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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.

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Having no idea where they would hit or how they would shoot, I started out at 25 yards. Three shot groups with each of them. A 530gr Minie over 50 gr of FFg. Big holes at close range helped to see they were shooting like crap. Like 5” or so groups. After six shots I went out in the rain and looked and they were hitting sideways! The Cook Carbine has 3 1/2 drams stamped into the barrel; I believe that’s somewhere north of 90 gr! I didn’t really want to shoot that warm of a load, especially just for plinking but I bumped it up to 65 gr. Three shots with each turned in round holes and groups of about 2”. One hot left and the other right, but dead on for elevation. I moved targets to 50 yards and honestly had poor targets for open sights past pistol ranges. But the Cook shot about a 3” or so group and the 1855 somehow managed a group of about 1-1/2”! They were both off of the paper though, so about 8” low. That really surprised me!

I think I will order a Lee 58 cal minie mold and see how it does. The Lyman that Jared loaned me casts well, but it is heavy and has a very thick skirt. I was reading about some guys using as low as a 35 gr charge for 25 yards! I’ll definitely need a bullet with a thinner skirt for stuff like Ll take some time, playing with different poewder charges to figure out what each one likes and where they hit at various ranges.

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always thought it would be fun. My cousin's TC Hawken in 54 was a real hoot with the TC Maxiballs. BUT I'm pretty sure he always ran it close to max. It'd be interesting to see what that rifle would do with the 3 1/2 drams load. You'd not likely want to run a lot of them through it, but if you can control the flinch instinct I bet it'd tighten up your groups a bit.

The suggestion on patch round balls would be well worth looking into for a plinking load. A patched ball over 50 gr powder should be a fairly pleasant load to shoot.