Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders 45cal flinter

what are you guys shooting in your 45cal flintlocks? i have some 200 grain shockwaves that i would like to use in it. anyone ever try them in a flintlock? if so which powders? thanks!

How is it twisted?

i believe 1/48

Goex & Olde Eynsford for me.

hey bigblock, 2,3,4f? and how many grains? thanks, Paul

3F for the barrel, 4F for the pan. Always did the same in my 50. 3F is nice also because it works pretty well in the pan in a pinch. Have found my primer flask empty several and the 3F is just slightly slower to light

Ya give any thought to a .440 RB with a patch about .015" or so?

Your vent is not going to respond well to shooting conicals. Well, it will for a spell, then it's going to grow.

I have not used a rifle with a 1-48 twist but that may not stabilize longer bullets well. I would suggest a bullet that is perhaps 1.5 as long as it is round and see how that works. You can shoot round balls but probably not heavy charges as they would be inaccurate in that twist. My rifle is a 1-66 and patched round balls are all I use. I cannot stabilize any bullets except the old Buffalo Bore hollow points. Experiment with a few different bullets and see what they do.

I also use 3F in the rifle and 4f in the pan although I could get by happily with 3f in the pan as well.

I used buffalo ball-ets in my .50 T/C Hawkins back when round balls were required here. They shot pretty well. They were illegal but I had speedloaders in both front pockets. Just had to know which pocket to show the Man. Never shot a deer with them but they worked better than round balls for several friends. Switched to 245gr aero-tip Powerbelts theyshoot ok out of my 1-48 and work well on deer. Usually pass through and do fair amount of damage.

good info guys, thank you very much for the help. my cousin is going to be home this weekend, and wanted to hunt so im just trying to hook him up with what i have around my house.

I had and used a friends TC Hawken 45 1:48 for a few years. Don't remember what sabot it was but it was almost crazy impossible to get down the barrel. Would not pattern at all and bullets keyholed, not sure if that was from smashing the front of the bullet or a twist problem. It shot maxi-hunters well, they loaded nicely, and they worked good on deer. I suspect one of the powerbelts would do well too like they do in a 50.

That is incorrect. Up to the point where pressure caused a patched round ball to begin stripping in the rifling they will shoot fine. The 48" twist is common on smaller caliber RB guns and certainly won't be a problem with a .45 cal.

Fact of the matter is that you can go a whole lot faster twist than that and get excellent accuracy with RBs.

Shot RBs from a TC Renegade years ago that had a 48" twist. More accurate that the Maxiballs and with the same 90 grain charge.

While I don't have a 1-48 several of the guys I hunt and shoot with do. They wind up with accuracy issues using PRB when they go up in powder charge when compared to rifles with 1-66. In other words I can shoot accurately at 110 grains in my 1-66 where their accuracy in the 1-48 guns falls off at around 90 grains. You can compensate for this a bit with a really tight ball/patch but it has been my experience that the faster the twist the less powder charge until accuracy starts to fall off.

Here is an article that supports what I have seen with the group I shoot with from time to time.

http://blackpowderjournal.com/archives/vol1no2/articles/bullet.htm

Knew a guy with a 45 who loaded 2 round balls to "make it kill better". I tried it at targets and they would stay quite close together for about 50 yards. Never tried on dear. Probably would be ok at short range but might lose 50+ yard accuracy and effectiveness. Not a recommendation. I have seen and done quite a bit of taboo stuff with a muzzle loader. Bought my first when 15 and had to try all the myths and general rules. Never did try it with the ball off the charge, but did most everything else. Would get behind a log pile, set thegun on some logs and fire with a string. Good thing I did not reload till I was 18 and half afraid of blowing myself up

Some of you fellas seem to be missing a point. The OP is inquiring about loads for a flintlock, not an inline or caplock. Easy answer here: PRB and black powder. Don't get hung up on twist rates. I gotta wonder how dead stuff needs to be before it gets a ride home. A .45 flinter doesn't need more than about 50-60 grains of 3fg to make stuff seriously dead. If Uber dead is necessary, bump the charge up a bit. Accuracy is a matter of ball/patch dims and maybe lube.

Round balls are not real effective. Are they deadly? Absolutely. Will you find the dear after it has run a couple hundred yards, leaving very little blood for 100+ yards? I hate to think how many deer we lost when first using PRB's. Would look for sing where they stood, then follow a good ways and if no sign thought we missed. Im sure we missed some but not all. After some more experience I quit hunting unless we had snow. Now we use short, modern projectiles. Either pistol bullets or Powerbelts. The deer are no more dead, just faster. Plus we find them when there is a bigger hole. YMMV

They tend to be at least as deadly as .22 CB shorts from my rifle.

Just for the sake of curiosity, how would one go about pulling a sabot load from a flinter?

BANG! Seriously probably have to make it fire. Get it dry enough to take the flash hole liner out and work some primer powder in. Was hunting with a group (driving) right after a good wet snow. We quit because the guns were getting so wet they wouldn't fire. The same guy that loaded double balls tried several times to fire his gun to empty it. Finally he took the flash liner out shoved some 4F in and shot it. Without the liner. A 1/4" HOLE IN THE BARREL. Fire flew probably 10' out the side. I about chit my pants!!! Did not even crack his stock.

Use Co2 discharger with a flintlock needle.
only been a couple times i could not get my Co2 discharger to clear the barrel . In those cases just alittle dry powder , placed in the pan , then trickled and picked through the flash hole , got the ball or conical out of the bore or at least far enough away from the breech that i could either discharge it with Co2 or get 10-15 grains of 4f through the flash hole .

in all the years i have used flintlocks , i have never had to pull a liner in order to discharge the gun

as to the original question . Im not sure how it would work . Key would be the rifling and if the sabot would create enough seal . If it did , then you should have a reasonable hunting accuracy out to at least 50 yards . In which case if you place the shot in the hart and lung area a PRB in 45 cal is going to do just as well
If you looking for something that�s going to reach out there well past 100 , then frankly I think your barking up the wrong tree .
I would then suggest calling a barrel maker and having them make a barrel in the proper twist and rifling for the projectiles your wanting to shoot . Then have a gunsmith turn that barrel into a drop-in for your gun .

Didnt think of the CO2 things, have always just shot it. Have also never needed to remove a liner, just threw that out there. Thought it an interesting story. Maybe you had to be there.