Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders .50 Cal. Thor and FPB

I e-mailed Thor for a sample pack to try in my Omega. They arrived today so I had to check them for size. The .500 slid right in so I went to the .501. It was extremely hard to load. Well above the 25 or so pounds they recommend. I had some Hornady FPB's that I hadn't tried yet so I miked one of them. It measured .505. Much to my surprise it loaded perfectly and, unlike the Thors, the rifling marks were perfect as well. I like the terminal performance that I've seen from Thor but I'm concerned about the difficulty in loading. I wondered if anyone else has had a similar experience.

I have used both. Are you using a short starter to get them started? Both rear skirts are above bore, so you have to have a short starter with a loading tip that won't grab the plastic insert on the front of the bullet. Set the bullet in place and give it a good "whap" with your palm to get the bullet started in the rifling and it shouldn't be as hard to load the rest of the way.

Also, a couple of years ago I started buying after market ramrods that have a flexible "T" handle on the end that folds straight when in the gun. Sure makes loading a lot easier.

Yes, I'm using a short starter. As I said, the Hornadys loaded great. The Thor just seemed to be a far less malleable alloy.

One thing I read and finally found out about the FPB's is they are not a jacketed bullet. They're a a solid lead copper plated bullet as with a Powerbelt. The Thor bullet appears to be a modified solid copper/guilding material Barnes.

I haven't seen either in person so I'm just going off of internet research. I've been looking into both for my TC Omega.

fish head

the thors are solid copper and barnes does make them for thor bullets. i have a supply of pre production thor II bullets coming to me for testing. These are graphite coated and are a one size fits all type of deal. They are in a standard .500" thor inside of the graphite and on the outside they are .504-.505" dia.

Dang, now I don't know whether to go ahead and sight my gun in with current Thor's or wait until the new ones come out. It ain't cheap to shoot many of them.

Let us know as soon as you shoot them as to how they shoot for you.

will do tx.

i'll even shoot'em with BH209 now that i got some!

hey tx, i forgot, have you been getting the 10% discount? Just let him know where you heard about the bullets and mention my name. You'll get 10% off of them that way. Helps a bit.

Not sure why, but he has been giving me the discount. Probably because I have been spreading the word?

most likely. terry is a great guy to deal with

When are the new ones to be available to the public?

That i am not sure of. Thor bullets wants to know what i think about them. They should be here tomorrow, i am hoping. You never know with snail mail these days.

I'll be sure to let you all know how these do. My Accura prefers the .500" thor so these new one should be interesting.

By the way, you can always use a bastard file and knurl that .500" thor slightly to fit your barrel. This is common practice for guys shooting the smokeless savage with a full bore projectile.

Just as an example. You can just use 2 files, put the bullet in between them and roll the files back and forth. Put a good deal of pressure on it while you do this.
http://www.corbins.com/hct-2.htm

heres a video of how to do it with the file.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NncCcscSQa8

I'm not sure that file type is politically correct

thats what ive always heard it called lol

What? An invalid extension? I'll write an app for that. Did you want PHP, Javascript or ASPX?

I didn't even realize what I wrote
And I thought I was smarter than I look!