Ok, here's a fyi range report for this black powder substitute.
As background, I think muzzloaders are nasty and I strongly dislike cleaning them. I do like hunting in September though, and so here we are.
There is a "powder" out there for several years now that I finally decided to try called Blackhorn 209. Its supposed to be cleaner than Triple 7, which was cleaner than Pyrodex. I suppose the next powder will clean your gun for you. Oh, and you use regular cleaning solvent to clean the bore, just like a regular rifle.
Anyway, I switched to Thor 300 copper solids (by Barnes) and decided to switch powders also. BH209 is a little hotter too, so it was pretty much back to the drawing board. I only tried a couple of loads, 90 and 95 grains by volume, and stopped because I was just wasting expensive powder ($45 for a 10 oz jug). :AHHH: And the smell was about to choke me out.
I put a couple on paper to chase the bull, and ended with the 95 gr (71.5 ish by weight) load grouping at about 2". Thats with open sights which is required here in Colorado. And bifocals.:blind:
I shot 10 shots and never ran a patch down the bore. I have no doubt I could have put 10 more down the pipe. Mission accomplished, I'm a fangirl now.:evilgrin:
I did have one quality control issue with the slugs. There is a simple process to custom size your bore, and order slugs swaged accordingly. Of the 10 EXPENSIVE hunks of copper I sent downrange, one was slightly undersized (felt like .501 instead of the .502 that fits my bore). I was concerned that it wouldn't be tight enough to create the gas seal, but no problem. However, I would have dumped that load if I was in the field out of concern that the slug might work its way loose and leading to a squib load.
https://www.thorbullets.com/
