Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders 62 cal shooters?

While a moose is sure a definitive penetration test, has anyone ever shot a 62-cal into water jugs or any other test medium?

Just curious....if not, maybe once this is all sorted out with my rifle, I'll blast some jugs to see what happens. Besides a mess being made.

Shoot some video of that!

LOL, I will try!

I skipped the 610's tonight. Talked with both Greg and Chuck Dixon, and they think the one cut patch I got was likely from it being a new barrel, especially since the next shot it didn't cut the patch at all.

I'm gonna see what I can do tomorrow, and if I can blast some jugs during the process, I will do so and attempt to get some video.

Well, this ain't a .62, but it is an 8 Bore. Try to watch the ram on the left. Goes down like Thor's hammer hit a home run.

http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v298/muddler/Guns/Black%20Powder/IMG_2920_zpsjoluyrvf.mp4

Your .62 ought to do about the same; +/-.

Can't wait to see the jug test.. Should be pretty cool.

If possible, I'll try to jug test tomorrow.

Range today went well. 50 yard groups were 1.5-2", a little right of POA and a hair low. 100 yards was about 4" group, low and right. Allen and I are getting together to look at it tomorrow. He's going to flex the barrel a little to get it closer, and probably work for a couple inches high at 50 so it's about the same low at 100.

My chrono took a dump, so I couldn't check speeds, but trajectory, when projected in QuickLoad and then that speed is run through the Roundball trajectory calculator, they match up with what I get for drops on paper. Projected speed is 1580 with 105gr FFg and a 600 ball, which is what I'm running currently.

That rifle is sweet.
I almost went the .62 route when I had my J�ger built, but went with a .54 instead.
My only .62 now is a jug choked NSW Early English. It never shot .600's well so it's now a dedicated turkey getter.

Shot today and found a sweet spot.

120gr 2F, 0.024" pillow ticking with bear grease, 0.600" ball. 2" high at 50, good for windage. 1-1.5" low at 100, just a smidge right, but just a tiny bit.

Last shot of the day offhand hit a cardboard deer target through the printed on heart in the vitals...at 100. Sweet.

Then I smashed jugs. Sorry, didn't get a chance for video, but the jugs blew up about on par with when I shot them with the 45-70. First attempt, the ball shot out to the left after 3 jugs. 2nd attempt, it got out the back of #5 and deflected from the handle on the jug. It probably would have either bounced off #6 or made it in, but not out. But it passed through 5 jugs at 25 yards. Holes in Jugs 4 and 5 showed no substantial deformation of the ball.

Sweet. Now go whack something with it!

The season opens on 12/26, runs to 1/24. Hope to get it "blooded" soon.

rwl99, I noticed the muzzle end of your rifle and it looks quite particular, what is the purpose of the "rough" edge on the muzzle?

Many of the originals had crowned muzzles like that. The reason I'm told was to open the muzzle to make it easier to start the ball and also to be decorative.

It's a coned muzzle, which greatly helps with loading.

Mine is also coned, but not quite as "fancy". Here it is with a 45-70 round for perspective.

thanks, I was thinking that the coned muzzle would help in loading a patched ball. It sure looks neat.

thanks!

Coned muzzles help a lot. The theory is part of the design philosophy with false muzzles as well, albeit very subtle in form.

Our flintlock season opened on 12/26. I've been hunting fairly hard since then, and have come close a few times. The first morning, about 15 minutes into shooting light, I had a 6pt buck at 20 yards broadside. I shot a buck earlier this year, so my one and only buck tag was gone, and Mr. 6pt got to go on his merry way unharmed.

That evening, I had three nice does slip through a shooting lane at 50 yards before I could get a shot. The next night, a doe came almost into a lane where I could shoot, then swapped ends and was gone.

A couple days ago, I went out in the frosty cold weather and was rewarded with a doe approaching to about 30 yards. I quietly eased the lock to full cock, only to find it wouldn't engage in that position, and thus my rifle was...well...useless. Talked to the rifle's maker, and he met me the next day and repaired it on the spot. Back in the game, I loaded her up and got out there on New Year's Eve. As I climbed my stand, I got to see out into the field behind it, and there stood a deer. She was at 190 yards, but the terrain would let me close pretty easily by 75 yards. 115 yards is doable with my rifle, if I can get into a supported position. So...I tried a stalk. I got to 110 yards just fine, but the terrain wouldn't give me line of sight from prone, and sitting wouldn't work, because the ground sloped too much to my back, making it very hard to get on target, and requiring too much muscle contraction to hold position, making it less steady. While trying to figure out my next move, the wind swirled and they decided they didn't want to stick around.

Last night I went out to sit a field stand again. The deer seemed to be feeding heavily on the grass in the field, so I figured I'd try it. Winds sustained in the 15mph range with gusts over 30 were not helping, but they slacked a bit toward dark.

Just past sunset, the wind was somewhat abated, and looking to my right, a small doe stepped out. I watched her feed for a minute or so, having no shot at the moment, but no others came out. She moved closer, so I twisted around in the stand and got my left hand over to the right side and on the shooting rail. Properly oriented, I waited for her to pass into an opening. I finally got my shot, let the pressure on the trigger gradually stack until the sear released....the rifle went off as fast as it's ever gone off, which is very quick. The remaining wind moved the smoke enough to let me watch the results of the ball strike on the deer. It was very, very dramatic.

When the ball hit, the deer was literally smacked down. That's not just a phrase, she was basically swatted straight down. She landed on her back, hooves in the air, and never twitched or kicked. When I went down to the deer, there was a big wad of deer hair 6-8 feet closer to my stand from the deer.

Here's the photo:



When I checked out the deer, I was very surprised to discover that neither the entrance nor exit wounds were visible! The blood in her nose said I shot her through the lungs, but no holes???

I had shot her quartered toward me. The ball entered at the base of the neck, slightly forward of the near side shoulder and high on the deer. I was in a 15' stand shooting down a slope, so I had a pretty steep down angle in addition to the deer being quartering toward me. The ball exited behind the far side shoulder, about midway top to bottom. With the hide off, I could see a LARGE hole in the muscle going in, and an equally large one going out. Apparently, the angle of the shot let the deer's hair lay down over the holes. The holes in the hide were about ball-size, and I'm shooting 0.600" projectiles from this rifle.

Also surprisingly, there appears to be almost no bloodshot meat around the wounds. I'm shooting 120gr of 2F powder, and the trajectory I have with it, checked against a roundball trajectory calculator, says I should be getting 1750fps, give or take. I had thought it might beat up the deer kinda badly, but it didn't.

So there we are....although I have a few more doe tags, so we'll see if I can whomp another one yet.

Great job and story, congrats! Makes that rifle even more special now. From the description of the shot, sounds like you took out some vertebra. Would account for the bang flop. The deer I shot last year was hit similarly and reacted the same. Hope you get to "whomp" another!

tddeangelo

How much does your rifle weigh? I would like to build a longrifle, but, thought I'd have to go to a smaller caliber to keep the weight reasonable.

It's 10.5lbs. Part of that is the 46" barrel. Part is I chose an early Berks style to pursue, and they are more stout rifles. Go with a Lehigh or Lancaster and I bet it'll shave a good 1-2 lbs off the weight.

The balance is so dead on, though, it carries so easy. I'm also 6'1" and 210, so carrying a bigger rifle isn't a big deal for me.

Thanks for the info. My current Hawken-style rifle is 8.5 lbs. While we are a similar size and I felt the same when younger, the older and more crippled I get I'm not sure I'd want anything too much heavier.