Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Reasons above 50

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.