.50cal hawkens woodsman round ball alternatives

[longcruise]

petew Saidush them hard. I never got good results with maxi's or Mini's untill I was close to a max load.

ya it feels like they will take a little bit of grunt work to get them down the barrel

Think he wants to tell you to shoot em hard with a heavy powder charge. My own exp with .50 and 1:48 with maxi says he is right on!

IMO, it's not the "compromise" twist that we so often call it. Most of the original Hawken rifles were 1:48 and 1:48 was very common among the pre and post rev guns too.

My TC .50 with 1:48 won a whole bunch of matches back when my eyes were good. :haha: Killed a bunch of mule deer bucks and does with 60 and 70 grains of goex ff under a prb. :shocked2:

The 370 maxi shot well for me but needed 80 to 100 grains of ff goex to get decent accuracy. You also must wipe thoroughly between shots to prevent a crud ring build up where the base of the bullet sits on the powder. It gets longer and thicker with each shot and accuracy degrades along with it.

 

[chironomidkraut]

thanks guys u have been a huge help

 

[longcruise]

If you get stuck in rewriting the formula, get back to me and I will give you some help.

Or, PM me your email address and I'll send you a spreadsheet that figures it both ways. Also calculates the weight of any round ball and shows the "gauge" (balls per pound) of any round ball.

 

[tenngun]

"And legions of Red Coats with thier muskets and gear...All shoke thier heads and agreeed with the deer...'Twas not through skill or bad luck we encountered deaths path...But simply because that guy Knew his math"

 

[Billnpatti]

Using the Greenhill Formula and assuming that the .50 cal. bullets will be pure lead, I made the following calculation:

L = bullet length in inches
T = barrel twist rate (48)
C = a constant for bullets with a velocity of 1500 fps or less (150)
D = bullet diameter in inches (.50)

Therefore:

L= (C x D squared)/ T or
L = (150 x .5 squared)/48 or
L = (150 x .25)/48
L = 0.78 inches

This means that a round ball or a pure lead bullet of up to 3/4 inches in length should be stabilized with a 1:48 twist rate and shoot quite well in your gun at velocities of up to 2,800 fps. If your velocity is greater than 2,800 fps, substitute the value for C of 180. If your velocities are greater than 2,800 fps the value for L becomes .94. At those velocities, you can shoot a bullet up to 15/16 inches in length. :thumbsup:

Yer welcome! :hatsoff:

 

[Zonie]

Yup.
We muzzleloaders have to really worry about velocities above 2,800 fps. :grin: :rotf:

 

[M. De Land]

I saw that as well and thought it just a typo for 1800 fps! The lead would be molten and the patch ash at 2800 fps! :rotf: Mike D.

 

[Zonie]

No. The Greenhill Formula was created in 1879 and it proved to be pretty accurate for all black powder guns because none of them could fire a bullet/ball at 2800 fps.

When the modern powders and cartridges started shooting faster than 2800 fps a correction factor needed to be made to predict usable diameter to bore ratios. The original formula still works below that velocity.

Although some site the Greenhill Formula as a method of calculating the "right" bullet length for a given twist rate, actually the formula doesn't give the "right" length. It gives the maximum length for the bullet.
Anything shorter will work including a roundball.

 

[petew]

Are they talking overall length or the length with a bearing contact to the bore? and how do hollow base mini's fit into this compared to a solid flat base bullet?

 

[M. De Land]

We use a modified Greenhill formula to get an idea for developing bullet lengths and shapes for our long range cartridge guns and have found that it is more accurate for our use if we use a factor of 125 instead of the 150 used in original formula.
This ups the twist rate for a given length and adds stability to the heavy weights to longer range.
The Greenhill formula was developed for bullets not balls as far as I known and does nothing to address bullet stability in transonic flight( 1300 fps down through 900 fps) which is the major buffeting a bullet goes through in it's entire flight. Mike D.

 

[M. De Land]

Overall length!

 

[M. De Land]

We have found through the experiments of several people in the long range Black powder cartridge shooting community that ogive and nose shape have much to do with stabilizing a bullets transition through the transonic region and the farther one can push that out toward the target the less yaw and drag can geometrically mess with the cone of dispersment on the target center. Mike D.

 

[M. De Land]

The trouble with mini's though is the hollow base moves the overturn moment/balance point forward toward the nose tending to make them want to tumble but the expanded skirt somewhat mitigates this by causing drag at the base but bleeds of velocity very quickly.
The Maxi balls are more efficient in this regard and tend to be at least as stable and probably more so from what I can see in using them. Mike D.

 

[petew]

Interesting, but when we increase forward weight on an arrow it certainly does not make it want to tumble. Forward weight will make it want to fly weight out front , just like tying a string to a rock and throwing it. The rock, {front weight} is always out front and the string follows..