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Length of time being loaded/Jonny Brown Hawken gun/tipis

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BowEd:
It's a 35" .54 caliber Montana rifle barrel company barrel on a Johnathon Browning Mountain Hawken Rifle.15/16th flat,1 twist in 72" suited for round ball shooting.Rifling cut .010-.012 depth,8 land and grooves.I use .010 thick greased pillow tick patch with a .530 caliber ball.Plenty tight and loads easier than a .535 ball.
Always been a very accurate barrel.Dove tailed in buckhorn back sights and a thin silver blade front sight.Thinner than the crude thick steel front sight it came with.More accurate I think.

Nice cheek piece on reverse side.

Eric Krewson:
I have several barrels with pitted bores, one is a Bill large barrel that will just about shoot through one hole at 50 yards, I was surprised to find the bore had a lot of pits in it when I looked with my new Teslong bore scope. This gun was made in the early 70s an has seen a ton of use plus it has had three owners so far.

BowEd:
I guess it can be said then if you get a good one hang on to it.I imagine this barrel has had 100's if not a 1000 shots through it over the forty years I've owned it.Shot it a lot at quite a few rendezvous paper shoot matches,and deer hunting of course.

JW_Halverson:
When I do the final sighting in of a gun I always do it with a fresh, clean barrel. If that means swabbing the barrel out multiple times between shots, then so be it. That way I do not have to shoot a fouling shot before loading and I can leave a barrel loaded until it is needed.

I loathe the idea of leaving a barrel dirty just because I put a load in it and did not fire it off during a day of hunting. I would either fire the round into the ground or pull the ball and dump the powder so I could clean it immediately when I got home.

Some folks have strong opinions on always sighting in with a dirty barrel, saying it means any follow-up shots are going to be as accurate as the first, but I have never had a gun that was so picky that a second or third shot was radically different than the first one from a clean barrel. Maybe I am lucky that way. Or maybe I am calculating my own luck by taking only "gimme" shots on game and rarely ever need a second shot.

As always, with muzzleloaders, your mileage may vary. Do what works for you, but for the good or the order and peaceful sleep NEVER STORE A GUN WITH A DIRTY BARREL!!!

BowEd:
I and anybody shooting these type guns should always put away their barrel stored cleaned and lightly lubricarted.Checking on it a short week later after cleaning with a dry patch to see if any rust is pulled out.If so it needs to be addressed and cleaned for storage.It usually does'nt take much then.The G96 oil does that for me.
To my point though a fresh load can be stored in these guns from a cap dried chamber.The amount of powder in a cap is vey minimal.Old timers did it all the time.Do you think they had the time to load when a bear came into camp at night?I doubt it very much.Same way with a gun hanging on the wall in a cabin on the frontier in the early days when unforeseen things happen in the middle of the night.
When I shot for an afternoon at a match I would run a spit patch through in between shots.That way it was'nt so nasty dirty when I wanted to clean it.
It shot very well that way.Glad to see it's a tack driver yet.It was never a barrel to throw flyers.
With deer hunting it usually does'nt take more than 1 shot.Cleans up quick.
Looks like we'll get 5 to 6 inches of snow saturday.Should bode well following a blood trail if needed.

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