Percussion muzzleloader

I just bought a pendersoli bridger hawkins 50 caliber muzzleloader as an early christmas present for myself. its a sidelock style riffle that takes # 11 caps. I only have experiance with in line muzzle loaders. And i usually use 777 powder pellets with powerbelt bullets an in in-line gun. My question is… does anybody know if 777 powder pellets will work in a side lock gun , would i need to go with loose pyrodex powder, or would loose traditonal black powder work best? Thanks!!!

Black powder lights at lower temps and gets more consent fps. I prefer it.

See if the recessed nose on the end of your hammer will fit a musket cap (much larger than a #11), if so get yourself a musket nipple and swap-out the #11 nipple. The musket nipple will make much more fire than a #11, I'll bet you won't have misfires if you go that route.

Pellets are designed for use in inline rifles and I believe the T7 pellets are to be used with 209 primers. You'd be better off using loose powder and that being said, some of the newer powders require 209 ignition. I'd go with Pyrodex loose powder..

I built one of the traditions kentucky rifles that is bsically the same setup. I run 70grs loose hodgens never once had a misfire. Groups great. When I was doing research when I built it it said not to use pellets becuz of pressures and ignition issues.

I would definitely use loose powder, either real black (goex, schutezen, atc) or pyrodex. #11 caps won't consistently (or at all) set off those hard pellets.

What kind of projectile are using? Round ball?

I use FFFG 777 loose powder in my side hammer without issues, I haven't heard of anyone successfully using the pellets, I vastly prefer 777 to pyrodex. Black powder works great but is really hard to find anymore. Obviously all of them require proper cleaning after use so that is really a non-issue in deciding which to use. Enjoy your new rifle.

Pyrodex or one of the other BP substitutes will work fine, and given the current situation with BP would be to your advantage. The only BP mfg in north america is/was Goex, owned by Hodgen. Earlier this year, in early Oct I believe, Hodgen announced it's closure before the end of 2021. That leaves Swiss and Scheutzen to supply the US market, for now at least. Swiss is excellent powder and VERY expensive. It is made in an old BP facility in Switzerland. Scheutzen is made in Germany specifically for the US market but is considered by many to be more dirty than Goex. The current situation is that Goex supplies have been bought up by those who use it, and Swiss and Scheutzen are available but are affected by the ongoing supply chain issues.

See https://schuetzenpowder.com/about-schuetzen-powder/

i prefer pyrodex. black powder requires swabbing between shots if your shooting patched balls. the bore gets so much fouling it is difficult to get another ball in if you dont. i have used pyrodex pellets in my side lock gun. they work. they are also pricey. lots easier to just use a powder measure. i use the same one for my pistol. throws 40 grains. i just put in two in the rifle which is 80. i have used 3,120 with power belt bullets . that works pretty good too.

some pellet's have a very small kicker of real black at the back of them to get it to light.

loose is really the way to go for anything , it lets you find your load and not just stuff a one size pellet , hoe many pellets 1 is bellow a useful hunting load and 2 is near max it's a little like if you could only drive with your foot half in the throttle or all the way to the floor no other option.

I like real black , lights the same in everything , works in everything , it is what everything else is trying to be , it lasts longer than you will live ,I don't find it any harder to clean than 777 a cleaning procedure is a cleaning procedure you have to scrub everything , hot water and a little dish soap.


do you need to swab , well you should be swabbing between shots because it is a good idea any way , can you go 2 shots patched round ball without swabbing , yes , can you go 20 , well I couldn't even with 777 not without effecting my point of impact

Good luck finding powder or caps. No 11's are scarce for sure.

Save the pellets for your inline

FFG Black powder or
Pyrodex powder or 777

you can get real BP here

https://mainepowderhouse.com/product-category/black-powder/swiss/

this is where I get my Holy Black
https://www.addictedtoblackpowder.com/back-powder/

I appriciate all the great advice fellas. Since im new to muzzleloading i figured id go with exactly what ghe gun calls for, wich is patched round balls. Does anybody have experiance with bufallo bullets? Do the expand on impact like yhw old remington core lokt 30-30 shells?

Get your self some .490 and .495 round balls….some .015 and .018 thick patches.l.and see what it likes. Start off with 70 grains of 2F and see how it groups. Increase by 5 grains and repeat…groups may get better with the increase. You’ll need a powdah measure…and a few other items to get started. Loose powder too. At the range you can use neatsfoot oil for a patch lube.

what is your twist rate ?

patched round ball and most pure lead conical do expand

the question becomes is your gun a fast enough twist to stabilize the longer conical Hornady makes a Great Plains conical it does a real number on deer nothing fancy just lots of weight in soft lead that expands well and carries right on through will do a deer end to end nearly.

pathched round ball twists are a very slow turn 1 in 70 or 1:66 while the 1in 48 is considered the dual twist it will do patched round ball and some short conical if you want to go heavy and long 1:30 or 1:28 which is still fairly slow when you think most 22lr are 1:16 , most 30-06 are 1:10

Nessmuck gives good advice. Keep track of your targets, and you will find a load that works well for your gun. My 50 has a 1:66 twist and it likes a .490 ball with a .018 patch and 65 grains 3F. Every gun is different, part of the fun is figuring out a load they like.

This is apparently Danny's experience:

...but it is certainly not mine. I can and routinely do shoot 25-30 patched roundball shots from my Mike Miller .50 cal flinter, and several other flinters, with nary a single swab. The key is to reload immediately after firing, or to plug the muzzle with a rag or other means until you reload, in order to keep the fouling from drying out and hardening.

I prefer actual black powder but it is harder to find right now. You can get it shipped to your house but usually have to buy 25 pounds of it. If you have a group that shoots or use a lot of powder that's not to big a deal. Or you could be stocked up for a long time. Loose Pyrodex, which is much easier to get, also works well in sidelocks. What part of KY are you in?

Nessmuck and k snow are spot on with their advice on developing a load for your gun. I owned a muzzleloader shop in the 80's till I got out of it due to a bad car accident in the late 80's along with my dislike of the growing popularity of the inlines.

I sold a lot of guns, mostly TC's, and when a customer new to muzzleloaders asked me what load to use I would help them as much as possible but I always used my line of "every gun has its own personality and you will need to fine-tune your load to fit it". Even FF vs FFF have their own subtle differences. I found my gun shot better with FF with patched balls and FFF with conicals. I have never, ever liked Pyrodex and I think it is more corrosive that true black powder.

Mine is an old TC Hawken I bought in 1976 and has a Sharon Barrel. Back then some of their barrels were made by the Sharon Barrel Co. and were excellent. You can tell if it is a Sharon Barrel if it has a "spade" stamped on the bottom flat between the lug and the breech. I have had many guns since then but still own and shoot my old Hawken. It has always been a reliable, straight-shooting machine with round ball or conicals and I have won many a competition with it.

Good luck, have fun, keep your nose to the wind, and keep your powder (or powdah for Nessie) dry.

Moosetrot

Mh twist rate is 1:60

That's a round ball twist rate. Not sure you'll get a decent load with a longer conical. There were some real short "bullets" at one time, more like a round ball with a skirt, can't remember the name. They were made for slow twist barrels.

I'd try some 490 and 495 balls with .010, .05 and .018 patching. Start with 6o grains, shoot groups of 5, increasing 5 grains every group. You'll see the groups tighten, then widen again. Pick the tightest shooting combination. For hunting, you might sacrifice a little in group size to have a little easier loading combination. Tight patch and ball combo's can be hard to load fast if a second shot is required.

I think they called them the Pennsylvania conical they were the same length as the ball but the front was round and the back a hollow skirt the sides were knurled but even those were said to require a 1:48 to work right. but people do get them to work in slower twists. you will know when you shoot them

the other was the ballette' I think made by buffalo bullet https://www.dixiegunworks.com/index/page/product/product_id/1232/category/336/category_chain/578,349,336/product_name/BT1204+Buffalo+Bullets+Ball-ET+.50+Caliber

some people say they ahve gotten them to work in a slower twist than 1:48 , I never tried them

I have a track of the wolf 6 cavity .490 round ball mold and the pure lead patched RB works fine for me if you can put it where it needs to go it has been killing white tails for hundreds of years they do expand

Yep, GCP, I had a box of the ball-ets. I never tried them, a .490 round ball has worked fine for me also. I just keep it under 75 yards. They have either been pass throughs or flat against the opposite side of the hide.

Im in Fleming county

You've run 777 before so you know it has some oomph to it. Keep that in mind.

I have no experience with pellets in a sidelock. But as far as I know the pellets only come in 50 grain increments. So you would be loading 50, 100, or 150 grain loads. I doubt that Missouri River Hawken will handle too many 150 grain loads. And while it may handle 100 grain loads I don't know how accurate it would be. And one 50 grain pellet might be a tad weak.

When I ran my cap gun it shot best at 70 grains of 777 loose powder with a patched round ball... And if I remember right, the barrel on that MR Hawken has a slow twist (1:66"?) for PRB.

Since I went to flintlocks only I run real black in all my guns. But if I was shooting a cap gun again and couldn't get the real stuff... Or saved the real stuff for my flinters... I would use loose 777. It shot well for me. Takes a couple more seconds to fiddle with loose powder, but you can tailor your load to the rifle better. And accuracy is a more efficient killer vs velocity.

My personal opinion, based on advice from powder chemists, is to throw Pyrodex RS in the trash.

Edit: One other point... That MR Hawken NEEDS a fine powder horn to accompany it. So you might as well run loose powder anyway.

Mike

I might have a box of.495 ball ...you can have...you just pay the postage. I can’t remembah if I melted them down and turned them into .600 balls....but will check tonight.

sabots and 44 mag hollow points 240 gr

Thanks nessmuck.

you might get away with leaving your gun sit 10-12 hours before cleaning after you shoot black powder but you want to clean as soon as you can with pyrodex. it is more corrosive. i have shot a lot of it and just clean with hot water then oil it up good. no rust ever.

Which Pedersoli Hawken is it?

I got to thinking about it and had to double check.

They have a handful of models... The Missouri River Hawken which has a 1:24 twist. The Rocky Mountain Hawken with 1:65 twist. And several of the traditional Hawken in both Target and Hunter models.

Mike

My experience matches Ed's... I run a tight patch/ball combo. In my .45 I run .445 round ball and .018 ticking patches lubed with Track's mink tallow. It's tight enough to swab the bore as I load it but I can start it (I cut at the muzzle) with the butt of my knife. I can load and shoot round after round with no need to swab between shots. I can use .020 patches too but they require a short starter.

Your crown will play the biggest part in how easy it is to load a particular combo... The small angled crowns on most guns will cut the patch if it's too tight. A smooth radius crown allows a tight combo without cutting through the patch.

There are a few vendors that will allow you to order as little as 5 pounds of black powder. But the HazMat freight will increase your price per pound on a small order like that.

Schutzen has stated they will increase the amount of powder they import to the US to make up for the shortage caused by Goex closing.

Mike

Got these hanging around collecting dust…there is maybe 10 balls at the most missing. PM me if you want them

Got JoAnns fabric and get a half yard of pillow ticking and you'll be set for a while with the box from Ness.

if you have a calipers bring them they have some thicker and thinner stuff

I found some that was .022

I like it .015 to .018

I have also found some .012

some guns need thinner some thicker , I like to keep an assortment of thicknesses some .010 and .015 aproximatly worst case you double patch if someone shows up with a loose gun , but I tend to see more tight ones than loose so some .010 or flannel patches are handy.
you will only be supplying you and not any gun that shows up so once you find your load you buy a bunch of the patch material , the balls , and the powder and primer.

Nessie-I always shot the Hornady's. They are swaged vs cast.

Moosetrot

X2

When I was a kid my mom worked in a garment factory... an American garment factory, tells you it's been a minute ago... One of the "perks" was that they would let employees have the fabric that was left over. She brought tons of it home and made a lot of clothes for me and my little sister.

One time she brought home several yards of pillow ticking. Good stuff back when it was still made here. I don't know what product they made with it... pillows maybe? A year or two ago she went through all of the boxes of fabric she still had and thinned the pile down. I got all of the pillow ticking she had left.

Seems like a pretty simple gesture, but that might be one of the best gifts ever. Lol

Mike

Also, if you buy pillow ticking, wash it once or twice to get the sizing out. It will fluff up a bit, no big deal. It also tends to fray on the edges a bit... If your wife has pinking shears with the zigzag cutting blades that will help stop the fray.

I cut most of my patches at the muzzle so I just cut off a strip the appropriate width and grease it up with my patch lube. If you like precuts you can cut them square and they'll work fine... That gets a bit tedious though. An appropriate sized arc punch makes quick work of it, but they can be a tad pricey. I run precuts in my .32 and a 5/8 punch I picked up at a flea market works great. You can make up a year's worth of patches in about 15 minutes.

Mike

A quilter's rule and a rotary cutter make quick work of cutting square patches. I can cut up a yard of ticking in a half hour or so.

Yes, definitely wash any fabric to remove any sizing or other chemicals.

Play with different patch lubes also. For target use I spit patch, just suck on the patch while you measure and dump the powder. For hunting I use a grease made if olive oil and beeswax. I'm running out of that, now I am playing with coon fat and deer tallow. There's a whole mess of other lubes that work also. But I'd stay away from bore butter. Nasty stuff, makes a gummy mess out of everything.

Had a friend who stored his muzzleloader with copious amounts of bore butter in the barrel to protect it. The following year he got his gun out to find that the Asian Beetles had moved into the barrel and their body fluids had seriously corroded the barrel.

Moosetrot

I store mine muzzle down , I found over several years that I had more issues with flash channel blockage after about 5-7 rounds

several of the muzzle loaders come out to play for a week each year then cleaned well and put in storage the bore butter or really anything would work it's way down to the flash channel


when one had a stoppage like this , a good cleaning of the flash channel and I would have it shooting all the rest of the day without issue

much less of an issue with muzzle down storage.

Yup swaged ( no sprue)…..Moosy…that box of balls has to be from 1985…The last time I owned a .50 cal ( Lyman Great Plains ) …can’t believe they didn’t get repurposed into a .40-.45 - 62 cal ball…lol

A lot of my cast balls got melted down and turned into balls for my .72 Caliber flintlock Trade Gun! An ounce and a quarter of pure nastiness flying down the range.

Moosetrot

the Lee 2 and 6 cavity mold has a very small flat for a sprue

the 6 cavity makes them fast , which is handy when your feeding a bunch of kids shooting.

I gotta get at and make some, getting low.

Had 1 long ago an got rid it, didn't like it, missfires, pull trigger an gun fire 3-4 seconds later, I would only get a good inline gun, I have a Thompson center fire

User error.

Funny story, i got to looking at it and its actually a lyman brand. hawkins great plains riffle in 50cal. I had just looked at a pendersoli before but decided to order the lyman instead. I didn't mean to be misleading fellas. Sorry about that

That's not a bad choice. If it's the one I just looked at it has a 32 inch barrel with a 1:60" twist. I think you'll like it. I had a couple similar to it. I liked the little set screw you could remove to clean out the flash channel.

Nice gun.

Mike

Are you saying the beetles were attracted to the bore butter?

I like P Pyrodex, Pyro pellets also work.

The Lyman Great Plains rifle is a solid shooting gun. Some of the best shooters i know use them. Keep the flash channel clean, you'll need a smaller bore brush to get down in there.

And because I am a stickler for history, Hawken is the correct spelling of the family of gunsmith that produced many rifles for the western men. The Lyman is passable as a western gun for sure, but not correct as a Hawken. Its a great rifle though, you'll enjoy it a lot.

Cast balls, have a friend that gave me a handful. He trimmed the spue then put in a rock tumbler, they looked close to swagged balls and shot well. Been planning to try that when I get low. Not sure how long they were tumbled, just have to experiment.

With cast balls, there is almost always an air pocket below the sprue. That is why its important to load sprue up. That keeps the pocket in the same spot for every shot. Top shooters will weigh their cast ball and toss the top and bottom ten percent.

I would like to get together and shoot some paper. I want to see how to not swab between shots with black powder. I honestly believe I would break my ramrod if I kept shooting. The only way I can jam a ball in without doing it is to use my fiberglass cleaning rod. The wooden ram rod under the barrel I dont think would take it. I usually shoot precut patches with bore butter. I use a ball starter. My revolver gets a lot dirtier with black powder also. After a couple three cylinders have been shot the cylinder doesnt want to turn. Between loadings though I can put it on half c o c k and turn it by hand till it loosens up and shoot it again. My hands end up black from burnt powder no matter what kind of powder I use. That pistol takes a good hour to disassemble clean and oil then reassemble. Rifle has a lot less parts. I wash the pistol in the kitchen sink with a screen thing in the drain in case I drop a screw or nipple. The rifle barrel I use a stock pot with hot water on the floor to pump water in and out with a cleaning jag.

Danny,

I have no experience with revolvers, but 20 years with rifles. Get rid of the bore butter. Now. When just punching paper, use a liquid lube. Spit or one of the many "moose milk" recipes out there. Use a wet, wet patch. I can load 20 to 30 rounds with no issues. If the gun sits for more than 10 minutes, I'll swab it with 1 soaking wet patch and 2 dry patches.

If you ever make it up to WI, look me up, I'd be more than happy to take you out shooting muzzleloaders.

Thank you. Son wants to go up this spring fishing....

Or to southwest Va. Apparently Mike and I do almost the same thing. Pillow ticking patch strips, start ball with butt end of patch knife, cut at the muzzle. The only difference I see is how we lube. I roll my patch strips and soak them in melted Crisco. Give them a quick squeeze to remove the excess, let cool, and they are ready to use. What Mike does works perfectly well too and is exactly what many of my shooting friends do, I just prefer a lube that is drier and less messy so I don't need a can to keep my lubed patches in.

The key here is that BP residue will readily exchange moisture with the air, and whether it gains or loses moisture, or stays the same, is dependent on the relative humidity. In very humid conditions BP residue will gain a lot of moisture, remain black, and turn to sludge. It can easily be wiped away. In very dry conditions BP residue will lose a lot of moisture, turn white, and become hard like concrete. This is easily observed in the pan and on the lockplate of a flintlock, but the same thing will happen in the barrel if there is air exchange. Both of these results are undesirable so it is a good practice to block airflow at the muzzzle if you can't reload immediately after shooting. Cap gun shooters have the same issue down the barrel but can't observe what BP residue does because the caplock doesn't get covered with it.

well it is bees wax , olive oil and mint extract

it is 100% about attention to detail and maintenance.

we can fire 40-80 rounds in a day , clean and put it away for a year and get it out and fire 40-80

I can get the cheapest VCA bobcat to do it , the Thompsons , the Traditions , the Lymans


the Inline is much more forgiving but good practices are good practices

Yeah, he thought the beetles were actually attracted to the bore butter. The barrel was chock full of them, many dead. He had the gun stored in a closet.

Moosetrot

Ed, I won't ever make the claim that Track's Mink Tallow is the best patch lube out there... But it works good enough that I'll recommend it to anyone to try. If I remember right, I paid around $6 per tin when I bought my 2 tins... It's $7.50 per 8 oz tin now... Still a bargain. I'm still working on the first tin after 5 years or so... And that's running it in 2 guns.

I may try something else when I use my supply up... In 10+ years. LOL

Mike

It seems ironic that a step back to more primative weapons has become so technical. Powder formulations, bullet types, measuring patch thickness with a micrometer, etc . It happened with bow hunting as well. I got into blackpowder to extend my hunting opportunity during a time that was more convenient for me to hunt. I had no intention, nor do I have the time, to immerse myself in technical details and maintenance so I'm left to suffer the frustrations and consequences of untimely misfires.

the technical details were always there , we are just using a caliper to not have to do trial and error

there was glazed and unglazed powder , different screens to catch and pass the gains of powder.

all fabric was natural fiber , hemp , cotton . linen or wool the weight of a fabric was given

now most fabric is oil or oil blend weight isn't listed on many fabrics

in the years past you were taught how it should feel tight but not so tight you got a sore hand pounding it down. you shot practice , you shot game , you learned your rifle very very well

if you use real black powder , find a patch material and the right size ball , you get 2 yards of the patch material , spit patch it doesn't have to be complicated at all but there were always technical details .

in 1775 when rifle companies were formed the test was to shoot a shingle basically a target about 8x10 inches at 250 paces , people were a bit shorter then so say 225 yards you had to read the wind , your ball was going to drop 40 inches and yet when they needed 60 men for a company very often #61 to show up never got to shoot

you had a mold made by your gun smith to fit your rifle , you bough lead by the pound and cast your balls to fit your gun, today you can buy balls in a number of common sizes , heck they don't even have a sprue to worry about loading up, you can buy pre lubed patches in nominal thicknesses
modern has taken a bunch of the knowledge out of it

as to maintenance , a good cleaning and oil after you shoot is all that is needed , hot soap and water till it is clean , then dry and oil with a natural oil . they tend to be a vegetable oil and bees wax or an animal fat and bees wax modern simplicity buy a can of Balistol.

they call it primitive because it requires more thinking on your part as to basically all privative things , you need to be smarter as the user because you can't hire someone else to do all the thinking for you.

driving a privative automobile like a Model A , is significantly different than hoping in your tesla , other than Model A and classic car owners who has ever driven a car with manual spark advance most "modern" people can't figure out a common clutch and shifting any more let alone double clutching or high low shifting.

changing your oil every 500 miles in that model A because it had no EGR system so the oil got contaminated with acids from combustion.

be ready to change a tube in your tire or put new rubber on a rim on the road side.

if you think about basically all things privative it makes a lot of sense.

how much more skill does it take to make a set with long springs for a racoon than a Dog Proof , it is time and skill to be privative that's not even getting back to pre steel traps

if your just a season extender and in a jurisdiction that allows it , there are inline 209 primed stainless steel guns with pellets and buckhorn 209 that you don't even have to clean after. heck now they have a Fire stick pre charged plastic hulls
there is the option to pay others to do the thinking , you just pay for it and it isn't really privative. and there is nothing wrong with that it you just want to extend your season.

we are going to get to a point where hunting has changed so much and no one moves from their little plot of land that we will just have a 3 month rifle season like down south and it still won't manage heard health because everyone will be horn hunting and watching 20 doe's graze under their stand all season long

Great explanation Pete,
I admire the folks who put the time, effort and thought to get really good at what they do. I understand and was only espressing my own frustration with trying to keep up.

This is nothing new for me. Goes back to when I moved from a Fred Bear recurve to an early Allen compound bow. Got my first alluminum arrows to. With some practice I could put most of the arrows near the center of a paper plate, which was good enough to kill some deer. Thought I had kind of caught up until folks started asking about letoff, draw length, different shaft wt., diameters, what broadhead flies better, and on and on and on.

I've just learned to accept that I will always be a couple steps behind the curve.