Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Giving up on PowerBelts

Oh well there you go. TC is the biggest problem with full bore conicals. TC doesnt even recommend conicals LOL.

That was easy to sort out LOL

Just to let you know I wasn't commenting on accuracy. It's the performance as a hunting bullet aspect.

Powerbelts had or has a huge following just from their marketing and availabity. When Knight Rifles were the thing ten years or so ago powerbelts filled a niche for an easy to load bullet. My friends use them just for that reason alone. None of them have ever put a scope their muzzleloaders and done any load testing. For them it's just load and shoot a few and if if they hit the target pretty good at 75 yards, good enough.

They do work well for some folks in some rifles.

TC's are not a rifle that shoots best with powerbelts. The shallow rifling in TC Omegas are intended and desiged for sabots. This much I do know as I reaserched MZ's to the inth degree before I bought my Omega. I'm very happy with the decision I made.

Now why didn't you tell me that 3yrs ago ..!!!!

Tnx for the link...now I see said the Muzzle Loader Blind Man!!!

I use 50 caliber 295 grain HP Powerbelts. Never had a performance problem with them.

What really torks me about this whole episode is.. at the time I bought my Omega I let a Cabela's salesman tell me they were so good they would shoot anything you put through them..this was my own fault because I've been in this business along time and generally don't believe everything I hear! What attracted me to Powerbelts was ease of loading and no sleaves.Should have been smart enough to have checked it out first instead we wasted a lot of time and Triple 7...when I pass your info on to my son he's gonna croak!!!!...Tnx guys.. ....FLEM

FYI, loose powder at 150 grains is not the same as a "150-grain" load of the "50-grain" pellets and is not recommended--50 grain pellets are substantially less than 50 grains of loose powder.

I ended up using 80-90 grains of either 777 or BH209 in my Encore and Triumph, plenty accurate and no problems with penetration. I had a guy at the range one time (public range) remark that he wished he could shoot groups like that with his scoped .270.

I can't understand the desire for "magnum" loads of powder with a big, slow, heavy bullet and open sights like we use here in CO. Nothing you can do will make that slug shoot flat, and your effective range is limited by the sights (for most people). You're not counting on velocity. There's no advantage to more powder, and like some have noted, a distinct disadvantage with some bullets.

I agree.. when I started MLoading I thought I had to push that big hunk of lead AFAP until doing some serious bench testing.That's why we settled on 90-100gr because accuracy was much better and there didn't seem to be much difference in killing power of the heavier loads at the same ranges....I am very pleased with the Barnes T-EZ in the 90-100gr loads, penetration on deer was excellent.I now would have no problem taking a shot at 200yds or a tad more!!!!!...FLEM

Couple thing that may or may not have anything to do with anything .

When it comes to rifling . Light rifling can be just as accurate with a full size conical as with a sabot .
Take a look at the Enfield rifles the rifling is so fine it makes what TC does , look like the grand canyon .
Yet those old Enfield�s , shooting a solid lead Minie ball were accurate well out to 700 yards .

The other thing and I cant repeat this enough . Is your BORE .
Marketed conicals are made to a Given size . They take no considerations for over bore or under bore .
With the power belts the belt is what fills this variance. However it can only do so much .
Sabots normally are alittle more forgiving because they are softer . Thus fill the variance

Also when it comes to soft lead . Leads compromise velocity is right near 2200fps . The closer you get to that velocity the more the lead projectile starts to soften and deform . Thus a lot of companies use alloys to help stabilize the material at the higher velocities that a whole lot of folks seem to think they need to be shooting at .

The problem is though that in doing that , the projectile becomes harder . Thus it doesn�t obistrate ,,, arbritrate ,, osbrates . Ahhhh I hate that word !!!!! Sorry for the spelling
The bullet doesn�t expand on ignition as well . Thus in turn bringing you back to issues of under or over bore .

My advice would be that if you can consistently put � what ever your choice of projectile � on paper properly . Then the issue isn�t the projectile its probably that you need to get into an effective range before you make your shot .
I guess what im saying is if your having issues at 150 yards then get closer before you take the shot .
Past that , there are a lot of different designed full size lead conical to chose from . I can see where your limited at all in any way other then range .
Thus if you CHOSE to shoot at such ranges , doesn�t the limitation really come back on you ?

Very interesting!!!

You want an accurate, fail proof bullet * performance wise* Check out the Thor conicals.

Its basically a Barnes, all copper bullet

when i used an inline (tc black diamond) i also used 348gr hp power belts and 90-100gr of loose powder. i killed several elk with that combo. never found a bullet, and never shot more than once.

hmmmm. I just dumped another cow last week with 295 gr PB's.Must be weak elk where I hunt .No problems. I can flat guarantee that an elk hit 5 times in the PROPER place is going to fall sometime after the fisrt two

I found three before I went to the gutless method, all three stopped just under the hide on the off side, one of 'em went through a scapula. Never found any on deer, all broadside shots in the ribs, one at 130 yds.

You'd think that if an elk let you put five shots in it, all after the first one or two were not necessary.

VERY NICE !!!!!

Every once in awhile a piece of one of those PowerBelts finds something vital. They have a lot in common with the Nosler BT.

The five shots were over a period of time of about 12 minutes. I kept shooting until I was out of speed loaders and sure he was down for good. I didn't want to lose him!

The gun I am shooting is an Austin & Halleck 420. 85 gr/vol of loose Triple 7 powder (100 grain/vol equiv. of black powder or pyrodex). I have tried both the hollow points and aero tips on paper. They shoot almost identical. I have also tried hotter loads, but as mentioned by someone else on here, the groups when to hell.

I would love to shoot the Barnes MZ bullets, but as I mentioned, we aren't allowed to use sabots here in Colorado. We can't use scopes or pelletized powder either for that matter.

Below are a couple pictures of recovered bullets. From left to right, the first three are 348gr aero tips. The last one on the right is a hollow point recovered from a deer.







The first one on the left is from a 1 shot kill on an elk at 168 yards. Dropped it in it's tracks. The hide is the only thing that stopped it on the other side. (This was my first kill with these bullets, needless to say I was impressed at the time!!!!) The next two are from last year's elk. They are 2 of the 5 shots, the other 3 passed through. One recovered one was in the hide, and the other behind the opposite shoulder blade. These were at 90 yards.

The last one is from a deer at around 70 yards.

All of these shots were with the 85 gr/vol of loose Triple 7.

No bullet failures there at all. Shot placement is now questions in my opinion.

The one of the far left looks like a 348gr powerbelt i tested in wet news paper.

Good pics! Thanks for posting that.

Granted the first one or two shots of the 5 shot series would have killed him. He went down after the first one, got back up, went down after the 2nd, and got back up again. He was standing there all wobbly legged. He sucked up #3 and #4 and finally went down for good with #5

BigBlock....those Thors have my interest. What grain are those that you are shooting?