Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Reasons above 50

When I was a kid my dad got me a ML kit gun. 50 cal, percussion Hawken style from T/C.

Long since gone.

Now my son has developed an interest in flintlockes and the like.

Any real reason to go larger than 50 cal for deer/bear/fun shooting? Been poking around for a kit to do myself now and wondering what the advanced guys are doing these days regarding bore size.

It seems to me that the ML guys are trending towards 45cal for better ballistics and better moderate range hunting. I had a 54 cal Hawkin which was fun but doesn't do anything better than a 50 cal.

Stick with a 50-cal. Hard to find accessories for the 45s - 54s.

.610 really flattens them,

1800s Baker Flintlock

If just fun shooting and hunting deer and bears, then the 50 with roundballs would be very mild recoil and very effective.

I tend to like larger calibers and haven't had any issues getting my 58 roundballs shooting well.

Rather than get into a swamp of controversy here, let me suggest...if you are going to spend hundreds of dollars on this hobby, please....go to Beartooth Bullets Calculator, do your ballistics research before you shell out the money. Beartooth uses a different power value than foot pounds kinetic energy(which is nearly useless if not misleading) for round ball. I assume you will be using round ball because you mentioned flint ignition, which confines you to round ball or Ball-ets(twist rate).
Two things you need to take away from here, info about inline muzzleloading has no bearing whatsoever to traditional round ball shooting, none. Round ball as you research it, you will find bigger is better, EVEN with somewhat reduced muzzle velocity.

I have been informed the Beartooth calculator won't come up on a search. Not as good because they use ft/lbs energy...is 'ctmuzzleloaders', but quick and easy to use.

Rounball is the plan. What I shot as a kid too. Less than zero interest in in-line or "modern" ML.

I doubt recoil for any will be a real concern. I never noticed it when I was shooting 30 years ago, the son is 6' 180 and a former combat engineer- he can handle it. For him, history is the allure. Same for me but I'd prefer history that puts meat down.

Just noticed 90% of available gear is 50 cal, made me wonder why ppl buy larger.

Shoot them good and they'll all do fine. I've had great luck with the 58 but I'd shoot anything 50 or above with no worries. Gunsinternational sometimes has some really nice percussion guns for sale, worth keeping a watch on there. Track of the Wolf also gets some good guns in.

These are quality kits:

https://kiblerslongrifles.com/

If you are talking about a round ball rifle, you can kill deer with a 45 or 50 but 54 and 58 is where it’s at. People who are unfamiliar with flintlocks and muzzleloaders in general $hit themselves drooling over a 45 caliber barrel because they think it’s big. It’s really not, especially as a RB rifle. Most people btw will have no problems shooting a 58. Not a lot of recoil. Also, people will mistakenly tell you a 45 or 50 will shoot flatter then. 54 or 58. Not true at all. If you drive them as fast the bigger ball has a higher BC.

I had 54s all my life. This year I built a Kibler 45 SMR. It shoots fantastic, and the recoil is very mild. For paper I use 50G 3F, for fur 70G.
I ordered a new 54 Kibler, but the 45 might be in the truck the most.

Kibler is the plan

Got a 45 Seneca, 50 Hawken and 54 Renegade and Hawken. As the hole gets bigger the results get more dramatic (in a good way) in my little world.

54 SMR is an awesome rifle and excellent value.

For fun, deer and black bear, 50 is plenty. My Browning is a 54 and I’m pleased with it but a 50 would be fun too. Add in elk and, well, that wasn’t the question. 😁

I make them to earn most of my living and I have used them since the very early 70s to hunt too.

I shoot a 62 for the most part. I have killed a moose and a buffalo as well as several elk and deer and a few antelope with it.
The larger bore sizes for the flintlock era of arms simply shoot more lead and more powder. The moose I killed fell at the shot and the ball broke the shoulders and exited. A 62 cal ball (.600 actually ) weighs around 320 grains. I cast them from Wheel Weights so they don't flatten much and they go through everything I shoot as a rule.

So bore size with early slow rifling added ball weight. Bullets don't stabilize well in long slow twits barrels. I have made a few English style flinters rifled for bullets and they work very well, but the flash hole liners must be changed out about every 300 shots because the added pressure from a 400-450 grain bullet erodes the vents a lot faster. (I have one for sale right now in fact)

A big bore like a 62 looks huge, but remember balls are the lightest projectiles to fit in any given bore size. So a 66 cal (16 bore) is a 1 OZ gun. 437 grains is a lot of lead, but not much larger then most 45-70 bullets and less then some of the early 500 grain loads.

I also shoot a 50 and I have killed a lot of game with 50s, but they don't do the damage a 62 will do, or a 54, or a 58. Simple physics. The down side, just like with modern guns is recoil. A 62 kicks harder then a 58 or 54 or 50. You can make it kick no more than a 50 by using less powder, but that means less velocity and the larger slower ball is not really any more effect at that point. But if we have a MV of (let say) 1750 FPS for all guns obviously the heavier ball and larger charge of power is going to kick more. But with a 140 grain charge of 3F and a 320 grain ball my 62 cal flinter kicks no more then a 300 mag. Not "nothing" but not all that hard. A 58 is less, say 30-06. A 54 feels like a 300 savage and a 50 is around the same as a 30-30 in it's kick

Here is a pic of my 62. It's filled a lot of freezer space for me over the past few decades.
My Rifle 3 by Steve Zihn, on [bleep]

MrMuskie,

What bullet is that? Have a .62 Jaeger that a similar projectile would be really interesting in.

I don't have any expirience with flintlocks, having only ever used sidelock percussion guns. In my past muzzleloader rifle usage, there's been 45's, 50's and 54's (all Hawken style sidelocks) using conicals, mini-balls and PRB's. Also, Cap N' Ball revolvers, a T/C Scout 54cal pistol and a Pedersoli 10ga SxS muzzleloading shotgun for all of my shotgunning uses. I've primarily used Goex black, FFFg and FFg, and Pyrodex RS and P powders. Over the years, my accesment/opinion, from what I've used, the 54's just perform better (deer, black bear and pigs). Not saying the 45's and 50's don't work, because they obviously do. Anymore, I only use Goex FFFg, or FFg, in my 54 cal rifles and a patched round ball. Purely a personal preference decision, but really like the performance of what I use.

Enjoy!

Szihn, always appreciate your photos. Fine looking flinter there.

Thanks 30338.

I've noodled around with .50 PRB's for most of my ML hunting until the late 90's, with nary an issue dropping deer in my neck of the woods where typical shooting distances were short yardages, and sometimes measured in feet. The last rifle I built, over 20 years ago now, and which has been my main ML for deer since then, is a .45 (Ohio-style Vincent rifle) and while it works ok, a couple deer died kind of hard but incatious shooting on my part was equally to blame.

Would I/should I move up to a larger bore? Nah. Nowadays if I can't get an easy perfect close range shot I wave goodbye to Bre'r Deer, it's that easy. And since I'll never draw a bead on a moose/elk/bear with a ML (not many of them in these parts) that puts the kibosh to that idea.

That said, I've always hankered to build a Jaeger rifle and since traditionally they were big bores I may yet succumb to the larger diameter balls.

The only .62 caliber I have is a 14" bronze barreled miniature cannon I made from scratch. Don't know how it would do for deer but it plays hell on crab buoys out in the Chesapeake Bay! .610 ball, paper towel wadding, 60gr.FFFg makes for quite a thumper!


Sorry for the crappy pic, it's a screen shot of a screen shot!

Round balls!are not great critter killers. I just picked up a .50 Hawken flint from a friend that needed money
Other than that, I shoot .54 cal.
Thanks to a gentleman here I came into so.e R.E.A.L. bullets in
50 and .54 cal. I just have not been able to get pit to try them in the TC Hawken and my Lyman Deerstalker..
My best shooter is a TC Renegade with a Green Mountain RB twist barrel. But that 32" barrel is heavy.

That's funny right there.

What does that mean? Elk, deer, Black Bear and Pronghorn all seem to die handily when shot by 54-62 calibers.
S

Hell, I know a guy who's been making one shot kills on deer with a .40 round ball slinger. I'll admit that it wouldn't be my first choice, but......

Struggling to decide - Woodsrunner or Colonial.

If they are not great (or even good) killers I must be very blessed.

I have been killing game with muzzleloaders since about 1972 and other then 3 deer killed with 58 Cal R.E.A.L. bullets I have killed ALL the others with round balls. 100% of them were 1 shot kills and I never have lost a single animal. Nor have I ever had a long tracking job to find any game I have killed with a round ball. Many deer, (about 25 I'd guess) 9 elk, 1 moose, 1 buffalo and 8 antelope as well as a lot of small game.
Calibers I have used to kill game from antelope up to buffalo have been 50, 54, 58, and 62.

The real trick is NOT TO shoot pure lead. I use Wheel Weights and cast my owe. Air dropped WW metal is hard enough to not expand much on impact which gives excellent penetration and large wounds. Yet soft enough to grab the patch weave well.

Just as a side note: I took a LOT of trophies, ribbons and blanket prizes in competition over the last 1/2 century shooting muzzleloaders too, and I used WW lead in those rifles for competition. So the tale that harder balls are not accurate is simply not true. Especially if you roll them lightly between 2 files to give them a texture.

Ball splits, string cuts, card cuts, washer shoots, marbles in golf tees, and paper bullseyes------ all were shot with WW balls.

So true, a pronghorn with a 50 broadside with a pure lead ball didn’t exit. Like szihn said even a moderate hard ball or…. Double the bhn of pure lead (which will still be soft) you are better off. Same can be said if you are shooting centerfire cast in the 1700-2k range. 9-15 bhn.

Woods runner in 54 would be a sweet rifle. 58 in Colonial. Both rifled. Then get a 20 bore, shorter smooth bore.

Szihn you must have extensive knowledge of muzzleloading. That tip about 2 files is awesome stuff.

The rationales expressed here strike to the heart of the difference between eastern and western hunters and their needs of 200 years ago - and appears to remain so today. In these parts a .50 is all the average fella needs, and can do well with a smaller ball (and often a lot smaller). A 100-120 pound whitetail doesn't take a helluva lot of killing, especially at 50 yards or less. Larger animals (of which there are none here), or smaller ones at greater distance, absolutely call for more muscle.

All that points to my locally perceived wish for a soft lead ball that may well flatten a bit and hence maybe cause a bit more internal damage. Again, with a smaller deer darn near every shot from a .45 or .50 is gonna pass through even if the ball is mis-shapen. At least that's my observation, having killed more deer with a .45 and .50 RB than with all my CF rifles combined.

My standard load in .50's was 50 gr. 3f, and balls passed through and died with alacrity. Wouldn't rely on it if elk or buffalo was in the offing though, or if 100 yard shots were probable also. The right tool for the job in the right place, and all that.

I'm thinking the King's troops circa 1776 might disagree.

Steve (S)Zhin pretty well closed out this subject with hard, true facts...for those who were smart enough to listen.

Several years ago Green Mountain had 62 caliber smooth bore drop in barrels for the TC Renegade for $100. I bought one and sent it to Ed Rayle to be rifled for round ball shooting. At fifty yards it makes one massive cloverleaf. I still have it. I put in for years for the Fort Rich muzzleloader moose hunt but never was drawn. My understanding is they have a late muzzleloader elk hunt near my area here in Idaho. I carried it a number of times on local day hunts for moose but never found a legal bull when I packed it. Maybe there’s hope to blood it yet.

A couple friends have killed a number of deer and elk with 62 caliber muzzleloaders and say the difference is very noticeable over a 50.

I was coming into the muzzleloader scene in the early 80s, just as the modern inline thing was about to break. At the time, anything 45-54 cal was considered kosher for deer. The .54 in a round ball gun was considered optimal. That's what I went with.

It's been 40+ years, and I was out of the scene for most of that time. I went back to Friendship for the fall shoot this year-- first time in 35 years or so. I'm currently working up a Brown Bess (.75 cal) for deer, turkey and squirrel. However, I've already started thinking about a full-stock flinter for deer, and I'm asking the same sorts of questions.

I think the bias towards .54 cal back in the day was that it was seen as a slightly heavier ball that would do better on a deer. When conicals and faster twists came about, you could get all that in a .50 cal. I later swapped out my round ball barrel for a Green Mountain 1-28" .54 cal drop-in and that thing pole-axed deer.

Just this year, I pulled that barrel off and went back to roundball.

If I had to resurrect the thoughts I was having in 1984, as I was shopping for my first muzzleloader, the advice I had rolling in my head was this:

1) .54 cal was the best caliber for deer and bear for normal hunting
2) .50 cal was better if distance was the issue
3) .45 cal was better if weight was the issue

I've put that forward to the current crop of smokepole mavens and about half agree and half disagree. I'm not saying my ideas are worth anything. I'm just telling you how I made the decision to buy a TC Hawken .54 cal in 1984.

I have 45 through 62 in flintlocks. the .54 in the same length and contour is lighter than the .45 which is a plus for me.
this is off set by a full ball bag of 54's though i suppose.

Good info - thank you.

WW are about impossible to get from people. Either someone else already has an "agreement" or "we don't feel comfortable turning lead over to someone not hazmat cert" type of Karens.

Wondering if Lyman #2 works as well?

Lyman #2 is harder than WW's. If something harder than lead is desired, maybe try a simple binary alloy of 1:10 or 1:20 tin:lead instead. Scrap soft lead is still pretty easily found, and a small quantity of tin is affordable (I paid $22/pound for a stash from Rotometals two weeks ago). Remember, Elmer Keith touted 1:10 for his magnum pistol cartridges, so I reckon it'll be ok for this use. (But experiment with alloys versus pure lead for rifle balls in your gun and go with whichever is more accurate. Unlike Steve, I always, bar none, got better accuracy with dead soft lead.)

I just ordered another 300 Hornady pure lead .570 balls, currently on sale for $6.30 a box of 50 at Midway. Nothing has survived them yet so hitting the easy button. I can see using the harder stuff though as well.

I put this CVA St. Louis Hawken together, from a kit, back in the early 80's. It came with 50 and 54 cal barrels. After using each one on a couple different hunts, I sold the 50 cal barrel, liking the performance of the 54 better. I'm 6'-4" and 230, took this bigger pig with a Texas heart shot. Load was 90gr Goex FFg and a Hornady 230gr lead round ball. Pig was about 60 yards and running away from me when I shot, it was end of last day. When dressing the pig out, I followed the wound channel up through the lower cavity, through the upper cavity, through the left shoulder, through the neck and into the head with no exit. As I've said before, I like the performance the 54 gives me.

I used to make deals with plumbers on a jobsite, I'm a retired electrician, for lead. Had a very good supply for a lot of years.

I shoot left handed, so neither for me. If I had right eye I'd be shooting a 54 Woodsrunner already.

Kibler has done a fantastic job with that rifle.

I've killed a lot of deer with flintlocks.


My first gun was a TC in 50cal. I shot a patched roundball.


After a few deer, I did NOT like what I saw. Yes....deer were dying. But I wasn't getting an exit or much if any blood on the ground. Looking back, I probably left a couple I called misses.






I switched to the 240gr Buffalo ball-et (believe they are discontinued but the PA conical is nearly identical)

It shot well. I killed a lot of deer with it.

One doe I shot 25-30yds away from a stand. Quartering to me...put the sights on her near (right) shoulder and sent it. She took off...I thought I could see her back left leg flopping wildly. Huh. There's no way I missed that bad.

Get down. Long white belly hair and hunks of bone. Every time I've found bone like that has been a leg hit. There's no way!

I snuck to where I last saw her following good blood...looked over the edge of the hill and she was piled up. That ball-et went in right where I put it and exited right where a bucks weiner would be. Proceeded to completely smash her back left leg.


I now build my own full customs. And have settled on 58cal as my favorite. 62 is awesome for me too...I don't shoot beyond about 75yds so trajectory doesn't matter to me.

54 for a roundball gun is as low as I'd wanna go for a hunting rifle.

I know truckloads of Buffalo or whatever someone will say have been killed with 50cals or even less. I don't disagree. I just know what my personal findings have been. I've yet to stop a 58 or 62cal roundball. And I promise deer know they got hit by a 279gr roundball at 1733fps. (That's what I'm getting on my labradar with my 58cal.)


Now....throw a fast twist barrel on and you can shoot bullets and sabots and be happy with a 50cal.



There are some flintlock hunters that absolutely swear by 45cals from deer hunting. Enough guys that have experience that I believe there may be something to it...maybe the speed....idk. I'm hesitant to even try. The 50 left that bad of a taste in my mouth...and, I'm into earlier styled rifles that a big lock and barrel are suitable for so a bigger caliber is no issue.

So people know..........a bit of my personal history:
I am a full time muzzleloader gunsmith and have been for 50+ years. I have been a hunter and a guide in 9 different states and I have hunted in 5 different countries. I also was the chief ballistician for Cast Performance Bullet Co and later it's CEO before it sold and moved to Oregon. So I have some very extensive history in the use of lead projectiles both for accuracy and for killing game. What I can tell you folks is based on many many thousands of tests and feed back from thousands of customers and clients, as well as my own rather deep history in the subject.

Lyman #2 is too hard for best results for balls. Pure lead is getting difficult to get too because of the Dem/Comms and the RINOs, but if you have linotype or #2 and also some pure lead, use 1/3 of either alloy and add 2/3 pure lead and the results for ball casting are good. When dropping the balls DO NOT drop in water or on a flat surface. Take an old towel or wool scrap and drop the new balls onto it so they cool slowly You don't want them super hard. Just about 2X harder then pure. The ball needs to obturate at firing inside the barrel, and a super hard ball will not do it fully. But an alloy that gives a brinell hardness of between 10 and 12 is perfect. It will fill the bore and tighten against the patch perfectly, but is hard enough to not "splatter" on hitting a rib. Pure lead is a 5 Bn, so it obturates extremely well but the balls often turn into disks on impact with game and a disk doesn't go straight when trying to pass with it's flat perpendicular to the direction of travel. (think about a boat propeller and how it works) So when a ball becomes a disk it hinders penetration's and it also invites the projectile to veer off course in some rather extreme angles inside the body which is one reason so many people give a bad rap to muzzleloaders firing balls.

We look at a 25-06 or a 243 and understand the bullet is small but shortens and increases in diameter on impact we all know that these 2 cartridges have a very good rep for their ability to kill deer well, but the 45 cal round ball is as big as the 243 bullet is AFTER it expands...... and also heavier. A 243 bullet usually hits a deer at about 2700 to 2800 FPS but what is not commonly known is that nearly all modern expanding rifles projectiles shed 45% of their velocity in the act of expansion. (High speed photography into clear ballistic gel and calculation velocity loss during the expansion stage of the terminal trajectories was well tested by us and the results were consistent) So 1-2 inches into the deer the 243 bullet (assuming it doesn't break up, but holds it weight) is going about 1/2 of it's impact speed. So, it's going around 1400 FPS and slowing fast as it goes through a deer.
Now lets look at the 45 cal flintlock. MV or about 1700 to 1800 FPS. Kills on deer at 50 yards or closer. Impact velocity of say 1400 FPS (same as the 243 after the 243 is 2 inches deep in the deer) Yet the 45 ball is 28 grains heavier, as large is the 243 is 2" inside the deer, and slowing down at the same rate of velocity decent as the 243 bullet, yet if it's a bit harder and because it's a bit heavier it often works as well or a small amount better in delivering a would and giving a bit more pentation.

MANY men and women who have hunting for decades will tell you that the paper numbers just don't show you the real-world trends on how well modern guns kill as compared to muzzleloaders, and they are 100% correct. The "foot pounds" of energy seem to tell us that the newer guns will be 2X to 4X more effective, but in the real world they are not--------- and any a lot of cases they are not AS effective as the old big bore muzzleloader (I can tell you that out of the 4 moose I have killed the only 1 that fell instantly at the shot was shot with my 62 cal flintlock)

Well, the reason for that is that hunters are mostly not ballisticians and they are looking at the wrong set of numbers. Looking at numbers of bullets in flight or at the muzzle tells us NOTHING about it's effects.

To know about terminal effects we need to look at the numbers of what you have once the projectile is INSIDE the animal. A semi hard ball doesn't need to expand and in fact should not. Any ball, if it gains diameter is getting shorter. So.....a disk. There comes a point when a disk is wide enough to cause a LOT of problems trying to get through a viscous material. A 50 cal ball is going into a deer as big as a good bonded 308 Winchester comes out.

Where balls fall down is in flight. Nothing used in firearms tends to transfer more energy to the air. So range is something you give up. Just like an archer does when he chooses to hunt with a bow and arrow. (not as much as the muzzleloader, but you DO give up range as compared to using a bullet firing modern cartridge's and no one can argue that)

Look at a perfectly expanded Nosler partition bullet and place your thumb over the shank of that bullet. In the best cases where very little weight is lost, what you see looks a lot like like a fired BALL. THAT'S WHY IT WORKS SO WELL AT KILLING THINGS!

A ball going through the vitals of game is a ball....is a ball.....is a ball...is a ball .no matter what direction it turns on any axis. So it's direction of travel varies little, and you hit what you want to hit on the inside. If you have enough ball weight they exit most times too. (I prefer exits, so if I find a ball doesn't exit a particular type game animal most times, I use a bigger gun. My moose had an exit and I cut of the shoulder bone with it, but the ball left the body anyway. .600" ball cast of WW metal and 140 grains of 3 F. I killed 2 moose with a 375H&H and one with a 348 Winchester. All were effective but none of those 3 had any real noteworthy effect for a few seconds after the shot. But the flintlock dropped that moose instantly.

Yet we look at the "foot Pounds" of a 320 grain ball going "only" 1400 fps on impact and it doesn't look all that good as compared to a 300 grain .375 impacting at 2450 FPS.

As I said above, we are looking at the wrong set of numbers.

A 375 bullet when it expands perfectly will get to about 65 cal. So that's larger then the ball diameter of my 62 cal flintier. BUT the 300 grain bullet is 20 grains lighter (too little to really matter) and BOTH are going through the moose's chest at about the same speed The 375 bullet will loose close to 1/2 of it's speed in the act of expansion. So 2450 in flight becomes 1225 in it's act of penetrating. So in both cases you have around 300 grains of weight at around 5/8" diameter going through the vitals at around 1250 to 1400 FPS and the reason 2 of my moose did not fall at the impact of the 375 and the one did when hit with the 62 is that the 62 hit the shoulder bones and the 375s didn't.

But those that have done a lot of killing with muzzleloaders can tell you from experience that they are far more effect then they should be ------if you compare muzzle energy measured in Foot Pounds. The real world shows a different story.

Any time in life, (politics, economics, science, farming, areological study, sociology or anything else) when a theory and a fact disagree.................guess which one is wrong?

This post makes a lot of sense. It seems to confirm what Kieth said about CW vets preferring ball to conical in their revolvers.

Steve, Thank you for a very informative post. Taking notes.

Teal, I dont know if you can find real black powder up there, but if you cant there is Bills sporting goods in Lomira , WIs. it is only about 15 mi. south of Fond Du Lac. He usually has some in stock.

Thanks - worth a trip. Haven't done a Lomira run in ages.

I'll occasionally see real BP here tho.

Caliber is all to the ball.
For conicals, not much need for >.50.
Unless it's a rifle musket! My P53 is a .577

I've got a .54 Woodsrunner on order. Seems to be a great hunting rifle from what I've read.