Swabbing the bore - Careful what you use!

 The other week I had been shooting some great 200 yard groups with my open sight 54cal hawken.

While I was cleaning it that night, I had an urge to add a LITTLE pinesol to my swabbing solution which was plain water. BIG MISTAKE! The next day, I fired 6 shots at 200 yards, only 2 showed up. I cleaned the bore, set up a 100 yard target and fired 3 shots which gave me a horrible 6" group. I was in total disbelief and couldn't figure out what was going on. I packed up, went home.

While cleaning the rifle, I decided it had to be the pinesol I added to the swabbing solution. I did notice that the patched ball went down a lot easier and was slick feeling. Maybe?

2 days later, I went back out shooting at 100 yards, THIS TIME using straight up water to swab the bore between shots and this was the result.

80gr 2fg Gearhart Owen, .530" round ball, .020" patches.

Next, I  bumped the charge up to 90 grains 2fg.

After this, I'll no longer add any kind of oil, soap, solvent to my swabbing solution! It just adds an unnatural slickness that really screwed up my accuracy big time.