I’m wanting to build a flintlock rifle to elk hunt with in the September muzzleloader season in CO. My question to the experienced veterans is will a 54 caliber round ball be sufficient or should I go bigger? I’ll build with 42” barrel, 1 in 56 twist is what I think it is. Thanks in advance for the advice.
54 Caliber for Elk
- Thread starter büchsenmacher64
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.54 will kill elk.
^ Yessir, what he said.
If this is a rifle barrel @büchsenmacher64 is in the process of buying, I would recommend a 1 in 66" twist for a round ball rifle. Now, is this rifle to be used with round ball or a conical bullet?
Walkingeagle
54 Cal.
I’ve only killed one with a .54 roundball and one with a .50 conical. All the others are with bow or centerfire.
Yup, but the restriction on you is waiting on the perfect shot. Not forcing anything.
Walk
Yup, but the restriction on you is waiting on the perfect shot. Not forcing anything.
Walk
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.54 rb is usually a through and through if no major bones are struck. .54 PRB is good to go within acceptable ranges and angles.
now focus on getting that rock and steel to spark reliably. and that to reliably make the main charge to burn. nothing makes me revert to the unrefined heathen i really am like having the dream of a lifetime all lined up, well within my range ability, and the wonderful rifle i have loved and cherished, just go KLATCH! then watch that big white rump disappear over the far ridge.
do not skimp on the lock. a good trigger is fine to, but you could trip the lock with a pocket knife and if there are no sparks you are sunk.
hanshi
Cannon
I think the .54 would make a fine rifle for elk. I've never killed an elk but have utmost respect for a .530" or .535" patched ball.
Thanks for the advice gentleman.
longcruise
70 Cal.
54 ball is a good choice for elk. I don’t know your age or fitness level so this next is a choice only you can make. If you are goi g with a 42" straight octogon it's going to be heavy even in a 15/16". A swamped as light as possible will be your friend.
You are correct, 13 oz more than my 45 cal straight octagonal barrels I’ve built. But still much lighter than my bolt elk rifle.
^^^Ain't that the truth!^^^
TDM
Cannon
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Wow, that is a fine Bull.
Congratulations and Thanks for the photo. Can you tell me about your kill? Load, rifle, shot placement, how far did he go, what kind of blood trail did you have? Thanks again Zutt-Man
My hunt was unique in many ways.
First off, it was a once in a lifetime draw in Kansas on a military base called Ft Riley. Kansas has unlimited OTC tags for elk, but coming across one is rare unless you’re fairly close to the military base and even then they don’t wander too far off. You’re best chance is drawing one of 30ishtags (12 any elk, 18 antlerless in 2020) access to the military installation of 70,000 acres of recreational area.
The second uniqueness about this hunt was the terrain. I’ve hunted elk in the Madison Mountains of Montana and the Roosevelt National Forest of Colorado. You’re not spending hours behind a spotting scope here. The topography and vegetation are not friendly for this kind of hunting. It was a mixture of deep cut flint hills, marshy creek bottoms, gentle rolling hills and flat plains. I spent 8 days with boots on the ground covering a little over 40 miles in 50 hours of hunting (I live 30 minutes from Ft Riley so driving over and hunting an evening wasn’t an issue). It’s also weird hunting elk with machine gun fire coming from a mile away. And trust me, those elk know exactly where hunters can and cannot get them. Most of the big ones live in the ‘Impact Zone’ and on the rifle ranges, which is where they do a lot of they’re artillery and rifle training.
The tag was good from September through December. In September, any elk tags were dedicated to archery and muzzleloader only. October through December was any legal weapon. I chose to hunt September for the rut and I was very proficient with a muzzleloader. My problem was I had a .40 percussion poorboy to my name and didn’t want to use that for an elk. I borrowed one of my father’s .54’s (he has two, one in percussion and one in flint) and worked up a .53 hornady RB, .015 spit patch and 70 gr FFF Goex load to get 1” groups at 50 yards.
I ended up scaring the hell out of a group of 15-20 cows with this bull by bugling 50 yards from them. I had no idea they were there with the thickness of the cover. The bull pushed his cows about 300 yards and then started bugling back at me. I let out a few lost cow calls to bring him in to 30 yards.
Now, I ended up cleaning the gun after I had worked up the right load combination, but I believe I may have used too much oil afterwards. I pulled the trigger on a frontal shot and pop… misfire. I quickly put on another cap. Pop… misfire. They quickly dispersed and I got on that bull’s @$$ as quickly as I could and watched him weave in and out of the timber, confused on what had happened. I loaded another cap and pop… misfire.
I was so damned angry, but I saw which direction he went and decided I was going to beat him to a certain point. I took a little short cut around a hay meadow on one side of a hill to see if I couldn’t cut him off. I knew he had two directions he could go and this was a last ditch effort for one more shot attempt. It worked to perfection, kinda.
He came around the hillside, much longer than I expected and walked out of the sumac at 80 yards before he realized he’d been had. I pulled the trigger and… hangfire. I hit him back mid body. I was pretty sick to my stomach, but at this point I had a wounded elk and my gun was officially cleaned out of the fouling. I loaded up another ball and took a 120 yard broadside shot behind the shoulder. I’d track him for 150 yards before I came across him bedded in some 6’ sumac. I crept in and out one more in the boiler room at 10 yards for good measure. He popped up, went 15 yards and piled up.
The first photo is a trail camera picture someone got of him after the very first shot. You can see where the hangfire resulted in a poorly placed shot. The necropsy would reveal he most certainly was going to perish that day. The second trail camera shot came after my second shot which you can see both bullet entries, one behind the shoulder and the poorly placed one. The 3rd photo was a shot I captured with my phone just as I had spotted him. The 4th is where I found him bedded and I crept in, but he was still laboring to breath. The last photo is where he perished.
I wish it would’ve gone differently, but that’s the nature of muzzleloading. I now run a few patches down my barrel prior to loading my gun, because of this incident. All round balls were lodged on the other side of the elk in his hide, including the 10 yard final shot. He ended up yielding around 240 lbs of meat (must’ve been living well off of farmer’s corn and soybeans).
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Wow, what a great story! Thanks for answering all of my questions. I definitely feel confident using a 54 on elk now. I made a bad shot on a Mulie last week with my 308 and 6x25 scope. It happens. It was a lethal hit, like yours, but I had to put a finishing shot on him. Thanks again Zutt-Man.
Has some of the thickets and nastiest vegetation I’ve hunted in. Some absolute monster whitetails out there if a guy works hard enough at scouting. I like how it is open to the public for some portions of the year to recreate as well. Beautiful area
