CO Muzzleloader Recap and Review

[shannerdrake]

HT Community,

As I have documented a fair amount on here, I drew ML tags for elk and mule deer in south central CO this year. This put me on a journey to prepare for the hunt which included mostly working with my ML. I already had a 15 year old Remington Genesis (a rebranded Traditions Yukon) that had a scope and mount combo that I had been meaning to swap out for years. The overall design of the gun was never my favorite, but it was always extremely accurate and not at all fussy about loads so I figured it would be more fun to work on it than to buy a new one. Side note, Traditions is still using those same 26in made in Spain barrels on their new guns as well.

To make my rig CO legal, I needed three elements 1) full bore slug, 2) loose powder, and 3) iron sights. I plan to cover each one of those items separately.

1) Full bore slug - believe it or not, this wasn't really a hard selection to make. Your options are somewhat limited. There are always patched balls which I'd personally never use on elk, conicals, Powerbelts, Thors, and Federal BOR Locks (I'm sure there are more). Ever since I started reading and researching the effects of lead bullets on game (Montana FWP just published a great article on this) years ago, I decided to never shoot anything I intend to eat with lead ever again. Plus in my experience, the performance of solid copper bullets on game is remarkable. I want a bullet that penetrates and stays together. This pretty much brought me to Thors and Federal Trophy Copper BOR Locks.

The Thors require a sizing process and then are not widely available. The BOR Locks are easy to find, load EXTREMELY easy and seem to shoot well in everything I've tried them in. Plus I regularly get them for $20 at Cabelas right around the corner from my house, no sizing, no shipping, no waiting. I tested the BOR Locks and was sold, they shot awesome out of my rig and my hunting buddy's rig. It really didn't matter what powder charge either, they just plain shot. Plus they were extremely accurate and loaded the same on the 10th shot as the 1st without cleaning or a spit patch. That seems small, but the ability to reload meant a full freezer for me on this hunt (but I'm getting ahead of myself).

On our hunt we fired 8 shots at 3 animals. All but one of them hit and out of those all of them were or would have been fatal. Follow-up shots were simply to speed the process. Terminal performance was awesome. We recovered several slugs on offside shoulder or hide. All perfect mushrooms with amazing wound channels. My elk had perfect petal stamps through both lungs and then lodged in the off shoulder.

I can't say enough good things about Trophy Copper Bor Locks. I have a few other write-ups comments on the BOR Locks throughout this section if you want to look up more.

 

[shannerdrake]

2) Loose Powder

I had a 15 year old can of 777 so I decided it was time to get something new. I had read and heard a lot of great things about Blackhorn 209, so I picked-up a bottle. Earlier in the year, I did several write-ups about my adventures with BH209. I won't recap everything, but I'll keep it brief. I first thought BH was a waste of time an money. I started out with my original rig and had a very high rate of misfires. I had NEVER in 15 years had a 777 misfire. I was getting BH misfires every 4th or 5th shot. I had followed the breech plug cleaning regiment on their website and bought the magnum 209 primers and still had issues. I even bought a new breech plug just to make sure something wasn't wrong with my 15 year old plug. On top of that, I was getting a 100 FPS spread with weighed charges according to my chrono. Worse than with volume measured 777.

However, I emailed Western Powders (their customer service is excellent) and we eventually determined that my primer was too loose in the pocket and I was getting severe blowback. They recommended very small O-rings to put in the primer pocket. So another $15 later, I had 100 tiny O-rings and more testing. Unfortunately, I dropped the o-ring and primer in and couldn't close the action. I then ended up having to mill out the primer pocket on my breech plug just a little bit to get a tight seal. I eventually ended up sliding an o-ring on the primer itself so I got sort of a double seal.

I went back to the range, this time no misfires despite over 10 consecutive shots and to my amazement, I averaged less then a 15fps spread on my velocity - amazing! My premium 300 win mag rounds average around 30FPS spreads.

I will add though that my buddy's ML did fail to fire when the moment mattered. Luckily I was with him and I gave him my gun and it worked (read more about that on "CO ML Success" under the Deer threads). We ended up firing 7 primers through it and never got it to work. We ended up screwing the breach out and pushing the charge out the back. We then loaded a fresh charge and it fired, so no clue what happened there.

All of that being said, I recommend BH, but only if you are willing, if needed, to work with it. Particularly if you have an older ML, it may not be a turnkey setup for you. I'd also never consider shooting BH via volume measurements. It is the most inconsistent volumetric powder I've ever seen. I could weigh out a max charge by weight of 85g and then put it in my volume measure and with little effort compress it to 105g and then easily fluff it to 120g. Do yourself a favor and weigh BH209. For me the pros outweigh the cons so I will stick with BH.

 

[shannerdrake]

3) Iron Sights

If your gun came with factory fiber optic sights, they will work. I want to start with saying that. However, I like to tinker and I like to be prepared for the longer shots if needed and I was missing my rear sight from my gun.

I ended up with the Williams Gunsight Western Precision peep and globe setup. It is really an awesome setup and takes some of the guesswork out of setting up a globe/peep combo. But again, it was far from turn key. On my gun I had to add a shim to my rear sight. I cannot for the life of me understand why Williams doesn't just include couple shims with the kit. It would cost them less than a nickel. I ended up making my own out of a piece of aluminum channel I had on hand. It took a little work to hammer it out and shape it how i wanted it, but it worked. You can also use roof flashing and if you need a short shim, even a piece from a pop can. I also had a pretty big gap between the front globe and the barrel. The sight was only contacting the barrel on the bottom of the sight. This was raising the front sight which was making my rear sight problems worse. Instead of adding another shim to raise my rear sight, I decided to lower the front. I ended up wrapping my barrel with emery cloth and slid the sight until I removed enough material to marry the sight and barrel. The process was very much like lapping a scope. This in the end gave me a more solid mount and gave me more adjustment with the rear sight instead of maxing out the height.

At the range this setup was incredible. I easily shot under 4in at 100 with these sights. However, I quickly learned that they are pretty dark. The thin crosshairs disappeared in anything but direct sunlight. I tried painting the crosshairs white, which helped a little in the shade, but washed them out and made them very hard to see in direct sunlight. I did end up painting the front ring and inside of the globe white. This was a great choice. The white definitely helped with light reflection and the white ring was very easy to pickup. Some of you open sight shooters are familiar with the ring in ring approach. In short, I new the in a low light situation if i could center the front ring inside of the peep, I would be sufficiently accurate in a close shot, low light setting. I have an awesome pic below that shows how well the white ring stands out in a real world situation. I cannot recommend doing this enough to anyone using this setup.

All that being said, I was still having a hard time seeing the front crosshairs in low light settings. As I've said before, I like to tinker and have a lot of stuff to mess around with. I ended up using a little section of fiber optic cable for a bow sight and making a fiber optic insert for my globe. I cut the middle out of one of the crosshairs, glued the fiber optic in place using gel superglue then, ran the fiber optic down to the bottom of the globe inline with the bottom leg of the crosshair (so I couldn't see it). I think glued the cable to the bottom of the sight and out to the front. I left just a little bit hanging over the end and cut it off clean. This way it was bringing light from the outside of the globe to the middle. It took some tinkering, but it worked AWESOME.

I ended up giving up some precision as the fiber optic was not as fine as the crosshair, but I added a lot of low light performance. I ended up shooting my elk right around sunset and while it was far from dark, it wasn't even close to full daylight. The fiber optic dot and white ring of the globe practically glowed on that elk.

Again, I recommend the Williams Sights, but much like the BH209, only if you are willing to work with them. They are far superior to factory sights. I was legitimately accurate and deadly out to 200 yards with my setup. I actually had a MBPR 175yds with this setup and had no problem ringing an 8 inch gong at that range. Pretty awesome for an open sigh ML.

 

[shannerdrake]

In conclusion, my setup worked for me. My gun was actually used by my buddy to shoot his buck (read CO ML Success under Deer), I then used the same gun (reloaded) to shoot my buck moments later. The same ML without being cleaned the next night was used on my bull. In all 8 shots in about 25 hours, no misfires, extremely impressive wound channels and mushroomed bullets, and most importantly, I was able to reload easily and quickly in the field. For my bull (read CO ML Success under Elk), the ability to reload is why I have the bull below in my freezer. I can't imagine trying to reload a sabot (where legal) with a dirty 777 bullet laying on my back with a big bull a few yards away. The BOR Lock and BH209 setup made that a breeze. And like I said, my sights practically glowed when on the animals. You can see how well the front stands out with the over shoulder pic above.

Final thought, the meat processor found a slug lodged in the bone of my buck that I missed while cleaning him. He has cut up 100s of animals and is also an elk guide. He was so impressed that he dug the slug out, cleaned it up and asked me to text him info on it. He is going to recommend it to all his clients going forward.

 

[wolfpup]

I love my Williams peep site for my ML ... thanks for the info .. I will check out those federal BOR ... glad my muzzle isn’t as picky on powders though ... I dump some down the hole and it goes bang ... I would be interested in that actual numbers though as I know I didn’t spend enough time shooting before season

 

[prhunter]

Congrats on your success!

I was using Federal BOR-locks this year as well while hunting Colorado elk. Unfortunately, no elk presented a shot therefore I came home emptyhanded.

These bullets (350gr lead) were really accurate out of my Knight DISC using 100gr of Pyrodex.

 

[pre6422hornet]

Yeah Williams peeps sites are nice. My CO muzzleloader is set up with one. I have two muzzleloaders so one is permanently set up for CO.

 

[Valgrego]

HT Community,

As I have documented a fair amount on here, I drew ML tags for elk and mule deer in south central CO this year. This put me on a journey to prepare for the hunt which included mostly working with my ML. I already had a 15 year old Remington Genesis (a rebranded Traditions Yukon) that had a scope and mount combo that I had been meaning to swap out for years. The overall design of the gun was never my favorite, but it was always extremely accurate and not at all fussy about loads so I figured it would be more fun to work on it than to buy a new one. Side note, Traditions is still using those same 26in made in Spain barrels on their new guns as well.

To make my rig CO legal, I needed three elements 1) full bore slug, 2) loose powder, and 3) iron sights. I plan to cover each one of those items separately.

1) Full bore slug - believe it or not, this wasn't really a hard selection to make. Your options are somewhat limited. There are always patched balls which I'd personally never use on elk, conicals, Powerbelts, Thors, and Federal BOR Locks (I'm sure there are more). Ever since I started reading and researching the effects of lead bullets on game (Montana FWP just published a great article on this) years ago, I decided to never shoot anything I intend to eat with lead ever again. Plus in my experience, the performance of solid copper bullets on game is remarkable. I want a bullet that penetrates and stays together. This pretty much brought me to Thors and Federal Trophy Copper BOR Locks.

The Thors require a sizing process and then are not widely available. The BOR Locks are easy to find, load EXTREMELY easy and seem to shoot well in everything I've tried them in. Plus I regularly get them for $20 at Cabelas right around the corner from my house, no sizing, no shipping, no waiting. I tested the BOR Locks and was sold, they shot awesome out of my rig and my hunting buddy's rig. It really didn't matter what powder charge either, they just plain shot. Plus they were extremely accurate and loaded the same on the 10th shot as the 1st without cleaning or a spit patch. That seems small, but the ability to reload meant a full freezer for me on this hunt (but I'm getting ahead of myself).

On our hunt we fired 8 shots at 3 animals. All but one of them hit and out of those all of them were or would have been fatal. Follow-up shots were simply to speed the process. Terminal performance was awesome. We recovered several slugs on offside shoulder or hide. All perfect mushrooms with amazing wound channels. My elk had perfect petal stamps through both lungs and then lodged in the off shoulder.

I can't say enough good things about Trophy Copper Bor Locks. I have a few other write-ups comments on the BOR Locks throughout this section if you want to look up more.

Shannerdrake. Great write-up. I just ordered some Thor 300 gr. I've had great results with the 350 gr BOR bullets (all lead), so I wanted to compare performance. The Thors are nearly twice as much, depending on where you find them, so I'll see if they are worth the extra cost. Being all copper has advantages though, as you described. I have to try the 270 gr BOR all copper too.

 

[furfishngame]

Really appreciate the details on the sights! Planning to get a Williams setup on my muzzy before my next CO elk trip(hopefully next fall). I have a TC with the metal/fiber sights and they just cover SO much of a target.

When we went out in 2017 for my first trip I was using the Thors but never got to put em into action. I actually had a pack of BOR Loc Coppers with as emergency.

Happy hunting! furfishngame

 

[Buckskins&BlackPowder]

8 shots fired at 3 animals and only 1 hit? What in the world was the issue?

 

[Mudranger1]

8 shots fired at 3 animals and only 1 hit? What in the world was the issue?

Pretty sure he said only 1 missed

 

[Buckskins&BlackPowder]

ok i reread it, a lot of follow up shots i see.

 

[shannerdrake]

ok i reread it, a lot of follow up shots i see.

Yes, we were dealing with some property line issues so anchoring animals was a priority. Every animal was dead on his feet after the first hit, but I'm of the David Petzal mindset - "send another round, it shows you care."

I put an extra round in both my bull and buck while they were laying and expiring, hindsight it was a wasted shot on the buck and I should have held off. However, the bull was still fighting to get up and was literally inches away from sliding down a considerable drop-off. Therefore, I don't regret that one.

 

[Sasquatchewan]

Congrats on both buck/bull.

There isn't anything wrong with deader than dead.

 

[Rhino Hunter]

Congrats! Great write up too!

 

[choc dogs]

If someone from IDFG is reading this, see the reasons we should get rid of the all lead mandate. Thanks for the write up, and Ideas. I'm using what I've got this year, since I didn't start sourcing early, but will be changing sights next year, I hope.