Just one more month till muzzleloader season!

According to my calendar just one month from today will mark the start of the October muzzleloader season! This will be my first opportunity to take my CVA flintlock deer hunting. In preparation for the deer season I have been working on different loads to see what will be best to use.

The 1 in 48 rifling twist of my barrel I have found does not accurately shoot a round ball very well past about 50 yards–so bad that in a pattern of three shots at 100 yards it is likely that at one or more of the balls will completely miss the target. I have found however, that the T/C saboted bullets, that Trader Horn sells, shoots pretty accurately even at 100 yards. So, that means that I will not be shooting round balls for the most part when it comes to deer hunting. For a hunting load with the 24o grain sabots I have been using 100 grains of 2FF black powder, which gives quite a bit of kick. Because of the kick I have limited the amount of target practice I have done with the sabots and focused on shooting round balls with 60 grains of 2FF since that load has a relatively light kick. Because, my gun’s 1 in 48 twist is still slower than the 1 in 28 rifling twist that most guns designed for shooting sabots have, I am using 100 grains of powder to give the sabot maximum spin. In the future though I will have to experiment with lesser loads of powder to see if it shoot as accurately.

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