I have never owned and only once fired a muzzle loading weapon. A month ago I won a Winchester .45 cal Black powder starter kit in a raffle. It has a bunch of bullets, speed loaders, grease, patches jags etc in a blisterpack.

I thought I would give it away as a Christmas present but last week I saw a Knight Extreme .45 stainless with the brown laminate stock in the Local Tradin post paper with a fair price and OBO in the listing. Being an old horse trader and not a smoke pole shooter I put a low ball offer in.... and ended up getting the rifle.

So....now what! I guess I will watch the video that came in the rifle box .

Anyone else shooting a Knight Extreme in .45 cal? What powder/charge weight? Which 209 primer? Which bullets? I know it is a smaller projectile so what is the effective range in real life? Will it really group with enough energy to make a clean 200 yard kill on a white tail?

Nobody can help me out here? bump to top.

Dawgdad,

I'm like you, I've got a new black powder rifle that I've never shot. It's still in the box. I had one of those (got-to-have-it) moments that we all get sometimes. I'll be reading, if anyone will answer your request for info. Who knows... maybe I'll get fired up about black powder shooting.

Cary

Cary,

I got some intel on this site.

Blackpowder info

I have also determined that I have handicapped myself on availablity of components in the retail world as most of the sports stores in my area have a lot of .50 cal stuff but very little in the way of .45. I will have to mail order and pay shipping on the heavy stuff.

Sorry buddy I'm not much help with info on the .45. My black powder gun is .50
Joe

shrpshtrjoe wrote:

Sorry buddy I'm not much help with info on the .45. My black powder gun is .50 Joe

Same here, we all shoot .50's....

.50 cal here too. PointBlank can help you with trajectory and energy numbers to help you estimate an effective range.

I do a lot of muzzleloader shooting, but it is mostly flintlocks and patched round balls, no inlines. I shoot .40, .50, .54, and .62 calibers.

Go look over some of the articles in this sites Articles section, specifically Blue Elks guides:

www.huntingnut.com/ind...cle&sid=23


-DallanC

I'd help, but my Smoke pole is a .50 calibre front loader cap and ball. T/C Hawken...

By the way, I would recommend Hodgdon 777 black powder substitute. It gives good performance and is very easy to clean up.

Well here is an update..... I watched the video, read the instruction manual, Read Blue Elks tips.... and put about another $100 in "goodies" to make my great deal an average deal now. I mounted a Bushnell red dot I had laying in the drawer on the rifle just for fun too. So last night I take my bag O possibles and the rifle to the range. Since I am just trying to get the red dot on paper I start at 25 yards aiming at a 6" SR-1 target. I have loose Pyrodex RS (but no powder measure yet) and 777 50 grain sticks. I load two sticks and a 195gr Powerbelt and push it home letting my rod bounce in it four times . From a sitting position the first shot hits 3" high at 1 o'clock. I brushed the bore and reloaded and shot again... I looked High and low and then figured out I had hit the same hole as it now looked like an "8". I was a bit giddy at that point thinking that this was going to be a good starting load and I was going to adjust the dot down and to the left to center it up but of course I always need three shots to be sure. Remembering everyone’s admonitions to keep the barrel clean I again ran the wire brush down the bore but then swabbed it with a wet patch..... Big mistake! I followed with several dry patches ant thought I had dried out the bore but when I fired the third shot....phhhht.... I waited a minute then opened the bolt and removed the primer disc and tried to clean out the nipple with the nipple pick wire. I put another disc on and tried it again.... phhht.... same drill again and on the third disc it finally fired while I was shooting from an offhand position and it sounded more like a bottle rocket as the flaming pellet made its way up the barrel. I took it home and pulled the breech plug to find two things. A pile of black goo around the cup in the breech plug and that my nipple pick wire is not long enough to get through to the barrel!
Lesson learned: Keep your powder dry! I will try this again with only dry brushing and patching to clean in between shots. And plan to wet mop it only when I can pull the breech plug and make sure it is dry. I have some TC Maxi Hunter balls and a .40cal Sabot load to try too but the Powerbelts gave me some hope that this dog will hunt...
I will try each of those with the 100 grains of 777 pellets first and try the Pyrodex loose powder if I am not happy with those.

Dawgdad, aren't muzzle loaders fun? When at the range I clean the bore with a damp patch, followed by several dry ones. Then I fire a couple of caps/primers before loading again, to make sure the flash hole is clear and dry.

A friend of mine was using two 777 pellets under a PowerBelt bullet. We were checking the zeros of our rifles before deer season. When he fired I saw two distinct smoke trails head off generally down range. I told him that he'd do better if he loaded a bullet on top of the powder...

I realize you guys are talking about breach loaders, but...When I started shooting a Black Powder Rifle we only had replicas of front stuffers (note: I said replicas [just know this will bring the "bright" side out of you guys]). An old gent was watching me try to reload my Hawken after about 3 or 4 shots. After that many shots the barrel is pretty carboned up and loading can be a bear. He showed me his trick. First you pour the measured black powder down the barrel, slap the barrel a couple of times to settle the powder. Then you spit (and I mean SPIT) on the greased patch, place it spit down on the muzzle and mount the ball. Start it and drive it home. Black powder residue is water soluable. With that trick I can shoot all day and never have a problem loading that front stuffer. Not recommended for a load that will be in the barrel for a period of time though.

In lines are front stuffers too. It is just a lot easier to clean when you can pull the breech plug