Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders 50 cal (flintlock) maxi-ball load

I have a TC Renegade, 50 cal, and need to try a new load. Does anyone have experience shooting 50 cal with maxi-balls? If so, I'd appreciate details on powder size (2f or 3f), grains of powder used, size of maxi-ball used, and anything loaded between the powder and ball.

Sounds like you already have the bullet on-hand. So right around 70-75-80 gr. real black FFF with either the 320 or 370 maxiball worked for me in a caplock. A standard prelubed wool wad can possibly help ya' too. Depends on your bullet fit. So tinker around with those suggestions and tweak your load-in closer to the bullseye.

I never did purchase another box of Maxis (Hunter or Ball). Wasn't satisfied with shots 75 yards or further. Went to a sabot/bullet 50/.430 (240 XTP) after that. That brought me to satisfactory 100 yard shots.

We used to shoot Max-Balls out of .50 T/C Hawken flintlocks with 80 gr. of 2F. They were plenty accurate. The only problem was sometimes they wouldn't stay seated in a clean barrel. You'd be hunting and look and they'd be sticking out the end of the barrel! Our Maxis were cast from a TC mould. About that time, PA changed the rules to require patched roundballs. So, we stopped messing around with the Maxi Balls.

What twist rate are you shooting the sabots out of? I have tried them in min (1:48 twist) and get erratic results.

Can't speak directly to the .50 cal., but used them quite a bit in a .45 and some in a .54. Both 1:48" twist T/Cs. I used 70 grains FF Goex in the .45 and 90 in the .54. I preferred the Maxi Hunter in the .54. Never had any problem with accuracy if I did my part.

Have seen the sabot pistol bullets shoot decent out of 1:48 with 90-100 grains 3F in a fifty

It also was a 1:48. Just keep the grain size below 300 and if necessary change sabot manufacturers, depending on fit, petal breakage......etc.

Was yours also a 44-cal green sabot?

I don't recall the specifics on the sabots, it's been a couple years. I clearly need to experiment a bit with all these suggestions, but at least have a place to start.

I reload for the 44 Mag and had both 240 gr XTP's and 240 cast SWC on hand when I won a 50 cal. Traditions Pa. Pellet Flintlock in a gun drawing. I got some of the Harvester sabots (they're green in color) and a pound of loose Pyrodex. The gun is supposed to be able to handle pellets but I decided to try loose for starters. I worked mostly with 80 grains but intend to try upping that to 90 and 100 to see what happens.



That's with open sights. The XTP's shoot about the same, maybe just a touch worse. Twist is 1:48.
Dale

Below is the first deer I took with the renegade flint 50 and it was with the TC 370 maxi ball, 100gr 2F goex, circa 1981. Was a front shot and was the only time I ever recovered a maxi ball. It went over to the rib cage missing the first 2 ribs and then took a 2" swath out of every rib back stopping on the front edge of the rear leg. I really took a whole bunch of deer through the 80's with it having about 6 family doe tags/yr. Worked nicely out to 125yds.

Problem is the maxis don't expand, 50 in and out, some ran a good ways but always with an excellent blood trail. On the one recovered from above the front was all gouged out from the bone hits, had some embedded bone fragments, but it didn't expand. After trying a few other bullets with similar results I found what I liked in powerbelts. With the renegade I killed deer with the 245HP, 245AT, and 295HP, all give bigger than diameter exits, never recovered any. No chrony when I shot the maxis and lighter powerbelts. But with the 295HP, 100gr 2F, I get 1475fps.

Tried one pack of some sabot but didn't care for them, extremely hard to load compared to any of the full bore conicals, blackpowder fouling is enough don't want to deal with plastic too. Not sure if it was the twist rate or me smashing the front ends loading them but they sprayed the target sideways at 50. For me with the renegade short barrel/short sight radius and easy loading full bore conicals make it a nice 125 yd gun.



This was one of the wife's with the same combo, circa mid 80's.

Try the Maxi-Hunters. In the 1-48" twist T/C, the 350 grain Maxi-Hunter on top of 70-90 grains of FFg or FFFg should nicely and it will expand. The 275 grain Maxi-Hunter is another worth a try, too. That one expands very well.