.45 vs .50?

[gearheart]

I'd go 50 and my only reason is that the barrel will be lighter as the hole is bigger. You're carrying more steel with a 45.

 

[hanshi]

I've killed a lot of deer with both. the only deer that required a second shot was one shot with the .50. It was anchored, just not out. I've used the .45 for several years on deer and they dropped quickly. The .45 is absolutely excellent for deer and I base that on many years and many deer. The .50 will show no advantage whatsoever until you get to larger game than deer.

 

[M. De Land]

I built a .45 on a H&A action and love it for target work. My favorite load is 65 grains of 3F and a .445 round ball.I lapped the barrel a bit with 400 grit before mounting it and it still took about a 100 shots before it quit cutting patches.
I also have a Hawkin style .54 and Navy Arm Hawkin hunter in the short heavy barrel .58 cal.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

I think the .50 caliber picked up popularity due solely to its association with the .50 BMG. There is no way to ever tell though.

I'd be comfortable hunting deer with a .45 but since I only like PRB want a .54 or .58.

And I like to be different.

Greg

 

[ebiggs1]

In my experience, [strike]PLENTY[/strike], hunter or killer.

 

[Ron_T.]

I've got three .50 calibers... 2 caplock Hawkens (a 6½ lb carbine with a 24" barrel for hunting, a 7½ lb Hawken rifle with a 28" barrel for target shooting) and a flint-lock long rifle that mostly hangs in a shadow box above the fire place.

I'd say that either the .45 or the .50 caliber is fine for deer with the .50 caliber preferred, but if I were going for elk or moose, I'd want a .54 caliber if using patched round balls or the .50 caliber "hunter" carbine with a heavy conical bullet and try to keep my shot under 100 yards and preferably under 80 yards on elk or moose using the .50 caliber carbine.

Make GOOD smoke... :thumbsup:


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

 

[M. De Land]

I don't think I would hunt with the underhammer gun because I removed the thumb cocker from the hammer and now cock it for target work with a deer antler point. Kind of a speed hammer deal I like for target shooting and it makes the flash depressor work more efficiently as well so one does not need even a shirt sleeve anymore. MD

 

[Matt85]

id say 45 cal if the biggest thing your ever gonna hunt is deer. now if you want elk, bear, or (insert large game here). you will wanna consider larger calibers.

the advantage to the 50 cal over the 45 in most production guns is the amount of metal left in the barrel. most of the time a 50 cal barrel is lighter then a 45 cal barrel. but this really depends on who made your barrel and does not apply to all guns.

-Matt

 

[Marc Adamchek]

I have two .50's, a caplock and a flinter.\

I have one .45, a flintlock.\

I like them all and i think the .45 has an edge on accuracy, that is, it shoots a bit tighter for me.

The only thing I don't like is it's heavier.\

 

[Stumpkiller]

Flavored a lot of rice with critters got with .44 round ball. Doesn't take very much powder to do the job.

Cut roasts and steaks off lots of critters I dropped with a .490" round ball. :grin:

Truthfully, if I had used a .45 it likely wouldn't have made much difference. I am patient and selective with a muzzleloader and wait for good shot offerings.

 

[M. De Land]

From what I have read though of our early American history of US made guns, a .45 caliber patched round ball rifle would have been on the heavy side east of the Mississippi.
That had a lot to do with economy of both lead and powder especially for the long hunter.But if I have a correct understanding most PRB rifles were under .50 caliber and a good many were in the .35 to .38 caliber range until the Minie ball came on the scene.
Smooth bores tended to be of large caliber for use with shot as well as ball in early America but most rifles I believe were well under .50 cal in the Pennsylvania/Kentucky rifle era.
The famous Hawkin Brothers tended to calibers around .50 to . 53 in shorter rifles more suitable for heavier game and horse back travel but even some of those were made in sub .50 cal rifles. MD

 

[Stumpkiller]

From what I have read though of our early American history of US made guns, a .45 caliber patched round ball rifle would have been on the heavy side east of the Mississippi.

From what I have read only after 1800 or so.

 

[Dphar]

From what I have read though of our early American history of US made guns, a .45 caliber patched round ball rifle would have been on the heavy side east of the Mississippi.
That had a lot to do with economy of both lead and powder especially for the long hunter.But if I have a correct understanding most PRB rifles were under .50 caliber and a good many were in the .35 to .38 caliber range until the Minie ball came on the scene.
Smooth bores tended to be of large caliber for use with shot as well as ball in early America but most rifles I believe were well under .50 cal in the Pennsylvania/Kentucky rifle era.
The famous Hawkin Brothers tended to calibers around .50 to . 53 in shorter rifles more suitable for heavier game and horse back travel but even some of those were made in sub .50 cal rifles. MD

George Hanger, a British Officer and rifleman stated that while he had seen hundreds of rifles in America during the Revolution he never saw one larger than 36 to the pound.
It is apparent that rifles were generally under 50 even in Rev War times. Sure some were bigger, but they were a rarity.
One of the reasons traders liked the natives to use trade guns was that they used more powder and lead than the rifle.
The Western Rifles of the 1820s-1840s became bigger. I was found that in the west that bore sizes under 50 were marginal due to the larger animals and longer ranges.
The Minie was not all that popular with civilians. The service charge only made about 900-1000 fps so the trajectory was not really usable for animals who were not vertical. Heavier charges would blow the thin skirt on the minie of the time. They also were near useless horseback since they would unload themselves from gravity if carried in the typical manner of the time. Slung from the saddle. This was why there never was an issue Minie Ball rifle for the cavalry.

Dan

 

[Stumpkiller]

"36 to the pound" is a lead ball of 194 grains, or about a 0.506" lead ball (.52 caliber?)

 

[Dphar]

I forgot to mention, that, for the most part rifles captured during the Revolution and taken to England are more often, what what I have read, .50 or under since they were not used for the next 50-100 years and recut and then finally bored for shot. The Thomas Rifle under 50. J.J. Henry lost his rifle enroute to Quebec in 1775. He bought a short barreled rifle from a man being send back for medical reasons that used a 48 caliber ball. From his wording I think it was larger than the rifle lost to the river.
There is a very fine Resor rifle in "Steel Canvas" thought to date to circa 1770 that is 42 caliber.
There is not way to really determine this. Its not written down by the makers of the time. What we can do is ask "what worked?" The 42-45 caliber rifle was certainly adequate for the game in most parts of the east. Bears might need 45 or larger.
If hunting larger game like maybe a moose then 50-54 is going to work. All this based on modern day experiences and reports.
So if shooting mostly small game and the occasional deer (remember colonists tended to have large drives where they killed any wildlife they could down to rabbit sized to protect farm crops and livestock) then a rifle over 44-45 would be a massive waste of lead.
Hunters going to Kentucky in 1770, a long hunter would have been well served with a rifle between 40 and 50 with the smaller bore requiring less lead and powder, less cloth for patching and making less noise generally.
When I was 18 we "knew" the early rifles were 50-54-58. Today I am not so sure. I could not say absolutely what the average bore size was of an American rifle in 1775 but I suspect that it was 44 +- .020.
What surviving rifles are today may be something else altogether.

Dan

 

[Dphar]

That would be my take too.
But this was what he said was the reported maximum. But he obviously did not see ALL the American rifles of the time either.
But from the effectiveness vs powder and lead used standpoint the 50 and under looks pretty good in the East.
So many surviving rifles of the 1760-1780 time frame that remained on America have been so heavily used that its impossible to tell what the original caliber was.
A 50 caliber in 1775 might easily be a 54-58 by 1860 then bored for shot. Or bored for shot when the original ower's eyesight failed. There are so many shouda, woulda, coulda scenarios that its simply not possible to know for sure.

Dan

 

[M. De Land]

Walter Cline had many original rifles and if I remember correctly I got some of this information from his book and Ned Roberts.There were some rifles made here over .50 cal but not many as opposed to under.I remember this because I was surprised by how many were even under 40 caliber in early America.
I was and am referring to rifled muzzle loaders shooting patched round balls made in America in the 17 and 1800's in the Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virgina style.
There were of course many foreign made guns of smooth bore and large caliber such as the famous Brown and Bess, Indian trade guns and German Jaqaur rifles.MD

 

[LaBonte]

Hunters going to Kentucky in 1770, a long hunter would have been well served with a rifle between 40 and 50 with the smaller bore requiring less lead and powder, less cloth for patching and making less noise generally.

You are apparently forgetting about the well documented large herds of buffalo hunted throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, the Ohio country and more, from the 1760's until the last were killed circa the 1700's. While deer skins were the main object hunted for money, they were not the largest game east of the Mississippi and west of the Blue Ridge. Along with bigger game such as buffalo, despite the buckskin trade it was a pretty good money maker both for hides and meat, there were black bear and elk.
While a 50 caliber is plenty good for buffalo I would not say the same about the smaller calibers.

Just a few examples:
Buffalo hunting is mentioned 19 times in this documentation http://www.danielboonetrail.com/historicalsites.php?id=156

Daniel Boone's firs buffalo hunt was in 1767 in Ky http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Publications/region/8/daniel_boone/chap21.htm

And there were buffalo even farther east - the Wilderness Trail that Boone followed from Virginia to Ky was formed mainly by buffalo, some of which Boone hunted in the Carolinas. http://www.tngenweb.org/campbell/hist-bogan/BuffaloTrails.html

The idea that Easterners hunted only small or marginally large game is dependent on time and place and should not be a generalization - there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

The Long Hunt: Death of the Buffalo East of the Mississippi
by Ted F Belue is a well researched book on the subject http://www.amazon.com/Long-Hunt-De...TF8&qid=1350972403&sr=1-1&keywords=081170968X

 

[LaBonte]

Walter Cline had many original rifles and if I remember correctly I got some of this information from his book and Ned Roberts.There were some rifles made here over .50 cal but not many as opposed to under.I remember this because I was surprised by how many were even under 40 caliber in early America.
I was and am referring to rifled muzzle loaders shooting patched round balls made in America in the 17 and 1800's in the Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virgina style.
There were of course many foreign made guns of smooth bore and large caliber such as the famous Brown and Bess, Indian trade guns and German Jaqaur rifles.MD

With all due respect to both Mr. Cline and Mr. Roberts much of their info is dated and not of the best scholarship - much has been refuted by later scholars. Most of those smaller calibers are of later vintage or were those carried by those living along the east coast, in particular those of the upper crust (they being fancier rifles is one reason they survived) and from areas where the larger game, had been hunted to near extinction.

I do agree with Dan on the point that without GOOD primary documentation such as work orders by makers (collectors writing about the subject much later and often based on conjecture of a few remaining samples is not really that good info - plus many of the older writers were very often far off on their dating of remaining examples), there is no way to get a good statistical view of the actual calibers used and the numbers made.

 

[M. De Land]

Yeah it is true about the buffalo east of the Mississippi but west of the Alleghenies. Also moose and elk were prevalent in colonial America.
Moose up north in particular.Odd how elk are now relegated to the western mountains states except for transplants in the east but in the time of Louis and Clark they were plains animals like the buffalo.
I'm told buffalo are tough customers with any bullet or ball. I've killed ten moose and they aren't at all hard to kill. None with a muzzle loader though! MD