REAL or maxi ball

Getting a TC Renegade in 54 and have a GPR in 50. Have only shot round balls in my other guns. Any thoughts / suggestions or experience with REAL bullets or maxi balls in either gun. Thanks.

Try both, one isn’t more effective than the other. You might want to try the ballet too. A very short minie

I have had mediocre luck with mini and maxi balls (from TC). Tried Real once when a member gifted me a few for the .58 and I had no spg that he recommended and the bullet was load with Bore butter lube ad fell promptly out of the barrel so no opinion (still gotta reimburse the guy too ....).

If you can find hornady Great Plains bullets they are dead on accurate in all my guns and hit hard as anything ut there. Have heard good reviews on "No Excuses" bullets too but no reason to try em. As per above the ballets are GREAT in my fast twist Traditions Tenessee.

Let us know! Happy Thanksgiving too BTW. I'm thankful for 98% of the folks here and all the admin. You guys are soooo helpful!

I have had very good luck accuracy wise with REALs in a .50 Hawken and a .54 Renegade. Would not hesitate to launch either at a deer given the chance. I have some but have not had a chance to try maxis or Minnie’s yet. So many guns/calibers/projectiles, so little time. Oh, almost forgot, I shoot the REALs bare or Alox lubed over a homemade lubed wad. I truly believe in the lubed wad.

I have used both but REAL bullets always seemed to work best in the slower twist rifles 1:48 or slower. I had very good results in a 1:66 twist Kentucky rifle. I started using the Real’s right after they came out. The only drawback at that time was you had to brew your own but I understand now it is possible to buy them already made. Phil Spagenbuam of Guns & Ammo magazine said the lighter weight available worked best with the slow twist. Good luck and keep us posted.

Huntinshep said:

Getting a TC Renegade in 54 and have a GPR in 50. Have only shot round balls in my other guns. Any thoughts / suggestions or experience with REAL bullets or maxi balls in either gun. Thanks.

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Both kill efficiently. I've had much better accuracy with pure lead REALs in 50 and 54 over an ox-yoke felt wad from 5 different rifles.

I like both & use them almost exclusively.

My CVA .54 with a 1:48 barrel does fine-for-hunting accuracy with a 425gr maxi from Dixie Gun Works.

I've shot both in the .54 Renegade... as well as other T/C guns and calibers. Truth be told, I never noticed any real difference in accuracy. I usually use somewhere around 77 grains these days (7 grains of Old Eynsford black powder and 70 grains of Triple 7 on top of the black powder).

Most of my guns do not have coned barrels, and the REAL bullets are easier to load. I usually do not attempt to lube the REAL bullets. Instead I kind of smear a "bead" all around the bore so when I ram the bullet, it scrapes the lube off and hopefully collects it in the grease grooves.

Both work fine in a coned barrel

It may be sacrilegious here, but I would not rule out sabots with pistol/revolver bullets. Hornady XTPs are available in several calibers and bullet weights. There are sabots available to use various caliber bullets in various caliber guns. Some of them will offer "sample packs".

Dark Angel said:

Live in Texas. BP/C&B guns/revolvers are not considered to be firearms but are considered dangerous weapons. Which means no FFL required so they can be shipped through the mail. Plus, Texas has Constitutional Carry, no CCW required. C&B revolvers do have a steep learning curve in order to use them safely, so, I'm surprised some Wanna-Be badass would take the trouble if he/she is interested in preserving all of their fingers and the integrity of the weapon. But then, criminals have never been known for being overly bright.

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2 shots said:

i would bet it wasnt loaded.

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earlwb said:

You can’t fix stupid.

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Dale Allen Raby said:

It may be sacrilegious here, but I would not rule out sabots with pistol/revolver bullets. Hornady XTPs are available in several calibers and bullet weights. There are sabots available to use various caliber bullets in various caliber guns. Some of them will offer "sample packs".

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Dale Allen Raby said:

It may be sacrilegious here, but I would not rule out sabots with pistol/revolver bullets. Hornady XTPs are available in several calibers and bullet weights. There are sabots available to use various caliber bullets in various caliber guns. Some of them will offer "sample packs".

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hold that evil tongue with which you speak.

Huntinshep said:

Getting a TC Renegade in 54 and have a GPR in 50. Have only shot round balls in my other guns. Any thoughts / suggestions or experience with REAL bullets or maxi balls in either gun. Thanks.

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Depends what you are shooting at. Squirrels, rabbits, woodchuck and deer size critters for example drop pretty quick with any size hole poked through their chest. Paper and steel targets are not that tough either. Beyond that, I have found the Maxi-Ball a really poor performer on larger game unless bone was hit, otherwise they just didn’t expand and ‘pencil’ right through…… though they do expire. Kind of like getting shot with a 22 RF or 32 ACP.

In testing done years ago (before everyone had a phone with a camera, so no photographs), found that the top band or ring on the maxi-ball collapsed back into the large lube ring just under it, creating what could almost be called a spire point when shot into soft tissue. Conicals with a wide flat nose or a hollow point expand reliably in soft tissue. Believe this is the major reason TC came out with their Maxi-Hunter design after their Max-Ball had over penetration and poor expansion issues. My testing was done with 54 caliber Maxi-Balls and Maxi-Hunters cast from TC molds using ‘pure’ lead (believe I still have both molds). Using the same gun and powder charge, the expansion difference was dramatic.

2 shots said:

hold that evil tongue with which you speak.

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Mea maxima culpa!

My 1970's Hawken and later GPH both shoot maxis balls and hunters very well. Add at least 10g powder to your RB load. They prefer a stiff load.

morehops52 said:

My 1970's Hawken and later GPH both shoot maxis balls and hunters very well. Add at least 10g powder to your RB load. They prefer a stiff load.

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I generally go 20 grains LIGHTER with a PRB. That would be 77 grains for the conicals and 57 grains for the PRB. This seems to deliver both loads to the same point of impact without any sight adjustments at fity yards. Of course your mileage may vary.

My theory has to do with muzzle jump. If you shoot a .44 Magnum group in a paper target and follow it up with a .44 Special group, you will invariably find the .44 Special load to impact higher on the target with the same bullet weight. This happens because the muzzle jumps more under recoil before the bullet leaves the muzzle with the lower velocity projectile, therefore the barrel launches the bullet at a higher angle than the faster projectile where the bullet leaves the muzzle much earlier and at a lower angle.

You don't normally see this with high-power rifles as they don't have the same muzzle jump/launch angle as handguns do. With low-velocity muzzle-loader projectiles though, you just might see it. So reducing the charge keeps the lighter round ball in the barrel longer, dropping it into the same area of the target that the heavier conicals hit. If you use the same charge with the light round balls, you might well see them hit lower on the target.

I haven't done extensive testing of this theory yet. Maybe when the weather warms up a bit. There are so many variables with ML rifles that virtually NOTHING can be stated as an absolute. Shooting two similar/identical rifles with identical loads will often result in very different group sizes. It's like dating a woman with limited "success" and dating her sister the following week with a completely different result.

Yeah I know.... I'm a sexist. I been called worse.

REAL preform for crap in my TC Hawken, but the guy who I got my rifle from used them on elk and swore by them

Maxi Hunters shoot very well, I use the 275 Maxi Hunters when I use conicals

I've used both in a T/C Hawken I once owned: Both were equally accurate. The T/C Maxi-Ball is also accurate in an unmentionable rifle I own with a 1:28" twist. In short, if either casts large enough to be engraved by the rifling and your twist rate is 1:48" or faster, you'll likely have an accurate bullet. Adding a card stock over powder wad may help too.