Breaking in the Great Plains Rifle

Melnic · Jul 7, 2014

OK,
got about 100 rounds into the Lyman Great Plains Rifle.
.54 cal

I'm using .530 Ball
Pillow Ticking from Walmart
70g Goex 2F
Swabbing between shots
50 yards from the bench with Lyman Rear Peep sight attached.

I'm getting some cutting of the patches. Need to find out if that is from muzzle or the shooting.

How much accuracy should I expect out of this at 50? 100?

Vic · Jul 8, 2014

Looks pretty good to me. I would think anything under 6" at a hundred would be good.

Vic

6Den · Jul 8, 2014

Do you lube the patches? I think that's very acceptable accuracy. Love the looks of the Lyman rifles. Nice shooting!

Melnic · Jul 8, 2014

Patch Lube is a 7:1 Water Ballistol mix dried on a pan.

I also have a thicker .535 Ball I will be trying.
Seems like I could spend a year experimenting with patches and Lubes and never shoot a different rifle.

I recently tried duplexing 15g 2F Goex and 50g American Pioneer 2F.
Pre-measured at home and loaded from plastic Vials, Loading is swift and I went about 30 rounds one day never needing swabbing. But accuracy is not as good (from the bench) as the Goex. It might be that offhand shooting I would not notice the accuracy change as much.

Melnic · Jul 11, 2014

I had been working on a new "No swab" load in parallel with the Goex BP. It was just slightly larger group than the BP though. I changed something this morning and I'm tickled pink.
The POI is the same as the Goex load now (previous "no swab" load was about 2moa left of the Goex)
Eager to try it again and then some at 100. I only had 30 mins today at AGC before work so this is the only group I shot.
It measured 2 1/4" Group @ 50 yards from the bench.

Melnic · Jul 14, 2014

My "no swab" load is working pretty good.
here are 2 papers, 5 shots and 4 shots.
Both from the bench @ 50yards. Rear sight was adjusted since the last trip posted above.
No swabbing between the 9 shots.

Melnic · Jul 16, 2014

Had poor results @ 100 yards monday so I bumped the charge up 10 grains. It still hit the same POI @ 50 but @100 it was looking good enough to be setting up a gong.

Melnic · Jul 17, 2014

hit the gong.
What you don't see is the 4 misses in the dirt berm.
I was hitting low then adjusted for the last 2 shots and hit one of them.
Had to go to work though so just took 5 shots.

damifinowfish · Jul 17, 2014

Nice groups at both distances. I would be happy with that for hunting.

You must have better eyes then me. I cant see the 8 inch target let alone your 6 incher. My Great Plains have open sights. Now where is my 10 in steel target?

miben · Jul 17, 2014

Those targets look good. I have been told by an older muzzleloader that cooking grease like crisco is good for breaking in a new barrel. Think of a cast iron frying pan that needs to be seasoned. Take that for what it's worth. Either way, once the barrel is broken in you should get better accuracy.

Could the flyers be from not packing the ball tight enough against the powder? The ramrod should bounce off the loaded ball solidly when it is fully packed. In other words after packing, throw the rod against the ball and let the rod bounce. You should get a consistent bounce for each load.

Melnic · Jul 17, 2014

Alex,
Although I had Lasik on my eyes in 2001 and my eyes are still 20-30, I need reading glasses. With regular open sights, I use a piece of tape with a hole in it. (commercially, there is a product called eye pal). With enough ambient light, it will make most people's eyes a decade or more young again.

Luckily, I have the Lyman rear Peep on this one. So it's almost like shooting an M1 Garand. But the 6" target is still just a small fuzzy dot @ 100 to me. I just aim at the center of the fuzzy dot.

Miben, my flyers could be a number of things. I've thought about greasing up the patches even more to season it. I did use about 60 of the traditions wonderlube patches for the break in which I think is WAY more lubed than the normal mixture I use now for better accuracy. I think the main reason for my flyers is torn patches. I'm seeing a ratio of demolished patches in the grass at about the same rate of flyers I get (about 5:1) I don't think it's the muzzle cutting it cause I pushed a couple balls down with large pillow ticking then pulled them out and no cuts. It may be when shot. The flyers @ 50 yards are acceptable for now but I sure would like them reduced.

I'm duplexing BP and BH209 BH209 is CRAZY consistant for a sub. I'll still be experimenting to see how little BP I can use to get good ignition. Duplexing is stretching my supply of BP cause BH209 is easy to find right now and BP is not it seems.

Threeband · Jul 17, 2014

Melnic said:
... I think the main reason for my flyers is torn patches. I'm seeing a ratio of demolished patches in the grass at about the same rate of flyers I get (about 5:1) I don't think it's the muzzle cutting it cause I pushed a couple balls down with large pillow ticking then pulled them out and no cuts. It may be when shot.
...

Sounds like you need to correlate which patch came from which shot. Maybe you could mark the patches with a sharpie or pen before loading, using dots or numbers. Then watch each shot. If the third shot is a flyer, and the patch marked "3" or "..." is the only one cut, then there's your correlation. Not very helpful, though, if you can't eliminate the cutting.

If I'm being too German, then just ignore me.

Melnic · Jul 17, 2014

Threeband said:
Sounds like you need to correlate which patch came from which shot. Maybe you could mark the patches with a sharpie or pen before loading, using dots or numbers. Then watch each shot. If the third shot is a flyer, and the patch marked "3" or "..." is the only one cut, then there's your correlation. Not very helpful, though, if you can't eliminate the cutting.

If I'm being too German, then just ignore me.

I had the exact same thought so great minds think alike.
I was going to number them but kept forgetting to bring a sharpie.
It would have to be a day that I'm really able to spend some time cause I bet there will be some patches I won't be able to find so it may take 2-3 groups to make it happen.
I'm an Engineer so analysis is in my blood. I can't just let it go....

Melnic · Jul 18, 2014

Good call Threeband
I marked them and collected all
Can you guess which was the flyer?
I ran out of Balistol patches and ha some dry ones for me to try out slit patches
Man what a difference. I was nailing the gong with the spit patched shots
Thx for the wise advise on marking the patches

Btw I bumped up my charge 10grn with the Balistol patches and they all were flyers. Patches were ripped to shreds. So I have some patch lube experimenting to do here

EDIT: Add pic of spit patches

Melnic · Jul 21, 2014

My dad made a vid of one of the Gong Shots

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