymans great plains rifle is 120g. I imagine your hawken would be similar. Like Rem said, not much use to go over 90. I target shoot with 60g and deer hunt with 90-100. I have no problems shooting out at 100 yds with good accuracy. My twist is 1:60 so it's made for round ball. You could shoot either out of that barrel.
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Old October 7, 2005, 11:13 PM   #4
Toney
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I shoot 80 grains with both. I shoot 100 in my 54 with balls.
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