Rained all the way to Surrey then stopped when I got there.
Set up my new chrony for a cloudy day and then the sun came out.
Clear sight of the target, lovely shooting weather.

Only 5 holes in the paper today but all in a 5" x 3" group. I think two fell
short but where the other four went I don't know for sure. I was intent
on missing the chronoscope rather than hitting the target so I didn't
bother adjusting the sights.

This isn't old bubble gum it's visco-elastic putty. This has the unusual property
of going hard momentarily when you hit it. Roll a ball of this stuff with your fingers
and it will bounce like a steel ball without picking up a flat spot.

I packed it in behind the hooked breech so I could tighten it without reworking the gun
or gluing it in place. Judging by that group I think it may have worked.

The chrono quickly explained the extreme lows I've been sufferring

1003 ft/sec
????
1065
343 <~
1080
384 <~
1097
The question marks are a shot that didn't register.

I noticed that the extreme lows followed me adding extra wet to the lambswool mop
I was using to wipe the bore. I switched to wiping with a damp patch and got off 4 more
before it became difficult to load

1121
1055
1104
1079

Ignoring the two ultra slow balls that probably fell short, the rest fall into the
range 1003 to 1121 ft/s so why aren't they all on the target???
I changed tactics again for the next target, a wet mop followed by a dry patch...

Better, only 47 ft/sec spread, (1066 to 1113), but only two of them hit the target.


This could be a clue, just looked at the patches, half of them are burnt through
The one bottom centre is baby blanket (I ran out of ticking) :o).

This is not easy to fix, the rifling is incredibly deep and sometimes the wadding
I put behind the ball isn't enough to seal the grooves. A cloth patch can't hope to
survive on it's own down there. I'm wondering if it was rifled for a leather patch, that
could explain a thing or two ! I was only loading 75 grains which is not a hot load in a .625

If I fix the wadding, adjust the sights and do the new wipe could I be in the black next
month? It would be nice :o)