Wyoming too.
" I talked to some old-timers who said they'd seen the same thing, and that sometimes an RB will flatten slightly, turn sideways, and slide through like a disc."
Yup that's exactly correct.
And not just 50 cals. Any ball that is made of soft lead. I saw it one time when I was in High School from a 75 cal Brown Bess shot by a buddy of mine. Killed a mule deer and we were shocked to find the ball in it's rear leg after Jerry shot it in the chest more-less broad side.
THAT is the exact reason I tell hunter to use WW metal.
I have seen elk shot clear through many times with 50 cal balls cast from W.W. and I have shot through every animal I have ever killed with them in 50, 54 58 and 62 cals.
Blaming the caliber is exactly like those that shoot a 30-06 with 130 or even 150 grain thin jacketed bullet and have poor performance, then say a 30-06 is not enough gun for elk.
The bullets must hold together to penetrate. A perfect mushroom of 70% or better basically turns into the front half of a ball. That's what we are trying to get with every good big game bullet. So a 180 grain 30 cal if it expands perfectly and doesn't blow up will come to rest at about 140 grains and the part doing the damage is going to effectively be close a 50 cal ball. A Jacketed bullets also loose about 40% of their velocity in the act of expanding. This was an very interesting test we did when i was CEO of Cast Performance. Using clear ballistic gel, and shooting high speed we found that the 40% rule was pretty accurate across the full line of hunting bullets that hold 65% of their weight or more. Bullets the came apart didn't do as well.
So a 180 gr 30-06 that leaves the muzzle at 2700 FPS will hit the elk at about 2400 FPS in many cases. If we take 2400 FPS and deduct 40% we see the bullet is going about 1300 FPS 2" into the animal. So we see the wound made by the 50 cal hard ball and the 30-06 are about equal, and now we can see why. Makes sense. The "kill-strokes" (for lack of a better term) of the 50 cal flintlock and the 30-06 are almost exactly the same. but the 30-06 will carry it a lot farther away. Ballistic coefficients and sectional densities are all about flight characteristics, but when the bullet hits we want it to turn into a BALL!
However if a ball flattens it becomes a disk. NOT GOOD! It will "float" on liquid like a snow saucer. Meat is mostly made of water. Such a shape will not travel very straight and as soon as it tips it's going where the path of least resistance takes it.
So the stories of how the old smokepoles just don't kill well is both true and false. Just like the stories of how a 7MM MAg just doesn't kill well. And for the same basic reason. Wrong bullet! 50 caliber and heavier balls kill VERY well as long as they stay mostly round just like .284" diameter bullet kill VERY well as long as they are not reduced to metal sand.
It's not the gun. It's not the shell.
It's the bullet hole that kills.
If any bullet doesn't work well, the hole ( the real goal) is not what we want.
But when they hold their shape they blast right through most game.
Where can I buy .490/177gr WW Metal roundballs in Michigan? Who online sells them?
