Isaac Hollis and Son bore Rifle

[heelerau]

Last Thursday I took my Isaac Hollis bore rifle to the range and shot a few ball downrange. I was given this rifle early last year by a good mate, long story. It is Forsyth rifled, so designed to shoot a patched ball at hi verlocity, it has a ver slow twist, about 1 turn in 110 inches. .72 I am using a .71 ball with a thick denim patch, 7 parts water to 1 by volume of ballistic, aka Dutch Shoultz method. 4 1/2 drams of Goex Fg , card over powder , greased felt wad followed by a patched ball. The trigger is a nice crisp 12 or sol Lbs let off. I tend to run out of wind when squeezing off !!! no nervous shots when being eyeballed by a tiger at 10 feet. The rifle seems to be bang on at 50 yards, so guess it has been set up for large stripped moggies in the jungle at short range. Bore needed some cleaning and appears to have been coned for easy loading. Most of these rifles that I have seen on various blog have a normal patched ball type crown. This rifle has been hard used, but well\ looked after, hooked breech means it has been well cleaned and seems to be minimal damage from the old time corrosive primers. I am not expecting tack driver accuracy like I can get with my long rifles. It is like hurling anvils down range, I did shoot some heavy steel silhouettes  a while back\, it fair knocked them over frame guts feathers and all !! Here is my latest target shot at 50 yards off hand in a bit of a breeze. I do realise that this is a pretty poor group, still working on improving it. My first shot is always low. 
<img src=" <a href="https://flic.kr/p/24SkfV7" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">P2270059Shot with Hollis by Gordon Hazel, on Flickr" />