Barrel length

[robinhood113]

Ok so I know this is not about a knight but figured I would ask for him since there seems to be plenty of knowledgeable persons on here. My friend has an encore pro hunter and wants to buy the katahdin 20" barrel in 209x50 for it. My question is how much velocity can he expect to loose in the 20" and will shooting the full 120gr of BH209 be wasting powder or will it still burn it all?
Oh and sabotloader if you read this I tried to pm you but for some reason it just keeps giving my a white blank screen when I hit send and never sends the pm.

Thanks
Mark

[sabotloader]

Ok so I know this is not about a knight but figured I would ask for him since there seems to be plenty of knowledgeable persons on here. My friend has an encore pro hunter and wants to buy the katahdin 20" barrel in 209x50 for it. My question is how much velocity can he expect to loose in the 20" and will shooting the full 120gr of BH209 be wasting powder or will it still burn it all?
Oh and sabotloader if you read this I tried to pm you but for some reason it just keeps giving my a white blank screen when I hit send and never sends the pm.

Thanks
Mark

Mark, I just tried to send you a PM also - same results. The PM system must not be working.

Now back to the question moving down to a 20" barrel will reduce the velocity but I would not expect it to be a dramatic drop. I would guess 100-150 fps.

Now the powder question... I do not believe you will be able to burn 120 grains of BH in a 20" barrel. BH is a slow buring powder and it is also progressive burning so it needs the length of the barrel to become more efficient. I am thinking you might need to move to T7-3f to really take advantage of the short barrel.

But you know I would certainly try it first before you believe me.

[robinhood113]

Thanks for the info I told him I thought there wouldn't be that big of a drop in velocity he was scared he would loose 300fps or so. I did tell him that he might have to rethink the powder or at least that charge of BH. Really hope he does get it im interested in testing it now.

mark

[robinhood113]

Oh and how dirty does that T7-3f burn? He likes how clean my rifle stays in between shots using the BH.

[sabotloader]

Oh and how dirty does that T7-3f burn? He likes how clean my rifle stays in between shots using the BH.

T7-3f is cleaner than 2f but it certainly is not as clean as BH. Just about anytime you use T7 with a 209 primer you are going to end up with some form of 'crud ring'.

One of the things that I think helps reduce the crud ring is the use of synthetic oil in the bore such as Slip 2000 or Montana X-treme Bore Conditioner.

[robinhood113]

Would you advise him to clean between each shot with the T7-3f? Or something we'll just have to test? Sorry for all the questions just really getting into muzzleloading. Still shooting one of my fathers original wolverines converted to 209.

[sabotloader]

Would you advise him to clean between each shot with the T7-3f? Or something we'll just have to test? Sorry for all the questions just really getting into muzzleloading. Still shooting one of my fathers original wolverines converted to 209.

Target or range work patch between shots...



Hunting and using synthetic bore oil - I can shoot 4-5 shots in a row before the crud ring becomes a factor...

The Wolverine with a #11 cap and T7-3f - load all day no crud ring