my first black powder! American Knight.

[Celt]

Well here is my first bp ever. Hunting here is shotgun with slugs, black powder or revolver. I've got the shotty, now have the bp rifle, just need a revolver. This is an American Knight 50 caliber muzzle loader. It takes the 209 shotgun primer. The primer loads into a little plastic jacket so the rifle is water proof. I also got a powder measure and a "p" pad. I now need to get my divers license switched to get my foid card to get my hunting license to get my deer tag!pheww! Almost there. I was looking at the newer style break action tcs and traditions and cvas but all of then are using barrels from Spain with questionable tolerance levels. This rifle us us made and assembled with a green mountain barrel that has a 200 yard accuracy guarantee. I've talked to some locals about the public hunting grounds and was told that most shots are under 100 yards so I might take the scope off. Any way...here she is...

[IMG]http://

i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o580/Celt1314/2012-08-19_13-32-21_436-1.jpg[/IMG]

[desdem12]

Nice. You will find BP addicting too.

[ponycarman]

Nice bp rifle! Congrats!

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk

[Junk Yard Dog]

[Celt]

Thanks! I've already got my eye on a cap and ball revolver. Not to mention a cap lock rifle. As usual...a bit out of my price range for now. Can't wait to take this big girl for a spin. I've read that I can shoot round ball out of a fast twist like this so long add I stay at about 70 or 80 grains of powder. Any suggestions from the more experienced shooters?

[Celt]

This is what swayed me to choose a Knight our a tc , traditions or cva..





100% American Made Muzzleloader From design to production you can have peace of mind that a Knight muzzleloader is made and assembled right here in the USA. Quality craftsmanship and superior reliability that only products made in America can deliver. Green Mountain Barrels Knight continues in its tradition of accuracy and dependability by exclusively using Green Mountain Barrels on every muzzleloader produced. Green Mountain's uncompromising quality is achieved by crafting barrels using a hands-on approach in production. Individual attention is dedicated to ensure that each barrel is of the safest, most accurate and dependable quality. 200 Yard Guaranteed Shot Accuracy When you pick up a Knight, you can have confidence that it's the most accurate muzzleloader in the industry. That's why we guarantee a 4-inch 3-shot group at 200 yards with a developed load using a bullet available from Knight Rifles. Because sometimes the only thing you can count on is how your Knight muzzleloader will perform.

[mogunner]

I have a Traditions Canyon .50. The spiel on the Spanish barrels is from many years ago and in my opinion amongst many many others is no more than gun snobs knocking products not made in the states. There's been a whole lotta deer killed with them "questionable quality" Spanish barrels over many years. I have no plans, nor a reason to test their 150gr max load, 100gr of Pyrodex will push a 246grain .45 bullet in a sabot fast enough to do the job. I wouldn't even mess with round ball with that rate of twist, you'll lead the barrel something terrible. If you want to cast your own you can pick up a Lee mold for a .50 minie bullet for around $20 off ebay.

[Junk Yard Dog]

Who ever said Spanish barrels were bad? They have been making them for four or five hundred years and should have got it right after at least the first two hundred. I have had CVA's for years, never a problem.

[Celt]

http://www.chuckhawks.com/dangerous_muzzleloaders.htm

[WeldonHunter]

Nice rifle. So no rifle other than BP in Nebraska huh? Man that's rough. I've thought about getting into it here but it only extends the season by a few weeks and the regular season is already almost 3 months so I decided against it for now. It sure is a nice looking rifle for sure and I look forward to a thread in the hunting section.

[mogunner]

http://www.chuckhawks.com/dangerous_muzzleloaders.htm

Keep on looking... .this is like the ONLY place where you'll find this. Seems like he has a special place in his heart for the Spanish barrels. I did a LOT of looking around before picking up my Traditions Canyon .50 and it seems all I could find were people referencing this same "information". There were, of course, the random postings from someone who "knew someone that said they heard of " blowing up a barrel on one of the old CVA's, which is what this rumor is based on and more than likely was someone who used smokeless powder instead of bp.

[bunkysdad]

My advice for anyone with a black powder 50 cal rifle, US made or Spanish, or anywhere else is to stay the heck away from a 150 grain suicide charge. I can't imagine exceeding 100 grains for hunting or anything else. There is no sense to try and turn these into a high powered magnum rifle. Another thing that is very dangerous is not seating your bullet on the powder charge. A air gap between powder and bullet is a serious recipe for disaster even with lighter loads.

[Junk Yard Dog]

http://www.chuckhawks.com/dangerous_muzzleloaders.htm

That CVA rifle was the one that they had the recall on, a modern inline. This particular rifle had a problem, I forget what it was, but this is not the regular sidelock models, or the vintage Jukars. The normal run of Spanish made traditional sidelock cap guns have heavy barrels and well threaded breech plugs, tens of thousands of them are in use today. The mentioned problem rifle was an isolated incident involving one type of rifle from one Spanish maker. There is a tendency on the Traditional muzzleloading boards to discount any musket not US made as a piece of dangerous crap. However shooters from all parts of this country daily shoot Indian made muskets, Italian made ones, as well as Spanish Japanese, and German ones without difficulty. People forget that all of these modern muskets are made with today's steel, and following designs that are century's old. Add that to the use of black powder , a powder with lower operating pressured than modern smokeless. You can blow apart a muzzleloader, massively overcharging it will do it, or leaving an air gap between bullet and powder charge, but it's very rare. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of shooters out there banging away at everything from Cowboy action shooting to hunting and we rarely hear of any problems with their weapons, and rarer still is it a situation that didn't evolve from a shooters mistake or some sort.

[Celt]

Nice rifle. So no rifle other than BP in Nebraska huh? Man that's rough. I've thought about getting into it here but it only extends the season by a few weeks and the regular season is already almost 3 months so I decided against it for now. It sure is a nice looking rifle for sure and I look forward to a thread in the hunting section.

We moved to Illinois almost a month ago. I don't know of you saw that post I made about Peoria...the gun laws are a bit more strict. But we are buying our home instead of renting. I can use the muzzle loader during shotgun season and muzzle season so that might work out.

[Celt]

I just decided to ere on the side of caution. To each his own. That what makes this a great place to talk about these things. If there had been a scoped traditions or CVa sitting there for 200 I would probably be touting the benefits of those. Didn't mean to step on toes. Thanks for the 's

[bunkysdad]

Believe me Celt no one is discounting your fine purchase by any means. You got a good one and I expect you will have a lot of fun ahead of you.

[Junk Yard Dog]

No, the Night has no issues that I am aware of, it's well made, and used by thousands of hunters every year to harvest tasty critters.

[Celt]

Any suggestions for a first powder load or sabot weight?

[Junk Yard Dog]

Yes, follow the manufacturers suggested loads, if you do not have a manual, contact Night, or check them online, they will provide you with the information. Safely first.

[Celt]

I'm thinking of ordering this accessory starter kit. Looks like its got some good stuff..

http://www.knightrifles.com/#