50 cal. Jonathan Browning Mountain Rifle

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dirtman45

Inactive
Hi guys.
After purchasing this about 2 years ago, i now have the oportunity to hunt White Tail this Fall with it.
I spent a few hours just putting together a few strings and found out a few things. The loads were all .495 Speer balls, thick cotton spacer, .010 lubed batch with the ball. Ended up with 75 grs. of Pyrodex P giving the best pattern. Also found it shot better with a some what dirty bbl.. I would suspect maybe a thicker patch of .015 might be worth a try. I never found any of the patches to examine. Found the thick wads but nothing else. Today i shot thru the Chrony and had an average of 1709 fps. With a spread of 11.54. So the loads seemed very consistent. Thought i might pick up a pack of rolling papers to try a little tighter load. The groups at 50 yds. Were a little over an inch. Any thoughts?
 
Muzzle Blasts magazine recently had an article about patch thickness and ball diameter. See if you can find a member who will loan you his copy.
 
You're getting good velocity and good grouping, what more can you ask for. Go shoot that buck. I used to shoot a CVA Mountain rifle, used a 490 cast ball, Lee mold, and pillow ticking, .016 thick. CVA BP solvent as a lube, thinner patches were not as accurate and the rifling would cut the thin patches.
From your results you are ready to hunt.
 
Any thoughts ???

You have one excellent rifle whose performance is never in question. I too am fortunate to own one but have not shot it in a number of years. .... :)

Cannot question anything you are doing and can only relate my experiences.
As with all of my .50 M/L's there is an optimum target as well as a hunting shot-string. For my target shot string, I found that my optimum load was in the 70's range. I am not shooting your propellant. I used .015 lubed patch and .490 Hornady swaged RB. I do not use a buffer wad. ..... :)

My optimum hunting load is 95 grns. Felt buffer wad and Hornady Great Plaines conical. They are killers. ...... ;)

One thing to keep an eye on, is the double "keyed" wedges. Even though they are keyed/slotted, they are not pinned and I would hate for you to lose one as they are hard to find. Track or the Wolf sells pins. ....... :mad:

Enjoy and;
Be safe !!!
 
Jonathan Browning

Do any of you know a great way to clean the recess in the breach? I just guessing it is somewhat rounded. My cleaning rod had what looks to be a heavy flat screwdriver attachment and i was thinking of rounding the corners a bit do it wound scrape dome of the crud out.
I had the feeling my patching may be a bit thin since i could find no remains. I will go to wallMart and measure some cotton fabrics. I started to get flyers when i went to the 80/85 grain loads. The 75s are a pleasure to shoot with an easy recoil. And are perhaps just fine for deer, with no need to go further up the ladder. I will also try a .490 ball on for size with the same loading.
Thanks for your help.
 
A good patch material is pillow ticking. You often find it in two thickness try the thicker one. My wife shoots a 50 with 70 grains of 2 fg and it will go right threw a deer. The wad under the patched ball isn't nessasary.
 
I use bore mops to clean. Patches shouldn't burn completely up or evaporate but they're likely going further than you think they do. You don't need the wads or papers. You need to compress the load some and papers aren't going to help with that. Try to use the same amount of pressure every time. My .50 shot best with 90 grains which oddly enough is the best load for my .54.
 
Great question and yes there is !!!

Do any of you know a great way to clean the recess in the breach? I just guessing it is somewhat rounded?
Click to expand...
That is a great question and one that I worked out myself although others should have figured this one out, a long time ago. ...... ;)

By my measure, scrapers are a waist of money as not all contours are the same. The method that I use, not only cleaned the bottom of the round or bell or whatever the exact name is, but will give you the "exact" contour of the bell as well as where your rifling starts. Most of my Thompsons are bell shaped.

I take a worn bore brush and place a piece of 0000 steel wool over the end.
Apply your solvent and in my use, it's Ballistol. Insert down the bore with my range-rod. When I get to the bottom, I force it into the bell and rotate it. Slowly remove the rod and you will see that the steel-will has taken the form of you bell and you have cleaned your plug bell. ...... :rolleyes:

Another trick, is to take a small rod shaped piece of modeling clay, cover it with a piece of saran wraps. Tape the saran to your rod and insert it and pretty much follow the previously listed procedure. I have even been able to get an impression of where the flash channel is located, in the bell. ... :)

As in all things, I post, don't take my word for it but prove it for yourself and;

Be Safe !!!
 
I think a dry wad under the patched ball protects my powder from contamination from the patch lube. As I leave my ML charged until I fire it at an animal. After I've loaded it in this manner (powder, dry hard felt 1/8" wad, ticking patch, ball) I then run a lubed patch down the bore stopping at the ball. This puts a thin film of lube to protect my bore. As before I load it the bore gets swabbed out with numerous alcohol patches to ensure a dry grease free bore and breach to nit contaminate my powder at loading. Just my method.
P.S. a 90 grain charge of KIK pushing a .490" ball punched through a deers shoulder blade rand diagonally across his body and busting the last rib on the other side before exiting. The deer acted like he got hit with Thor's hammer. 90 grains since has been my go to load. I don't have a shot where I hunt past 75 yards though.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
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New member Jonathan Browning mt. Rifle

Thanks guys.
You gave me some great ideas.will put a couple of them into use. I will do away with the felt spacer on top of the powder for one and try a little thicker patching and also a .490 ball. I guess i felt the lube could contaminate the powder, hence the spacer. Also going to try and do an impression. I had thought of using a scotch pad cut to bore diameter to try and polish or clean the breach plug. This thing is sure a hoot. Im kind of hankering for one in the smaller caliber now.
Too hot tomorrow for any testing so will wait for a bit cooler weather. But will at least buy another pound of powder and try the Pyrodex RS I have. I do have a pound of the real stuff in fff, but i hate the cleaning.
 
My J Browning .50 came with a cone shaped jag. I use this after cleaning the bore with a ballistol/water mix. Evidently these guns have a tapered powder chamber at the breech.
 
New member Jonathan Browning mt. Rifle

Looking down the bore with a bore lite, it looks to be somewhat round or cyone shaped. The impression will give me the dimensions and shape. Then i can shape the big jag/scrapper to fit. Been too busy to get much time on it for the past few days. My wife wants me to get her greenhouse finished. Sooo you know the routine. " yes dear".

George
 
My normal cleaning procedure included taking a normal old slotted cleaning rod tip and pulling a large cleaning patch through the slot and one end over the top of it. I soak it well with solvent and just scrub the powder chamber with this. It will conform itself to the chamber and do a good job of cleaning.
 
I built my rifles with a conical breech and I have never used any shaped jag to clean with. For the last 30 years all I do is use a plane flat tipped jag and plenty of water to pump water back and forth which has cleaned out all fowling. A few years ago I removed the breech plug to color case harden it and it was completely clean, NO carbon at all. I'm quite certain that you are over thinking the problem. Consider the old timers that relied on muzzle loaders as tools not toys and managed to keep them going with out complex tools are solvents. Taking good care of your gun isn't hard just relies on the basics and you'll do well.
 
If I'm not mistaken, the majority of the old timers had rifles without patent breaches and didn't have to use tools to reach into the recessed chamber areas. In those cases a mop like tool would have cleaned just fine.
 
If I'm not mistaken, the majority of the old timers had rifles without patent breaches and didn't have to use tools to reach into the recessed chamber areas. In those cases a mop like tool would have cleaned just fine.
Click to expand...

A mop cleans a patent breech just fine.
 
I never found any of the patches to examine.
Click to expand...
Say George,
You might drag along a cardboard box on the next trip out.
Just fire into the box with your standard load - with the box and muzzle oriented in a safe direction of course.
The box will contain your patch for examination.

You are wise to work loads over the chrono IMO.
Both my .40 and .58 flinter loads show a SD in single digits that helped me to recognize - in addition to my target -
that I had found the gun's sweet spot.

Confess I have never tried Pyrodex.
Austin Powder, out of Cleveland, 'F' and especially 'R' always did well for me until I ran out. Don't think they sell it any more.
GOEX 2F and their 5FA blasting powder 2F equivalent-it used to be sold in 25 lb. heavy plastic bags at a VERY attractive price,
now they got smart and call it 'Schuetzen' are my current choices under pillow ticking - .018 -.


but i hate the cleaning.
Click to expand...

I might be in the minority, but I truely wish ANY
of my centerfire bolt/semi rifles were as fast and easy to clean as my flinters.
No chamber guides, switching patches between passes thru the bore, using chamber swabs -
just a wood and brass cleaning rod with wso and 1000+ lube.

I'm usually done cleaning my .40 in 10 minutes or so.
No more mess or odors than any smokeless bore cleaners.

JT
 
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Jonathan Browning

I struck out on finding the May 2017 issue of the Muzzle Blast magazine dealing with patch thickness. Its probably too new to show up yet. So i will do some experimenting with ball and patch combinations. Only running those combinations that group well through the chrony so i have an idea of trajectory. I had not thought of trying slightly larger loadings and maybe finding a second sweet spot. If i understand the target and hunting loads. But i really like the recoil and perfornance of the 75 grain load i have been trying.
 
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