Hello Gents:

Happy Thanksgiving! I am new to this forum and to muzzleloading but first off let me thank everyone here for the tremendous wealth of information you all provide. I have been pouring through these forums for some time now while contemplating a project and the knowledge base here is amazing. Having said that I will approach this as all new guys do - with some questions, which I hope you might be able to help me with. I have been shooting for almost 20 years now - everything from 22LR to 500 Nitro. Always CF. About a year ago I got bitten with the ML blackpowder ball gun bug and began reading through all the old books by Finaughty, Selous, Baker, Sanderson, etc. which as you all probably know only makes the bug bite harder. So about a month ago I engaged a well known shop to build me a 4 bore ML. The dimensions are as follows:

Bore mics at approx 1.015
32" barrel 1-3/4 - 1-1/2 taper octagon
Rifled for fast ball shooting 1:144 twist
Percussion RH
Classic Manton Stock

Those are the specs and since I am having the gun built for me figured it would be fun to do some research on my own about balls, bullets, powder, etc. Guess I just enjoy educating myself before I go into something. So here goes:

1. Was planning on shooting patched round balls - what size ball/patch combo would you recommend for that bore size? What would the ball probably weigh?
2. Would you recommend a wad or nitro card with this gun?
3. What powder charge do you recommend? Seems from what I have read 12 to 16 drams ffg would be appropriate and hard hitting on both ends :-). Any particular brand you would recommend?
4. Finally, I really wanted to shoot balls with the gun, hence the rifling but on the off chance I ever wanted to shoot a conical would that be possible with this barrel? Any reco re: conical size, diameter, etc? I believe I would need to know the groove depth to figure this one out. Saw some interesting very short moulds on NEI site that are almost square and thought might work if pushed fast enough.

I realize this is a bunch of q's and I will also ask my smith when the time comes but I really enjoy educating myself. Apologize for the many amateurish questions and thanks in advance for any advice! If this post would be better suited to "Paradox and Bore Guns" forum please let me know.

Again, have a happy Thanksgiving and thanks for this informative forum.

Best,

Bill