Open discussion on all modern inline & custom smokeless muzzleloaders ( for hunting & target shooting )

[Ninering62]

I would have been all for one " muzzleloader section " in this forum, I didn't see a need for the division with them.
But there is no denying the fact that there is a divide between the traditionalists & the modern inline & smokeless muzzleloaders enthusiasts, & its a pretty big one.
And virtually everything that I do with muzzleloaders ( even with the cpl semi-traditional muzzleloaders I have ) & I teach about muzzleloaders pisses off most traditionalists & I kinda enjoy that in all honesty.
So this will hopefully prevent all of the pissing matches that happen in the forums between the traditional guys & us modern inline & smokeless guys. I want no part of any of that.
So I hope this will be where all that want to discuss the modern stuff, modern bullets used in them, modern powders used in them, modern optics choices on them & full custom builds & where the future of modern muzzleloading is headed.

 

[Ozzie]

I had a Gun Shop in NY. Some of the tradition Muzzleloader shooters would come in my shop and bitch that I had inlines. Sabots, bullets , powder and other modern ML stuff on the shelf. one guy told me he would never shop at my place again. I was in about the last county that would not allow rifles in deer season so a lot of guys went with inline muzzleloaders and I sold a lot of Savage smokeless ML's. I still have the one I hunted with in NY, I have not used it in the 9 yrs. I've been in Fl. I am going to sell it. I just turned 75 and my hunting days are over.

 

[Ninering62]

I had a Gun Shop in NY. Some of the tradition Muzzleloader shooters would come in my shop and bitch that I had inlines. Sabots, bullets , powder and other modern ML stuff on the shelf. one guy told me he would never shop at my place again. I was in about the last county that would not allow rifles in deer season so a lot of guys went with inline muzzleloaders and I sold a lot of Savage smokeless ML's. I still have the one I hunted with in NY, I have not used it in the 9 yrs. I've been in Fl. I am going to sell it. I just turned 75 and my hunting days are over.

Thank you for your post. I've seen more than my fair share of those kinda guys. I can not stand them!!!

 

[Ninering62]

Here is the debut of the worlds first .30 smokeless longrange target muzzleloader I've designated the " Paramount 30LRT ".
It's built on a 2019 CVA Paramount action.
The trigger is factory & set at 1.5lbs. Everything else about the gun is one-off prototype first of its kind.
2.5yrs of studying & research went into just learning if this was even possible, who'd gone down a sub-cal smokeless muzzleloader before, what worked, what failed, and why. The list of guys on the planet that are playing in this realm with other .30 smokeless muzzleloader's are only a handful. That's it!
The guy test shooting it for the first time today, is shooting a 125g .308 Sierra MatchKing bullet @3073fps. That's a " starting load " with lots of room to go up to 3500fps if I choose to.
I'll shoot the 125g's out to 600yds, then the 150g bullets come out to play.
I'll have an avg MV of 3250-3350fps with them.
I'm so proud of my friend & builder & grateful for the few guys that joined in our lil inner circle of mad scientist muzzleloader maniacs & helped out with shared info & ideas.
This has been a 3.5yr dream that is now a real functioning finished gun.
My friend/builder had got a wild hair up his you know what this wknd & him & the guy test shooting it put 40hrs of gunsmith work into this gun over the last 4 days.
This gun WILL SEE the full Tango Down Range as soon as I get it dialed in at 400yds & build my dope chart.
I can not wait!
I won't have it in my possession for another 2wks bc my friend will be doing a bunch of bullet & load testing with it to add to the complied .30 smokeless muzzleloader data that we already have.

 

[Ninering62]

So, yesterday a neighbor came over that I've been helping teach him about his TC Encore muzzleloader & get him dialed in with it out to 300yds so he can deer hunt with it next month.
I decided to grab one of my smokeless muzzleloader's in .45 & take that with us to shoot when we were done with his gun.
I'll post pics of my gun at the bottom of this.
This post isn't about the muzzleloaders, it's about the new chrony I bought.
The Garmin Xero is really nice.
It's well worth what it cost me.
I've had 3 other older style chronys & I've had a ton of prob out of all of them, they were a PITA to set up & put away, and to take to the range. And 2 of them ended up getting shot.
This little thing sits on my shooting bench, just a foot back from the muzzle & it's linked to my phone to store load data.
Now I fill my 5ml plastic tubes with my powder charges by hand.
I use a 25.00 digital scale to weigh my powder, I pour the powder with a dish that I made & this is how well that can & does work.
I've gotten 3 out of 5 shots to show the same velocity & often get single digit ES.
I was doing load development with a .40 195g Barnes Expander in a ..45/40 sabot & I shot an 8 shot string, my lowest velocity was 2688fps the highest was 2697fps for a total ES of 9fps.
That's pretty damn impressive IMHO.
My accuracy was not quite where I insist on it being ( sub MOA or NOTHING )
So more load development to come.
My breech plug takes 209 shotgun primers as its ignition & it's pretty cool to be able to shoot .40 & .45 rifle bullets at 2600-2800fps with shotgun primers & not bulge & stick the primers in the primer pocket in the breech plug. It's really well engineered!
I've ran about 300 various rounds thru my new Garmin chrony & it's never failed to read a shot until yesterday.
I figured out that if it gets too close to the muzzle with the kind of concussion we're getting from these guns, it will fail to read.
Once I figured out what was causing it to fail, it's reading 100% of the shots again.
My neighbor was smiling nonstop at realizing how much he was learning, and that he had been given really bad info by the guy that sold him the gun, on what to load it with & he only shot it a handful of times & said he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn at 50yds with it. So he thought it was just a POS & he stuck it in a closet for the last 15yrs.
In the 3 trips to my shooting range ( after I gave him links to buy everything he needed to shoot in the gun & sold him a lb of one of my go-to powders & gave him a full & partial pk of primers ) that he has already shot about 100 rounds out of that gun & now he is getting 1.5" 3 shot groups @100yds & I'm not done with his load development yet.
He can't believe that when we're done, he will have a MOA or better 300yd deer/hog/black bear hunting gun - shooting 50/45 sabot loads.
I'll have him hunting with a .452 250g Barnes boattail mono in a high pressure .50 sabot.
This is all cool stuff, but it's the modern tech that has made doing things like what I'm doing much much more enjoyable & effective. I have a lot more faith in the accuracy of the readings on the new Garmin Xero than I ever did with any of the Caldwell type chronys I've had.
And when I'm doing a drop chart, the range verified ballistics align with what the chrony is giving me. It's not exact, but it's been damn close.

 

[Keith.303]

Nice write-up.

I just looked up your chrony, wow, I expected it to be more expensive.

As soon as I read that you're using 209s, I stopped and thought, I bet those are flowing into the firing pin channel.
It's surprising you're not having problems with that.
I wish I could see the pressure curve, bet it would be interesting.
That's a ridiculously low fps deviation too.