Dissapointed. Well, my new bullets arrived. I couldn't even get the first one an inch down the barrel. So I got it out and used a patch with some of that "butter" stuff on it. I only went down about as long as the bullet starter. It loaded hard, but it loaded. You were right about the Barnes bullets flying higher than the previous ones. By about a good FOOT !!!

But the more I shot, the harder they got to load. I got to where I had to use that "butter" stuff all the way down the barrel, THAT, or use an iron rod with a sledge hammer :-). I put a Barnes bullet with an old EZ load sabot. I could have loaded that with my pinky finger.

Here is a my taget. These are after I had tried a few things. I shot at the center each time. It was breezy, but mostly from behind. The holes are numbered in the order i shot them. After I shot the first three, and being so spread out, I thought I'd try my last 3. They were so close to the first 3 holes, I thought I was missing the target.

None of these loaded easy. Some were a knat's behind close to being too hard to load. I was worried I was going to break my rod on a couple. But i can't get over how they keep repeating the cycle. Have you ever seen this before? If I rememvber right, the very hard to load ones were the lower ones. I shot a couple where I put more "butter" (I used both sides of the patch and I worked it up and down more. The ones that were firm, but not really hard to load were the ones that shot high. I don't have a clue. I'll get some lead bullets and measure the barrel this weekend.

As deer hunting season gets here, I may go back to the 777 powder, the e-z load sabots with the 300 grain bullets, and just clean it like I started out with. Moisten my one wet patch with just saliva. Use both sides - pay paticular attention to the crud ring area, then 2 dry patches using both sides. That seemed to give me repeat accuracy.

I am going to sleep on this and get back to you tomorrow.

Good morning,
My first suggestion is to get some bullets that fit your gun. We have a serious problem here when you have to apply excessive pressure to load and seat a bullet. Now, that being said you should probably mic that bore first to see what you have. You may have to polish the bore to bring it up to size. You can do this yourself or have your favorite gunsmith do it. I have done it and it does take some time. Undersized bullets can be a whole different problem.

If you can find bullets that will load with out excessive pressure I would go back to the bench and shoot paying very strict attention to all of the basics and see what that does for you. I believe in retraining myself occasionally when things start to go wrong and I find I do get a little sloppy once in awhile.

What size is that target? OH,yeah, I was going to ask where about in Iowa did you farm??


What kind of loads are you using? What is the rate of twist in your barrel? Is your scope tight?

What do you think the odds are that Traditions will get me a new barrel? I was hopeful when I ran the first bullet down the barrel about 6 to 8 inches. I used a wooden dowel to push it back out. It measured about .500 to .501. The barrel grooves look good. So I do another bullet, and as soon as it gets about 10 inches down, there is little resistance. Then it gets to the other (breech) end and I'm afraid the bullet will get stuck it's going so hard. I pushed it through the breech end and it measured .495 -.496. Since both ends are smaller than the middle, there is no way to tell what that measurement is. A wooden dowel doesn't weigh much, and in the middle of the barrel, all it took was raising the dowel a few inches and then dropping it. That was enough to push the bullet down till it rapidly got a lot smaller.

So that explains why bullets are hard to seat. But it doesn't explain why it was so hard to load those Barnes bullets. Isn't a 50 cal barrel supposed to be .500 ? That also explains why I got the best results with the easy load sabots.

I believe you should take your problem up with Traditions and see what you can do. You are probably loosing gas pressure in the middle of your barrel and I am not sure you can do anything to over come your problem short of a new barrel or new rifle. It should run.500 breech to muzzle or - a reasonable tolerance of .001. I would say if it runs oversize at all you have a problem in the making. Another alterative is to have your barrel bored out to 52 cal by a competent barrel maker.

I e-mailed Traditions before I posted. I really like those Barnes bullets and will try and find one that works with my barrel, be it as it may. I'm going to e-mail Barnes about my problem and see if they won't sell me just their version of some e-z-load sabots to try. Did I tell you when I switched from Hornady bullets to Barnes (close to the same weight) that the Barnes was close to a foot higher! I'm also going to keep a log book on each practice shot from now on too.

I'm thinking that the longer (heavier) bullets help seal the e-z-load sabots, making them more accurate. Will post when I hear from Traditions.

I think it will be intresting to see what Traditions has to say!

If I had bought it new, I would have figured this out (with your help, of course) sooner, where they would have no choice but to replace it. Buying it used will make it a lot more difficult. I have the feeling my "great deal" will end up costing more than a new rifle by the time I'm done.

Unless I come up with a bullet / sabot combination that works well with this barrel. I guess in the long run, even if I have to buy one set of bullets to get the correct sabot, then another set of bullets to get the best bullet, it might be cheaper than a new barrel.

Have you ever checked your barrels? Is there such a thing as a "match grade" black powder barrel? Knowing what I know now, I don't think I would buy a black powder rifle without running a lead bullet down the barrel to measure it and see how it "feels". New or used.

Knight Rifles guranteed the accuracy on their black powder rifles, but they are no longer in business. However Green Mountain Barrel Company who made all of Knights barrels is still in business and can probably do the job for you. Green Mountain is widely regarded as the best in the business.

Maybe Traditions will surprise me. But I'm not holding my breath.

I looked at the Traditions site to see if they listed any parts. I didn't see a replacement barrel for my rifle listed, but many others were. I also didn't see any breech plugs for my rifle listed. I did see "my" rifle is back ordered, so getting a new barrel, or any other parts, any time soon will be out of the question.

Well, that is a bum deal!!!!!@

Try Cabela's Dead Center Sabots.

That is a good choice to try! They come in 195-300 grain and if you go to Precision Rifle on Google or Bing you can see the whole line.

There are a lot of "ifs", but is there a 'quick' way to take a couple thou off the first foot of the barrel? With a lead bullet, I can feel and measure where the barrel starts getting smaller, so it's not like I have to do the whole barrel.

Is there any way to tell if the previous owner tried anything with the barrel?