.45 cal. prb or conical for whitetail hunting

[ashtar13]

I have to T/C hawken flintlock that is .45 cal. that I want to hunt deer with in PA, but I don't know what I should use. I like the idea of a prb because of tradition, but I hear that a conical will provide more energy for killing. I never shot at a deer that was more than 50 yards away with a centerfire, and I don't plan on ever changing. The barrel is a 1-48 twist. I still shoot prb for fun, but I want the deer to drop asap. I can't seem to find this topic on a search, at least not for .45 cal. If anyone could direct me to the post, or just answer me, I would appreciate it.

 

[bob1961]

i use a T/C hawken in .50 - 1/48" and 70 grains of powder and works fine on white tails....just work up a load that hits home where ya want it to and keep to yer 50 - 60 yards and ya should be fine............bob

 

[roundball]

I have to T/C hawken flintlock that is .45 cal. that I want to hunt deer with in PA, but I don't know what I should use. I like the idea of a prb because of tradition, but I hear that a conical will provide more energy for killing. I never shot at a deer that was more than 50 yards away with a centerfire, and I don't plan on ever changing. The barrel is a 1-48 twist. I still shoot prb for fun, but I want the deer to drop asap. I can't seem to find this topic on a search, at least not for .45 cal. If anyone could direct me to the post, or just answer me, I would appreciate it.

I hunt TC Hawken .45's often and like them a lot...my .45cal 1:48's shoot full power PRB hunting loads perfectly and I've taken deer cleanly with the little .440/128grn PRB, but at standing deer, at known relatively close distances where a trail crosses a ditch, etc...55yds has been the longest...a heart shot but did not get complete passthrough even though I was using a stout charge...ball hit a rib going in.

I always view the relatively lightweight .45cal PRB like it's the .243 of the muzzleloader world...I think distance and shot placement are extremely critical contraints...if you can pass up the shot on a B&C buck at 100yds should one appear, use the PRB for close in shots as they'll get it done.

If you want more energy at longer distances, TC's .45cal/255grn Maxi-Hunters are tack drivers in my 1:48's and I've taken deer cleanly with them also. If I'm going to hunt an area where shots will always be close, I feel OK with a .45 PRB...if I'm going to hunt an area where the shots may well be 75-100yds, I feel undergunned with the little RB and use the 255grn Maxi-Hunter instead...or take a larger caliber round ball rifle.

That's just me

 

[riarcher]

Knowing that my 1:66 is a RB barrel,, and I'm going against "the rules", I'll tell you what I do anyways.
Being a swamp hunter I can rarely see much over 35 yds. However, there are some "troughs (?)" that run through in places and I can see over 100 yds.
I load for the 75 yd shots and try to stay within that.
In this case, it's a .45 maxi w/ 75 gr. 3 Fg.
Target loads with RBs is .445 w/65 gr. 3 Fg.
I find that out to around 40 yds. the accuacy of the 2 is about the same. At 75 yds. The maxis have a definite edge in keeping the group tighter. And on wood chucks, I can tell you they smack with much more "authority" than the RBs.
RB's will hit and make them stager a step or two and they're off and running again (not too far though). With the Maxis, they get "bowled over" and on the most part, that's the end of them.
I know, "the 1:66 is for RBs and Maxis don't work well in that twist,,," I hear it all the time. But in this case,, they do work,, and work just fine. :results:

 

[WV_Hillbilly]

I have to T/C hawken flintlock that is .45 cal. that I want to hunt deer with in PA, but I don't know what I should use. I like the idea of a prb because of tradition, but I hear that a conical will provide more energy for killing. I never shot at a deer that was more than 50 yards away with a centerfire, and I don't plan on ever changing. The barrel is a 1-48 twist. I still shoot prb for fun, but I want the deer to drop asap. I can't seem to find this topic on a search, at least not for .45 cal. If anyone could direct me to the post, or just answer me, I would appreciate it.

I find that the .440 diameter, ~128gr round ball to be about the minimum caliber for whitetail deer also. Bullet placement is a lot more critical with a "small bore" muzzleloader when using round ball. AND that energy drops off very quickly!!! BTW, Most of my shots are 50yds or closer.

I guess that's why the .50 cal (and .54 cal) guns were so popular with round ball and flintlocks. (though nowadays it's inline design guns with saboted .45 caliber pistol bullets in those .50 calibers) BUT if you are forced by law and restricted to use a flintlock and round ball, I suggest going with a .58 caliber gun if you want them to "drop dead".

I also prefer the T/C 220gr Maxi Ball for the projectile in a .45 caliber gun. Even with just a 50gr charge, it seems to get the job done fine. Finding that particular bullet might be difficult (I have a friend with that bullet mould).

Maybe you could check the following website.
http://www.cabelas.com/information/Hunti...ets0020977.html

Here might be another option for you.
http://www.midwayusa.com/rewriteaproduct/389425

You'll have to try these first to see if they have suitable accuracy in your particular rifle. But, they do work OK in my 1:48 twist gun.

Shoot Wisely!
WV_Hillbilly

 

[Slamfire]

I have seen minies picked up on the battlefield at Gettysburg that looked better'n that Hornady hollow point. :crackup:

 

[Tahquamenon]

I would suggest a conical for the 45 cal.

Folks hunt deer with 36, 40 and 45 cal PRB though and will likely crucify me for suggesting other than a PRB for the .45.

I'll be hunting deer this coming season here in MI with at 45 and I'll be using either the Hornady or the No Excuse conical.


The deer won't object to you being a bit less than "traditional".
If a conical was not available, the shorter ranges and excellent shot placement with PRB should previal. Shot placement should be there anyhow.

Or if you, your .45 and your deer wish to be traditional, try loading a slightly heavier charge using an over the powder wad.

Again, I would use a conical, chasing after a wounded deer is not my idea of fun.

www.hornady.com
Hornday Great Plains 45 CAL 285 GR HB-HP

http://members.aol.com/noexcusesb/page3.html
45 Caliber, 385 grain (45/385): Designed as a lightweight varmint/target bullet, when charged at 50-60% normal hunting load. When charged at that 50-60% they make an excellent target or youth load. This combination closely replicates a fully charged load behind a 460 grain "NO EXCUSES" bullet. It can also be used as a sabot in 50 and 54 caliber firearms.
45 Caliber, 460 grain (45/460): Designed as a big game bullet, it is very similar to the proven Pope design. It's accuracy and design have enabled shooters to harvest large game in excess of 300 yards utilizing it.
45 Caliber, 495 grain (45/495): Designed for large game including Elk and Moose. It's design (larger frontal diameter) provides for exceptional expansion and weight retention.

www.tcarms.com
45 Maxi-Hunter, 255gr, No. 7784
45 maxi-Ball, 240gr, No. 7794

:m2c:

 

[RunningBear]

I like PRB myself but I did test Buffalo's bullets 285 grain bullets in my 45.cal behind 60 grains of 3f.I like the accuracy and the round ball and bullet hit around the same point.RunningBear. :redthumb:

 

[mccoy]

The patched roundball is great in the .45 cal. I've got 7 clean 1 shot kills in PA with a patched .440 ball over 60 grains of FFF. the only one that went anywhere, was a long shot,(80 yards) in an open field. I shot her straight thru the front of the chest head-on. She turned and ran about 40 yards then stood there for about 10 seconds, then fel over dead. When I opened her up, she was totally bled out. It was just like an archery kill. The others were all at 40 yards and under, and went down as if they were shot with a cannon. Bullet placement is the key. Good luck.

 

[Rat]

O.K. TQ, we are setting a date for your crucifiction...how is next Tuesday for you?

:blah:

Ha ha no I can see going either way with a .45". Still, personally I'd load it (round ball) hot and stay within 75 yards probably. I'd load her up until accuracy started to drop off.

At least they don't make .45" sabots with .357" bullets in them. Or......do they???

:cry:

A .45" with a slug is a 45-70, 45-90, or even a .45-110, certainly can't argue with that. Heck you could go 'buff hunting.

:shocking:

Rat

 

[Slamfire]

A .45" with a slug is a 45-70, 45-90, or even a .45-110, certainly can't argue with that. Heck you could go 'buff hunting.

Rat

Yeah but the cartridge round uses really heavy bullets, the 310 grain is the lightweight. :sorry:

 

[roundball]

A .45" with a slug is a 45-70, 45-90, or even a .45-110, certainly can't argue with that. Heck you could go 'buff hunting.

Rat

Yeah but the cartridge round uses really heavy bullets, the 310 grain is the lightweight. :sorry:

I like the .45cal a lot and have become a pretty dedicated round ball shooter over the years...every now and then however, I like to sneak in a TC .45cal/255grn Maxi-Hunter.

I lube them up heavy with Natural Lube 1000 and using 90-100grns Goex 2F + a wonderwad, they're extremely accurate in 1:48" barrels...devastating on deer.

 

[Rat]

That's ok Slam, TQ mentioned a couple slugs in the 490 grain range, and that got me thinking about the 45-70, etc.

By the way TQ, we've decided to just burn you at the stake.

I think that some of those cartridges were loaded with slugs in the 300 grain range, and called Express Cartridges. Probably intended as flatter shooting loads for...dare I say it....smaller game such as Whitetail Deer.

Rat

 

[Tahquamenon]

O.K. TQ, we are setting a date for your crucifiction...how is next Tuesday for you?

By the way TQ, we've decided to just burn you at the stake.

Rat

:hmm:

Tuesday works very well for me. I'll make a recommendation that you might want to bring a bit more firepower than a muzzleloader and body armor would also be a good idea along with your lumber, spikes and torches. I'll supply the beer and barbeque sauce.

On second thought, I've gotten pretty good at head shots on game so the body armor might not be of real benefit. Less stuff for you to carry while trying to storm Fort Tahquamenon. :thumbsup:

You can bank I'll not be defending the fort with an ML and certainly not a PRB from a .45 cal. Although, with good shot placement I'm certain that would do the job.


Rat, you and the crucifixion squad can hunt deer with a patched .17 BB from a Daisy ML rifle if you wish. I'll even help you drag the deer if you can find it.

Without question, a .32-45+ PRB at sufficient velocity, with good shot placement will kill deer and on up the game food chain to Grizzly Bear.
You only need about 3-400 foot pounds of delivered energy to kill most creatures.

For rifles of any caliber, I load for the most effective (not simply adequate) for 100 yards. 100 yards is my effective hunting range with iron sights.

Sure I always prefer as close of shot as possible. The closer the shot the better opportunity for the most optimum shot placement and the most energy delivered to the intended target.

Simply put, I believe a .45 cal PRB is substandard in effectiveness at 100 yards as compared to a ball-et or conical in the same caliber.

But you are free to fill your loading block with your Patched .17 BB for your muzzleloading Daisy rifle and go after Bambi.

Still friends?

eace:

 

[Runner]

I am a tracker. Most deer that blood is ever found on, I will find. I am dumb enough to circle until exhausted looking for the ones there are no blood trails to follow and get lucky some times! I hunt with roundball. I do not recommend hunting with even a 50 caliber roundball unless you are a tracker or have one handy. Often, the ball will not exit and there will be no bloodtrail to aid in finding the animal. None of us shoot game just for the heck of it, and not finding a wounded deer is not a nice feeling. Story as example.

I was slipping in an attempt to run deer past my father more than I was really hunting for myself. A large buck stood up at about 30 yards. I was carrying a 50 Hawken with a 100 grain load of P under a ball. Notice, that is not a target load and the range is short. I did not have a clear shot at the boiler room but the entire neck was in the clear. I swung on front shoulder and then followed the neck forward about 18 inches and squeezed the trigger. When the smoke cleared, a large deer ran past right in front of me! I was attempting to fast draw my Dragoon when I realized it was a doe. I set the 50 down, drew the Dragoon, and hot footed it to where the buck had been standing. He was down, but his head was up and he was getting control of his legs back. He hooked at me with his horns twice. I kicked him over and put a finisher thru the rib cage with the Dragoon. At 30 yards, using a 100 grain P load under a 490 ball, the ball had penetrated thru his neck and stopped under the hide on the off side. This was a large deer. The bullet traveled 19 inches thru neck muscle just clipping the edge of a vertabra on it's way thru. If the deer had ever regained it's feet, it would not have been found. If that had been a 385 Buffalo bullet, he would have been dead before he hit the ground. Now, this is an extreme example. That deer was about as big as they get in Missouri, well over 200 pounds. Roundball requires waiting for the perfect shot into the boiler room. It will often not exit making tracking hard. Nothing is harder on a new comer than to wound and not find their deer. I recommend that they use a conical in the beginning for these reasons. I did for many years after killing a few with roundballs. I went back in the last few years, but that is because I have changed over the years. I feel no pressure to kill a deer anymore. I watched a nice deer at 100 yards the last day of muzzleloader season this year and never raised the gun. It was about 30 yards farther than the longest shot I will take anymore. I wait for the correct shot into the vital area now, like with a bow. I am a better hunter than I used to be. If you plan on using roundball for your hunting, go to the 54 or the 58 just for that little extra punch, and then shoot it like it was a 32 and needs absolutely perfect shot placement. Load the younguns guns with conicals.

My Opinion.

 

[hobbles]

I do not recommend hunting with even a 50 caliber roundball unless you are a tracker or have one handy. Often, the ball will not exit

that's not even close to bein correct,, and with 100 grs,,, hmmmm

 

[hobbles]

Runner
32 cal.

Re: target shooting [Re: Bob J]
#119129 - 05/20/05 05:51 PM
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I target shoot with my hunting load. Sometimes I back off 10 grains. I shot two deer with 70 grain loads year before last. Both were pass thru's and one was out of a DeerHunter flintlock with a little short barrel at 60 yards on a good sized buck. There is little kick. The only reason I would go lower would be if the gun was more accurate with squib loads. Tomorrow I will be shooting 70 grains or 3f under a 495 patched with Wally

sorry, I missed something on my last post,,

 

[Runner]

Been hunting deer with muzzleloaders for over 25 years. The ball stays in the deer more often than not in my experience and in the cases of deer killed by others that were hunting with us. There are lots of us! My father manages land for a gentleman and I have been tracking lots of deer a year for more years than I care to remember. I am the go to man when no one else can find them. I even used to hang out at Busch Wildlife and track the deer for the hunters in the special seasons. I have seen maybe 100 deer killed with muzzleloaders that I was directly involved with. Everything I posted is correct. I recover about 6 out of ten roundballs and I have recovered one conical, ever. That was a 385 Hornady that hit too far back and the flank skin stretched enough to keep it from exiting the deer. It was bigger than a quarter after hitting the liver with that big hollow point. I hunt with a 70 grain roundball load these days out of the Hawken and the flinter. I don't really have a hunting load workled up for the mountain rifle but I am quite sure it would handle heavy loads quite well. So far it uses 70 grains also since that is my target load. A great many roundball wounded deer are not recovered because there is no sign to indicate a hit in any way. There is no blood or hair at the spot because the ball does not exit. There is little or no blood trail for the same reason. Don't hammer on me because I find them and recover a lot of those balls that do not exit. My last two deer were both shot with 70 grains of 3f under a 495 ball. One out of the Hawken and one out of the Deerhunter short barreled flintlock carbine. Both were pass thru's. One was at an angle thru a 200 pound buck at 60 plus yards out of the short barrel carbine. Neither hit anything big or hard. I take my time to try for perfect shot placement. I hunt at short ranges. I will spend the rest of the day trying to find one if I don't know I missed for sure. A 70 grain load under a patched ball is fine under those circumstances. Most of my crew has seen enough recovered with little or no bloodtrail to convince them. I am the only one that does use roundball. The rest that shoot traditional guns use REAL's or Maxiballs.
Now, that is the experience of a group that managed 1600 acres for the deer over 18 years and hunted other properties all over the state. We averaged close to 50 acres of food plots a year for that time period, and would have this year if the farm had not been sold this spring. I am disabled and will spend about 90 days in the field this year doing one thing or another. I have no reason to lie about roundball hunting experiences, especially since I stated that they are all I hunt with. In the case of the deer hit in the neck, he scored 128 after deductions. He was way over 200 pounds. When I pulled him into the camper to drive home with his butt against the front wall of the camper, we had to bend his neck to get the door closed, and my camper is four foot longer than the truck bed. The ball traveled 19 inches thru muscle at an angle thru the neck. Think about that. 19 inches in the neck without exiting, and it wasn't at very much of an angle. I have that ball around here somewhere. It was my biggest buck as far as body size and a pretty nice rack. In the case of a beginner who has not hunted enough to be properly observant as to where the shot was taken, exactly where the deer was last seen, where the deer was last heard, and to know the signes of various hits so that proper time can be taken before the followup, roundball is not the best choice. In that situation, you need all the odds you can stack towards recovery. That means conicals. There is another issue here also. Most guys don't have a lot of private ground to hunt on. During the main season, if their deer runs over the hill, more shots often ring out. Several times I have heard the story of blood trailing to the gutpile where someone else dressed their deer. A 385 Hornady thru the boiler room does not need careful observation to find the trail, if there is one at all. They don't run over the hill with any kind of boiler room hit, and tracking the ones that do get out of sight is not hard. None of the deer I hit with them ever left my sight, and most went down like they had been hit by a truck.
I use roundball by choice. Even as a fan of using them, I will not lie and say that they are as good a bullet a for hunting deer as the conicals are. If I find myself hunting public grounde with other hunters in the area, I will be loading a Lee REAL or Target Mini, depending on which the rifle likes.

 

Hey Rat...

During the 1870's when black powder cartridges became the norm the British chose one way to make their cartridges more effective and here in the states we chose another. The British chose to use as light a bullet as possible and drive it at as high a velocity as could be effectively achieved with black powder. I don't recall who first coined the term "Ezpress Cartridge" but it was with their light bullet and high velocity combination. The British at that time were heavily involved in Africa and their Express Cartridges were not intended for lighter game, altho they were certainly used for it. They were the dangerous game cartridges of the day. I have an E. M. Reilly double in 500 BPE and the load for which it is regulated is a 340-380 grain bullet fired at hopefully about 1800 fps. It was considered a dangerous game cartridge in it's day. I don't believe anyone with any amount of experience or learning would consider a 340-380 grain bullet in a 50 cal. cartridge rifle anything other than very light.

Here in the good ol' USA we went the other direction and used as heavy a bullet as was practical. Our ranges were longer than game was normally shot in Africa and we needed the retained energy and better ballistics, even tho the trajectory was abysmal by todays standards, for the longer shots. I wouldn't dare say that there weren't any lighter loads for lighter game at the time as there was assuredly a variety of bullet weights available for each caliber. Whatever the case may have been, the heavier bullets were the norm. Frank Mayer talks of using 550 gr. bullets for his 45-120,(which saw precious little use on the buffalo ranges, if any, as it was introduced very near the end of the era), and 400-420 grain bullets in his various 40 calibers. I have a Shiloh Sharps in 45-90 and one in 40-70 and both rifles perform at their best with heavier bullets. For hunting a 480 gr. bullet is used in my 45 and a 410 in my 40. Probably the "average" load for those calibers, if that term can be used, was around a 370 grain bullet in the 40 and a 420 in the 45. Quite a bit heavier than the 300+ grains used in muzzleloaders of 45 cal.

That isn't to take any thunder away from a heavily loaded 45 cal. muzzleloader using a conical, or any caliber muzzleloader using a conical. Or, to demean anything you said. All that was to say the lighter bullets in BPC rifles generally weren't for lighter game.

I apologize, I too often take the long way around the barn.

BPC rifles from both sides of the Atlantic, as with all aspects of black powder shooting, provide for an incredibly interesting study.

Vic

 

[dryfly]

Ashtar13:

I will be hunting in PA this fall. The dumb brother-in-law tells me a 50 cal flintlock is required. Also he tells me there are a lot of deer up there so I am making another 50 for the extras.