today and boy was it fun.
The rifle was hardly used so it could be called new. After I shot about 30 rounds around the house, I finally got it to the range today.
I only had Hornady .310 balls but they did pretty well. I started at 25 yards with 10 grains of powder and ran it up to 25grains. I found that it likes 15grains best of all and was able to shot a 1 inch group leaning with my elbows on a bench.
One thing I found out is that it doesn't like to be swabbed between shots. Evidently swabbing dumps carbon near the touch hole and I start having failures to fire. I had no problem not swabbing as the .32 doesn't doesn't give the resistance my .50 or .54s do.
Settling on the 15grain load, I shot both Pryrodex and 3F and couldn't tell any difference. I started using ballistol and water on .015 patches but switched to crisco coated .017 patches which gave me more consistency. I tried the 15grain load at 50 yards and the groups only opened by a quarter inch with the crisco patches. The ballistol and water .015 patches gave me about 2 inch groups.
The only glitch in my day was that I left my range rods home and only had the fiberglass rod on the rifle. That is short and slick so my arthritic hands got a workout using it. I also worked on the trigger last night and got it dropping at 8 ounces. The unset trigger will go off at about 1.5 pounds but it is crisp.
Well, I have to go clean the beast now.
The rifle was hardly used so it could be called new. After I shot about 30 rounds around the house, I finally got it to the range today.
I only had Hornady .310 balls but they did pretty well. I started at 25 yards with 10 grains of powder and ran it up to 25grains. I found that it likes 15grains best of all and was able to shot a 1 inch group leaning with my elbows on a bench.
One thing I found out is that it doesn't like to be swabbed between shots. Evidently swabbing dumps carbon near the touch hole and I start having failures to fire. I had no problem not swabbing as the .32 doesn't doesn't give the resistance my .50 or .54s do.
Settling on the 15grain load, I shot both Pryrodex and 3F and couldn't tell any difference. I started using ballistol and water on .015 patches but switched to crisco coated .017 patches which gave me more consistency. I tried the 15grain load at 50 yards and the groups only opened by a quarter inch with the crisco patches. The ballistol and water .015 patches gave me about 2 inch groups.
The only glitch in my day was that I left my range rods home and only had the fiberglass rod on the rifle. That is short and slick so my arthritic hands got a workout using it. I also worked on the trigger last night and got it dropping at 8 ounces. The unset trigger will go off at about 1.5 pounds but it is crisp.
Well, I have to go clean the beast now.