Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Blackhorn 209 and a fouled barrel?

I'm finding that my CVA optima shoots to a different point when its clean than when its fouled. Would it be a bad idea to keep the barrel fouled during the hunting season. It would be fouled for one week. I'm using BH209 powder.

Shoot it and then use 2 or 3 DRY patches to remove the heavier fouling which attracts moisture.

I noticed the same thing in my encore bergara barrel. Kept it fouled from late August when I did my final zero confirm until mid October when ML season was over. Haven't shot it since but when I cleaned it all seemed well

I used to keep it loaded . A few years back I had it loaded during a lot of rainy weather. One night going back to the truck I decided to empty it into a dirt bank and got a delay fire. changed the process

With BH 209, I would not be worried about leaving it fouled for a couple of weeks. Have done so and it was fine. However, that is in a stainless barrel.

I shoot a T/C Impact with BH209, 250 gr. Barnes TEZ sabot bullets and CCI 209M primers. I normally load my rifle the morning of the first day of deer season and leave it loaded until I shoot at a deer or the end of the hunt. In Illinois, firearm deer season is three or four days long over three weekends. I hunted on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of this past week and got rained on heavily both Thursday and Friday. I tried to keep rain from running down the bore of my rifle, but didn't put anything over the muzzle. On Saturday afternoon, just after sunset, but about fifteen minutes before the end of legal light, an eight point buck walked out of the woods about thirty five yards away and presented a perfect broadside shot. He ran about 75 yards and went down. The entry point couldn't have been more than two inches from my point of aim. I said all of this to say how pleased I am with my current setup, especially BH209. When I swab the bore, I get just a little carbon and that's it. Even the rain didn't affect the performance, but I was a bit concerned about that. Back in the dark ages when I shot a Mossy 500 with the .50 caliber muzzleloading barrel and Triple Seven, I had to clean the bore after every shot or I wouldn't be able to get the bullet in all the way. Since that barrel didn't have a removable breechplug, it was a real pain to clean. I have never experienced any delay in firing with BH209. When I pull the trigger, it goes bang. With Triple Seven, I was used to the click - pause - bang. My experience with BH209 has been excellent.