First post in this area

[HKGuns]

New muzzle loader shooter on here. I'm an experienced center fire rifle hunter and reloader. Experienced competitive pistol shooter and reloader and experienced shotgun hunter, shooter and reloader.

Up until now, I've never ventured into the land of black powder. After a fair bit of research and asking a few of those with whom I hunt, I ended up purchasing a CVA Accura V2 and topped it off with a Leupold Ultimate Slam muzzle loader scope.

I also bought a box of Hogdon 777 50gr pellets and Barnes spit-fire TMZ 290gr polymer tipped, copper sabots.

How did I do?

I realize I'll have to see what shoots best in the rifle, but this all sounded like a good starting point to me. I plan to shoot two pellets as I won't be using the rifle for anything longer than 150 yards.

Edited to add: I left out the best part.....I didn't purchase the CVA, I got it free (sort of) by using my banked Cabelas points!

 

[Pancho]

As a shooter and a loader you should be right at home on the range
being able to load and shoot and evalulate the peformance of the combination immediately. As a hunter I know the problems of the needed second shot and it must be smooth. The Powerbelts achieve that. The only down side is their expence. I over came that by buying a mold and making my own minnie balls. Minnie balls are all lead so you don't have to worry about plastic build up.

 

[arcticap]

It seems that all of the rage now days is over the relatively new Blackhorn 209 powder.

http://www.blackhorn209.com/

It's a type of smokeless black powder substitute that allows the tight fitting plastic sabots to be reloaded numerous times in a row without needing to swab the barrel clean between shots.
All of the other powders create powder fouling that interferes with reloading for more than several shots in a row without swabbing and sometimes less.
777 can sometimes create a hard crust in the barrel breech that can cause a saboted bullet to not be properly seated directly on top of the powder charge which can damage the barrel. So mark the ramrod to be able to determine the point where the sabot is properly seated.
Winchester developed a less hot 777 primer to help alleviate the formation of the hard crusty 777 residue.
And TC also developed their T17 bore solvent to help dissolve the 777 fouling.
777 is a very good powder but can sometimes create problems when taking multiple shots at the shooting range.
On the other hand the Blackhorn 209 requires the hotter primers for reliable ignition, especially with some breech plugs. And it also requires a very tight fitting sabot to effectively seal the powder charge for consistent results.
Blackhorn 209 is a fluffy and more expensive powder, and many swear that it's the best powder available. It cleans up with smokeless cleaning solvent.
Despite all of that, many people still favor the other sub. powders including real black powder. It's mostly a matter of swabbing the barrel much more frequently so that it's clean and dry for the next shot.
Good luck with the new Accura V2 and please let us know how it works out.

 

[HKGuns]

Thanks for the helpful advice arcticap. I'll check blackhorn out. The triple seven wasn't exactly cheap, considering the number of pellets in that little box. I really like the idea of pellets, so I'm not measuring in the field. I suppose there are trade-offs as in everything.

 

[robhof]

There are plastic containers that hold a premeasured powder load and the bullet, it has 2 caps one side for the bullet the other for the powder, open powder side pour down barrel, open other side and push bullet/ball out with rammer from other side into barrel. I scored 6 of them on Ebay, a few years back with a lot of misc. b/p stuff.

 

[Whacked]

pellets are nice, until you get some bad ones (still haven't figured out what went wrong. best guess is that I still had TC #13 on my fingers). they are pretty expensive.

Speed loaders are a good option. Everything is pre-measured.