Going Long

It's only natural to sit around a camp fire and talk about just how far your rifle will sling lead. Shooters of every stripe answer the irresistible pull to extend their range as far as equipment and skill will allow, and muzzleloader hunters are no different. A few decades ago, iron sights and big bullets would have been limited to 80 or 100 yards in the best of conditions, patched round balls even less. Now a truckload of new rifles, bullets, propellants and optics have greatly extended the average Joe's range. But how far is too far?

No discussion of long-range shooting can go further without saying simply, if you do not practice and do your homework, do not bother. The end result will surely be missed shots or, worse, wounded game. There are absolutely no shortcuts, since the variables are, well, so variable. Just because your favorite TV hero whacks critters at unheard-of ranges and your scope has fancy circles does not mean you can make long shots at will.

The process of developing a long-range load starts with the bullet since, most any rifle can be made to shoot accurately. I prefer sabot-clad, polymer-tipped bullets because they offer better ballistic coefficients, higher velocities and flatter trajectories. The exception, the first of many, might be rifles with oversized, out-of-spec bores. Full-diameter bullets like the Power Belt or Hornday FPB that obturate to engage the rifling will shoot more consistently than sabots in this case. Measuring bore diameters with a caliper or Hornady go/no-go gauge set can save some angst.

And speaking of powder, forego the ease of pellets for loose/granular powder's powers of customization and consistency. Here's where you'll maximize your rifle's accuracy potential. When going long, most shooters simply stuff 150 grains of whatever down the barrel, thinking speed is the key. Rarely have maximum charges produced maximum accuracy for me. Maximum loads are generally inefficient, seldom producing an equitable velocity increase for the increased blast and recoil. A more scientific measure with a chronograph has proven loose propellants produce lower standard deviations in side-by-side comparisons with pellets, and in any accuracy endeavor, consistency is the key. Picking a powder is a subject to be covered in a future column since there are so many new, good propellants now available.

I start with 100 grains of loose propellant, shoot five three-shot groups and come up with an average group size, increase my load by 10 grains and repeat the process until I find the rifle's sweet spot. Hardcore shooters might even try five-grain increments. It is a huge pain in the butt, but 10 or 15 grains can cut group sizes by half. Some ballistic voodoo determines whether this load or that sitting under a particular bullet provides the right amount of burn for the best pressure curve. The killer is that this magical charge weight varies, greatly at times, from rifle to rifle. If there were a shortcut, someone would have found it already.