Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders 1:48" Twist & 0.70" .45 cal Bullets

I'm having Tom at Accurate molds design a few bullets for my ROA. The larger of them is for the possibility of a bear hunt and needed a secondary weapon if trailing is necessary.

Considering that I may very well want to try them in sabots through my 1:48" twist Lyman's Deerstalker after resizing them to fit a pistol bullet sabot, I'm considering an idea I've seen from another heavy lead bullet meant for shooting from muzzleloaders in that it has a boattail.

I haven't had him work on this bullet yet, but the rough idea so far is to have a large meplat of .375", driving bands of .455", a short boattail of .1-.15" long, and an overall length of no more than .70" so it'll fit in my loading window on my pistol, though the length would actually need to be no longer than 0.55" from the base of the first driving band to the nose as the rest will be seated in the chamber. I'm thinking I still want that to be rather short so as not to have too much difficulty with chamber capacity since powder compresses upon loading.

Checking a bullet stabilizing calculator it seems that the length of a 255 grn (Kaido bullet) .45 cal bullet I have is the ideal length for a muzzleloader and a 48" twist. Does anyone have experience launching a bullet a bit longer (~.70" OAL) at around 1700 fps? Will this likely stabilize well to shoot as far as 175 yds?

Would a short boattail even help with the aerodynamics or does it need to be stretched out a bit to really work well?

Anyone?

I've heard from someone that they experiences good results when shooting a .44 cal 270 grn Speer, but poor results with about anything 300 grns. I'm guessing that were I to put a short boattail on this bullet it may be a similar length as that DeepCurl.

But I'm wondering if the boattail would even be justifiable. Would it even help any? What I do like about it is that it helps move some of the bullet inside of the chamber to help it clear the loading cutout as I'd hope it can be used in other pistols too, though that's not really the goal as my Ruger is built to handle anything I can stuff into it and has the better sights. It also operates quite well and doesn't bind up with lots of use.

I do, however, eventually want a Walker that I'd use for hunting!

Nobody with an opinion either?

My opinion is just that - my opinion. I am not an engineer. I think that a boattail would be superfluous on a low velocity, relatively short range projectile. In the field, I would defy you to show me any advantage. Leaving out the baottail featue WOULD result in a bit mere weight. THAT is a good thing.

Through a rifle the range could be from 150 to 200 yds.

I normally wouldn't have thought much until I saw heavier .45 cal muzzleloader bullets designed with long boattails, and I know Hornady has a 9mm 147 grn bullet with a boattail as well.

But I'm not even sure I'd use these through a rifle, though I'd have to give it a go... Through a pistol out to 25 yds there's no need.

This is what I ended up settling on:

http://accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=45-285C-D.png

The weight given is if it's cast using WW's, which I will not be as this is meant for my Ruger Old Army.

I'm guessing that wide meplat would be quite destructive!

But I'm also wondering how it would work in a .458 x .50 cal sabot. Any ideas?