50g FFFg for Whitetail?

[Abel]

Good morning,

I have a T/C Haken 50cal that shoots very, very well with 50g of Goex FFFg and a Hornady PRB. At 75 yards and under, is this adequate for deer?

Thanks

 

[Rifleman1776]

Good morning,

I have a T/C Haken 50cal that shoots very, very well with 50g of Goex FFFg and a Hornady PRB. At 75 yards and under, is this adequate for deer?

Thanks

While I am not a fan of super heavy charges for whitetail deer, your charge is, IMHO, too light for the task. Do your range work to find an accurate load in the 65 to 85 gr. range.

 

[270WSMANIC]

IMHO it is. Accuracy being the most important thing. That being said in case of a marginal hit, yes they do happen. 70 or 80 would be good insurance. Have you tried them to see if they are accurate also?

 

[Trench]

My comfort level with charges in that range is 50 yards or less for the shot. I took a buck at 40 yards with a .490 ball over 60gr of FFg and got a complete pass through.

 

[izzyjoe]

that load will kill any whitetail alive, but i would limit shot's to 50yds.

 

[Dphar]

Good morning,

I have a T/C Haken 50cal that shoots very, very well with 50g of Goex FFFg and a Hornady PRB. At 75 yards and under, is this adequate for deer?

Thanks

I would prefer more powder. This load is surely under 1600 fps and will have a very looping trajectory.
Will it kill a deer, you bet.
But what is the trajectory?
Is it REALLY very very accurate?
My son at 12 killed his first deer with a 45 caliber FL loaded with 45 gr of powder at about 40-50 yards.
Have you tried heavier loads?
A shooter at our last match was shooting a similar load from 50 and it was throwing them all over the paper. He stepped the load up to 90 and his last two shots cut each other.
There were actually 2 shooters there shooting "flat" sounding loads though they had been shooting with us for a year or more. The other guy stepped his load up for the last 3 shots as was amazed at how it tightened up.
DO YOUR TESTING. A 50 RB will kill deer at 800 fps. But its a accuracy/trajectory thing. If your 75 yard shot is actually 100 how much low will the ball be? If its on at 75 where is it at 45?

This a composite of 10 shots for score at 60 yards rest. In the wind.

Many here would be shocked at how much powder I shoot. But this group won about 60 bucks IIRC.
The load and rifle has averages about 40 bucks in winnings every time I shoot it in a match.
A hunting rifle must be 3 things.
1. It must be of adequate ball size for the game so as to produce adequate penetration.
2. It must be accurate enough to put the ball within a couple of inches of the desired spot under field conditions.
3. It must shoot flat enough to allow shots to be placed within the kill zone of the animal hunted to 110-130 yards with no need to allow for trajectory.

If the rifle meets these criteria and the hunter does his part the shot will be a slam-dunk.
Many here decry the use of heavy loads, say 1/2 ball weight in a 50 cal. They think its for di*k waving purposes. Its not. The velocity serves two purposes. It flattens the trajectory and it very often shoots much better than the lighter loads.
I have the feeling that a lot of people here expect too little from their ML rifle so far as accuracy goes and as a result fail to do adequate load development.
Dan

 

[Billnpatti]

If you limit your shots to 50 yards or less and are careful about shot placement, 50 grains will certainly do the job. But if you think that you may have to take a shot out to as far as 100 yards, you will need to add a bit more powder to your load. Sort of a rule of thumb for a good hunting load is 1 1/2 times your best target load. So, for your rifle that would be 75 grains. Set up a target at about 85 yards and see how 75 grains works for you

 

[cynthialee]

They already said what I would have for the most part.

I know that at 50 yards with that load out in my CVA that the ball will go clean through a half inch ply wood and both sides of a 50 gallon steel oil drum. I am pretty sure bambi skin and guts are not tougher than plywood and steel.

 

[buford87]

I was going to suggest a penetration test similar to what Cynthialee said then see how it performs............watch yer top knot................

 

[Loyalist Dave]

In Maryland your minimum legal load for deer with a ML rifle is 60 grains. I'm not sure why they list this, as it's 60 grains for a .40 (which is screaming downrange), 60 grains for a .75 (which is almost slow enough to watch it go downrange), and everything in between, whether patched round ball or conical or sabot. Yet IF you use a ML handgun..., you only need 40 grains. Odd eh? :shake:

Mark Baker years ago mentioned he uses 50 grains, and got flamed left and right for his "light" load, but nobody bothered to find out what range he used for a maximum. Any loading will have a max range. At 50 yards you should be fine. :grin:

LD

 

[Dean2]

11

 

[BrownBear]

Good morning,

I have a T/C Haken 50cal that shoots very, very well with 50g of Goex FFFg and a Hornady PRB. At 75 yards and under, is this adequate for deer?

Thanks

Dunno if this helps for your frame of reference, but my wife has always used 60 grains of 3f in her 54 for deer. She limits her shots to 50 yards, and every deer has died within sight. And we've never recovered a ball. I'm pretty sure she could stretch the range to 75 yards based on that, but she's found her comfort level and sticks to it, irrespective of trajectory questions about a longer shot.

I'm betting if she switched to a 50 cal her heart would be set on a charge right in the 50-60 grain arena too. And I would have zero concerns. She's a great shot with the 54 and even better with her 50. But she prefers the 54 because it's lighter, not because either of us thinks it kills any better in our circumstances.

 

[Dean2]

50 grains will kill them at 50, 75 or 100 yards, if you put the ball in the right place. The key part is the IF.

Dan's comments are spot on. I have shot loads from 30 grains to 120 in a 50 and to be honest, the recoil difference with Patched Round ball is pretty negligible. On game, you will never notice it. The trajectory difference however is not negligible. 80 or 90 grain loads will flatten out your shooting a lot.

 

[Rifleman1776]

50 grains will kill them at 50, 75 or 100 yards, if you put the ball in the right place. The key part is the IF

BINGO!

 

[izzyjoe]

i will say this, a few months back when i was working up a load for my cva hawken i was using 70gr of 2f, and at 100yds my RB did'nt penetrate both sides of my target frame. it's an alumium square tube frame that i turned into a target holder, well i missed the target, and hit the tube dead in the middle, and it only went though one side, and smacked the other side pretty hard. the tubing is not that thick maybe 1/16 inch, so that made me raise my charge to 80grs.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

My wife uses a .50 with 50 grains of 3f from a 24" barrel. With her rifle I shot a doe facing me pretty much straight on. It stood stock still for a couple of seconds then toppled over sideways, stiff legged like a lawn ornament. The ball had entered at the top of the brisket and was found in the right ham looking like it could be used again. That was maybe a 60 yard shot but I think 50 grains will do fine at any distance you can place your shot.

 

[hanshi]

Of course 50 grains 3F in a .50 will kill deer all day long and kill them quickly. I like to use a bit more powder than that and the minimum in Va is 50grns. I wouldn't push the range out too far, though.

 

[trent/OH]

50 grains will kill them at 50, 75 or 100 yards, if you put the ball in the right place. The key part is the IF

BINGO!

Ditto. And that's the voice of experience.

 

[phoenix113]

Here in my area of Georgia, black powder is hard to come by. Pyrodex and Triple 7 are about all we can come up with. I have been hunting a section of wooded hillside and thick brush inside the city limits where I live across the road for the past 7 years with my recurve. This year I am planning to use my T/C .50 to add a little spice to the hunt. I’m shooting 40 grains of Pyrodex with Hornady 177 grain patched roundball. Now granted that I still use archery ranges (10 to 30 yards) because of the limited clear shots in this thick stuff but I feel very confident that my load is adequate enough to do the job. With 40 grains of Pyrodex at 30 yards my rifle will print about a 2 inch group which is more than adequate for minute of deer at those ranges and at the shooting range it has no problems going through a sheet of ¾ inch marine plywood that I use as a backstop. I may not get a complete pass through on the deer but in the long run its all about range, accuracy, the size of game and confidence in your load.

 

[Zonie]

A 50 grain 3Fg powder load in a TC .50 caliber rifle will give around 1450 fps muzzle velocity.

At 70 yards that will decrease to around 1000 fps with around 400 ft/lbs of energy.

That is pretty close to a .45 ACP shooting a 230 grain bullets muzzle energy so I would expect the results to be better than shooting the deer at point blank range with that cartridge gun. (Bigger caliber = more destruction.)

Because the roundball looses its velocity pretty fast, its effectiveness beyond 80 yards will fall off pretty quickly so I would consider a 50 grain 3Fg powder load in that gun to be a bit too light for ranges of 90+ yards.