Just about everybody "dry balls" a smokepole eventually! I like the CO2 cylinder method of squirting the ball out of the barrel. Places like Dixie Gun Works in Union City Tennessee sell that little accessory with either flint or percussion adapters. My Traditions .50 caliber flintlock likes 75-80 grains of 3-F Goex black powder. Patch thickness is important also- - - -just going from a .015" thick "dry lubed" denim patch to .017" tightened up the group on my competition chunk gun from a 2" group at 60 yards to less than 1/2". We swab the barrel with alcohol and several dry patches between every shot, and weigh pre-measured powder charges down to 2/10 grain accuracy for those rifles. Another sneaky trick is to put a couple of 1/4" thick felt wads between the powder and the patched ball to prevent patch burn-through on the way down the barrel. A lot of the target tricks also work on a hunting smokepole, since one shot is all a deer is likely to give you time for! The first one better count!
Jerry
