Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders 1:48 twist - Patched round balls

Normally I shoot 70gr 3fg Goex in this rifle as its all out hunting load. Super accurate and dead on the money. Since I have a good supply of black powder, I tested some loads.

Traditions St.Louis Hawken .50cal with 1:48 twist, .499" lands - .503" grooves, 28" barrel. This is a kit gun that I put together back in 2016 and it has a bedded barrel,tang and trigger assembly. Also the rear sight is from a lyman great plains rifle and adjusted to my eyes by cutting a new dovetail 2" further up the barrel so the rear sight was perfectly clear.


Since 70gr 3fg is normal, I upped the 2fg Goex to 80 grains and took my first shot which was dead on the money where 70g 3fg hits!

Afterward, I went to 95 and two shots with 110gr 2fg goex to test its group size.


Really impressed me how 10 grains lifted that ball and pushed it to the left a bit. 110 grains really shows it going up high and to the left. If I were to ever shoot that load, I would need to order a front sight and file it just for that load. I have no intentions of using more than 80 grains of 2fg in this rifle. Those 110gr loads were also swabbed between shots. So much for the myth about 1:48 twists and high powder charges not being accurate with patched round balls. I was extremely impressed. But my neck was NOT! I heard a crunch and said to hell with that!

This was from last year before I went hunting. This was 70gr Pyrodex P at 100 yards. Notice how perfectly 80gr 2fg Goex ( Above) measured up spot on.


And as an update. That crunching in my neck I heard turned out to be an issue I had been suffering with since my early- mid teens and never realized was a serious problem.



Will a 1:48 shoot a heavy charge of black powder with great 100 yard accuracy? Yes it will!

My TC used 90 gr of FFG to do better. But the stuff in your neck is crazy. That scares me so you are really doing great, Good for you.

I shoot a CVA Hawken kit gun in 54 cal, 1:48 as well, built it in the early 80's. My load is 90 grains of Goex FF a wonder wad and a patched round ball. Very accurate and the round ball penetrates extremely well on pigs an deer. Your neck and my back look like twins!

I'd stick with thay 70g load. Seems to work great! And that is beaut of a rifle.

What the heck did you do to your neck?

thank you kindly!

Car accident when I was 11, plus a couple falls over the years. Never knew i was injured in the car wreck. C 3 4 5 & 6 had to be fixed due to the bones hitting an artery in my neck causing black outs and my hands/fingers being numb. I will be needing some more work in the T3 - 4- 5 range next.

I agree, the 70gr 3fg charge does a hell of a job on big game! I took a nice hog, mule deer doe and bull elk with that load so far.

Your Traditions kit rifle turned out beautifully.......my first impression was the rifle was from the Hawkin Shop.

Splendid all around!

Nice work!

I've always suspected that the problem with the 1-48 twist was related to modern guns with shallow rifling more than the twist itself. Somewhere I think I read that original Hawkens often had 1-48.

Another apparent myth is that you need a 1-28" or so to shoot sabot loads. I've gotten decent, if not sterling accuracy with sabots and 250gr bullets in a couple of older TC rifles; good enough for woods hunting for a guy that started hunting with smoothbore slug guns, anyway.

Accuracy has a lot to do with the spin rate of the projecitle. Each has a different spin rate that is needed to stabliize it. Modern bullets of every caliber and round balls and maxi-balls: same thing. Spin rate is a function of barrel twist and velocity. That's just about it.

Depth of and type of rifling has an effect. But I think spin rate is the most important factor.