LEGACY45

I was just givin this .50 I don't know much about black powder guns any info would help Thanks

cayugad

The Thompson Center New Englander is a meat and potatoes rifle. Maybe not real fancy, but good shooters. They have a 1:48 twist barrel which means they will shoot roundball and conical bullets as well. They use a #11 percussion cap to ignite the powder charge.

Since your rifle is a .50 caliber it will take a .490 roundball and .015-.018 lubed patch. I would suggest starting your powder charge at 70 grains then a patched roundball. Start shooting at 25 yards and shoot for groups. If the groups are tight, kick the charge to 80 grains and even 90 grains until the group starts to fall apart.

If you give Thompson Center a phone call they will send you a manual that will tell you a lot about your rifle, how to clean it, and what loads it likes.

wabi

I have a .50NewEnglander I bought several years ago. A lot of muzzleloaders have passed through my gun rack since then, but the NewEnglander remains. Matter of fact, it has even multiplied! I bought a 12ga accessory barrel for it, picked up a camo stock, converted an old lock to fitby changing the hammer, and now have a NewEnglander .50 and a NewEnglander 12ga in the rack. [&:]
As said it's a "meat and potatoes" type rifle (or shotgun). It isn't fancy, it isn't really traditional looking with the synthetic stock (walnut was available, too, but mine's synthetic), but it handles a variety of loads and projectiles well and is easy to clean & maintain. I recently tried .458 cast bullets in MMP sabots and was pleasantly suprised by getting a very good group at 50 yards.

cayugad

Wabi - I just ordered a barrel for my New Englander with an extra full choke to fit another New Englander I got. I was wondering what your load is for the shotgun? I have the fiber wads, the over the powder cards, over the shot cards, and even bought some 12 gauge hulls like I was going to load modern shotgun shells as the tech at T/C said I could load them. Although she did not give me a feeling of confidence in her knowledge of the gun. You would have had to hear the conversation to understand. So I will ask those that already use it. I want to grouse, duck, and turkey hunt with it.

wabi

I use my own card wads I cut from shoe boxes or milk cartons (had a kid in machine shop at the local vocational school make me a punch to cut them). I load 85 grains of ffg Goex BP, ram 2 of the cards on top of it, dump in
1⅜ oz of shot (100 gr setting on a powder measure) and top it off with another card.
I've tried a variety of wads (cushion wads, felt wads, tow coated with lube & packed in on top of a card) and patterns are just as good with 2 plain old cards on top of the powder.
The old rule of thumb of equal volumes of powder & shot don't produce good patterns with my NewEnglander. I've found the best patterns are had with about a 15% reduction in the powder volume.
I have a T/C full choke, a T/C IC choke and a Mossberg X-full choke tube I tried. The T/C full tube produces as good of patterns as the X-full and is a lot easier to load through!
For turkey I like the 1⅜ of #7½ shot with a self-imposed 30 yard maximum range limit.
I have the gun set up with a TruGlo f/o front sight and a T/C tang sight (with aperture removed to make a "ghost ring" sight).

cayugad

I found the same thing true in my .62 caliber smoothbore. 80 grains of powder and 100 grains of #5 shot for serious stuff like ducks and turkey. Makes a good pattern. For rabbits, I shoot 60 grains of Goex and 100 grains of #7-1/2 and that seems to work just fine.