Well after this gun was passed on to me almost 18 years ago I finally shot it this weekend. .315 round ball 20gr of pyrodex and a cut up tshirt I "lubed" with vegetable oil, read this on a site some guys do this that make their on patches, not really as accurate as I thought to be but I think my patch is to thin cause all I found had burn holes around the ball. Find a thicker tshirt and mess with powder charge might be in buisness

Cheap patch and lube is old pillow ticking, jeans or any tight woven cotton cloth cut into squares and rubbed with crisco veg shortening. A simple spit patch will work too. h.h.

HH I read that denim usually to thick and don't work that well but that is what I read I have no experience with these sidelocks. Dad told me they had some kind of patching that was strip and they started ball and cut off with knife is what I was doin. Think I might try the jeans this week. Here is a pic of my group center punch was a fluke I believe

Denim is tight for sure, an old flannel shirt will make good patches or go to Walmart and buy a yard of pillow ticking, wash it and then cut into strips, cut at the muzzle like you were doing. I like mink oil for patches and conical but Crisco veg shortening works good. Recovered pillow tickin /Mink oil patches out of my .54 look good enough to shoot again. A spit patch works real good also. When you get the load right and can hit a squirrel's eye at 25 yards you're ready for the woods. h.h.

I bought a yard of pillow ticking at a fabric shop many years ago. It worked fine for patching my .45 and .50 cal. rifles. And, I probably won't live long enough to shoot it all up.

Also, experiment with the load. Sometimes a small adjustment will make a big difference.

So a flannel shirt makes no difference and 30 gr of powder makes no difference hit bullseye very first shot then everything shot left again I will say they tightened up a little bit but don't think it's squirrel killin material

Bad rifle, you should sell it to me

haha

I use Ox-Yoke Originals pre-lubed patches 0.010. When I went to the muzzleloading shoot at Friendship last Summer, I had a really nice guy actually calibrate what my .32 would use as a starting point. I also use just 20 grains of powder with a .310 ball. This seems to work fine for me.

Bean I think that's what I am goin to do get different round balls and pre cut patches. Dave if it wasn't a gun my dad put together I may. It's fun to shoot anyways and my 4 year old likes to shoot it. Can the age of pyrodex have anything to do with this? Watched a video where new powder tightened up groups

You hang on to that rifle!

deerhunter986..if you really want to get into shooting bp go to this site..
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/portal/index.php?

and google the dutch schultz method. If you have the time to do a little reading you will be a better shooter using bp rifles. h.h.

hornharvester's suggestion to study dutch's method is gold. I've had a couple of CVA's, a T/C and Green Mountain. With a little bit of Dutch's tuning method, they all shot very well. For economy, single 0 buckshot with lightly lubed patch has done quite well. Too much lube can destroy groups.