I'm as skeptical as Gil. The really able rifleman I've shot with are more apt to talk about the mistakes
they've made than the best groups they've shot. I've never met a capable rifleman that "sneered" at the
results obtained by others. It's just too easy to recall challanges met, and the ones we are trying to meet
as we work toward a bit more proficiency.
A T/C? 3/8" groups @ 100 yards? Well, a group of 2 shots, or perhaps a nice cloverleaf out of 20
shots, the rest showing normal dispersion.
Factory barrels today are good, but I've never seen one that would match the best barrels made by
master barrelmakers, past or present. I'll admit, like the monkey with a typewriter eventually writing a
Shakespeare sonnet, there may be a few near perfect factory barrels out there, but they are very few
and very far between. Don't get me started on the subject of stocks and the way they are usually fitted
to factory rifles... Yes, the gent could own a "freak" perfect rifle, but I don't think it very likely.
Below are some of the problems I've faced in shooting groups with rifles antique and modern-
I've never had the good fortune to own a Brockway or Schoyen percussion rifle, I do own a Ballard
that was set up for Schüetzen benchrest, it has a Zischang barrel in very close to perfect condition.
Alas, I don't have the original bullet mould. "Retro-engineering" from the chamber and throat I've come
up with a servicable bullet- My better 200 yard groups are in the neighborhood of 1½". My smallest
five shot group (so far) is 1.05" @ 200 yards, a very, very long way from C.W. Rowland's record of 10
shots into ¾" @ 200 yards (shot by this master rifleman using a Stevens-Pope). Sure, it's considerably
easier to shoot tight groups at 100 yards than 200 yards, but I don't think that I can shoot 3/8" groups on
demand @ 100 yards, even given perfect range conditions. Heck, if the wind isn't steady or if there's
heavy mirage "running" I can't
invariably shoot 3/8" groups with my 6 PPC- occasionally I'll miss a
change in conditions (or run into "time trouble" or any of the many other possible "pitfalls") and flub the
group. This from a rifle that often does produce five shot groups in the "ones", and a helped me steer a
single group into the "zeros".
Shooting cast bullets is (at least for me) much more challanging than shooting jacketed bullets- the lower
velocity means that a hands on approach is just about mandatory (forget about shooting "free recoil").
Then, there are the bullets themselves. Assuming that I've got the alloy right (that can be "iffy") on my best
days, after rejecting visually imperfect bullets, I find that I'm able to cast only about 30% of the bullets I
run to within ± 0.1 grains of the weight I've found to shoot best. Then I have to check the weight of the
lube. And there's cleaning between shots- have I failed to do something consistently? Then there's the
human element: it's just plain difficult to do everything
exactly the same each and every time, while
making the necessary changes for variable conditions. If shooting from a "modern" type rest, is the rifle
positioned just the same for each shot? By the way, I don't dismiss the barrel rests the old timers used
with heavy barreled rifles- I've found them to be much better with heavy barreled rifles shooting soft
cast bullets than the pundits and authorities would generally have us believe...
Powder charges- for short range, say 200 or 300 yards, I don't worry about them. I can't
shoot a
difference between the duplex charge that the old Ideal #6 throws for the 32-47, or what the Harrell
throws for the 6 PPC when carefully tested against powder charges weighed to 0.02 grains. Medium to
long range shooting with smokeless powders
is a different story (vertical dispersion); I regret to
say that I haven't tried long range shooting with cast bullets over black powder- I just haven't found a
suitable rifle, percussion or black powder cartridge, that's "whispered 'try me.' "
And the powder
itself: after fourty odd years of shooting both black and smokeless I don't know if one type is inherently
more "accurate" than the other- I haven't been able to produce better results with cast bullets by using
smokeless powders in very short cases than I get with black powder in black powder cases. So many
things yet to try, and so little life left in which to try them... and so much yet to learn.
Bob