.58 Cal really worth the hassle over the .54 cal

[Dphar]

Big angry grizzlies excepted, the .54 will stop any animal on this continent. You don't need bigger. Even with a .58 that griz will end up eating you.
These days other considerations come into play. Real black powder is harder to find and getting quite expensive. Same with lead. Bigger guns kick harder.
I would opt for the .54. There are reasons why that caliber is very popular.

On must be careful with the word "stop". I have killed a considerable number of deer and other critters with 50-54-58s. They seldom stop. But it does kill them.
Sir William Drummond Stewart for example found that his 20 bore Manton was more likely to stop an Elk than it was a Mule Deer.
Gbear? I would still rather have the 58 than the 54. The extra 60 grains or so of ball weight and the increased diameter can't hurt and might cause the bear to change its mind. Gbears are not easy to stop even with pretty potent modern firearms but they can be turned.

Dan

 

[Rifleman1776]

Of course, there can never really be a definitive end to this discussion.
I recall, many years ago, someone wrote an article for Muzzle Blasts in which he "proved" that a .52 was the perfect caliber for hunting in North America.
All he proved was he carefully constructed the article to fit his own pre-concluded notion of what was 'best'.

 

[Walks with fire]

Since it's a percussion rifle your looking at there is a bit less "hassle"; finding a .58 flinter is much more "hassle". If your having a custom built or buying a used one then getting a .58 would be a lot less "hassle" than trying to find a production .58.

You didn't mention what you were wanting it for but if it's for hunting bigger animals than deer then it would probably be worth the "hassle".

IMO I don't think people who use the .54/.58 barrels load them up heavy enough. I think a 15/16" straight barrel in .54 with a slow ball twist can be about as good as it gets. It's lighter; it can be loaded to full trajectory advantage and stay within the manufacturers recommended maximum charges of 120 grains. For non-dangerous game I think the .54 is pretty appealing.

I have a .58 GM percussion drop-in that needs converted to a flint ignition and getting that done has been a hassle. If I could buy a slow twist drop-in flint barrel for a TC stock at a reasonable price I would probably never hunt deer here in PA with anything else. I just want one and they are very rare in a production gun.

 

[Dphar]

Of course, there can never really be a definitive end to this discussion.
I recall, many years ago, someone wrote an article for Muzzle Blasts in which he "proved" that a .52 was the perfect caliber for hunting in North America.
All he proved was he carefully constructed the article to fit his own pre-concluded notion of what was 'best'.

There really is no "best". I really like my English Sporting rifle. But a one ounce ball at 1600 makes pretty good recoil and this makes it harder to shoot well. So I hunt a lot with a 50 caliber. Its mild in recoil and kills deer about as well as one could ask.
So I trade power for less wear and tear on me and possibly a little better shooting. It also saves quite a bit of powder and lead to shoot the 50.

I do not consider the 50 or 54 to be ideal across the board. There is no ideal since there are too many variables. In the east shooting from tree stands or blinds at 50-60 yards or less a 40 caliber will kill deer OK. In the west with longer shots and bigger critters 50 was considered the minimum back in the day. But over 54-58 recoil starts to increase in the typical American rifle post 1820 and many designs before that.
Everything is a trade off. I am sure that a rifle built for a .735 ball would be a real killer for ANYTHING in NA and parts of Africa and Asia. But with useful loads in a 10 pound rifle recoil WILL be a factor and power at this level is like shooting WT deer with a 458 mag or 460 W mag. Pointless.
So we go for compromise. As a COMPROMISE the 50-54 is near perfect for most uses even elk or Bison if used right, if deer are the only thing then a 40-45 will work in many places. But if large moose and bears are on the menu then the .662 would be my choice. I see no real need for anything larger in NA.
Large Moose?
You run a 54 RB into a leg bone this big and its going to develope penetration problems. The .662 ball might break it and inflict a fatal wound. Probably will. But thats a lot of bone for a pure lead ball and I would prefer WW alloy or this.

A 54 will break the upper leg bone on a grown elk and still get into the vitals. But its not the best choice. So these bones need to be avoided. I only broke the leg bone on the elk because the shot went about 4-6" left. Either from sighting error or from resting the my left hand against a tree on the right side of the rifle. In any event it killed the elk without any issues. But the .662 would have been better.
No I did not kill the moose. It was shot on a place I own in AK and the guy gave me a shoulder.

Dan

 

[N.Y. Yankee]

If you can get a .54 conical bullet to shoot well from your gun, then there is no benefit in going up to 58. If you are stuck with a round ball gun and want a little more bullet weight for things like bear and moose,then a 58 ball will give you that. Granted, not a lot of advantage but a heavier bullet will hit a little harder at close range. I'd want to have a barrel in which I could use a stout load. I use a 54 RB on critters without claws but for bear or moose I would definately go with a 54 maxi ball.

 

[jdkerstetter]

.....Granted, not a lot of advantage but a heavier bullet will hit a little harder at close range.....

A heavier bullet hits harder at any range! Enjoy, J.D.

 

[Dphar]

If you can get a .54 conical bullet to shoot well from your gun, then there is no benefit in going up to 58. If you are stuck with a round ball gun and want a little more bullet weight for things like bear and moose,then a 58 ball will give you that. Granted, not a lot of advantage but a heavier bullet will hit a little harder at close range. I'd want to have a barrel in which I could use a stout load. I use a 54 RB on critters without claws but for bear or moose I would definately go with a 54 maxi ball.

The problem with marginally stable conicals is they tend to deflect when striking an animal. This has been noted from the adoption of the Minie by the British military (Crimean War surgeons) right to today with the 54 maxi used in 48 twist TCs.
Trust me you do NOT want to shoot something with a bullet that deflects. I have seen this several times with 1 with a 308 dia spire point and twice in shooting 2 deer with Hornady "Leverevolution"(trademark) in 45-70. Bullets that turn 45 degrees when striking muscle are not something you want to shoot deer with much less something dangerous.
The various failings of the ML conical on game is mentioned by Forythe in "The Sporting Rifle and its Projectiles", Sir Samuel Baker who was put into "scrapes" hunting African Elephant with his stopping rifle, his "Devil stopper" when he decided it would be better with a conical and W.W. Greener who comments on the conicals lack of stopping power. All 19th c writtings.
The other problem in a hunting rifle is that they do not always stay one the powder since they have little friction in the bore.
Moderns just love to jump the to "new and improved" ML bullets but most don't know they were tried back in the day and found wanting. But this did not stop people from selling a bill of goods to consumers when everyone (with little experience) decided the RB was incapable of killing anything. Never mind its being the GOLD STANDARD for heavy game stopping rifles until the advent of cartridges like the 450 NE. Even the large bore breech loaders such as the 4 bore "stopping rifles" used conicals that were virtually RBs in weight. They needed something with a cylindrical portion to keep them in place in the cartridge case.
The 54 Maxi is identical in weight to a .662 ball. But the 662 ball will transmit more energy to an animal that the poorly designed Maxi even if it does track straight. The Maxi-Hunter bullet was apparently designed to address the Maxi's lack of expansion and poor wound channels.
Its possible to find all of Bakers writings on the WWW, Forsythe as well.
I would close with a couple of quote's of John Taylor an elephant hunter in Africa who shot some Elephant and Rhino with a 10 bore smooth gun using hardened RBs when his modern ammunition shipment was mis-directed and the percussion gun was all he could borrow to collect ivory with.

"Men with their modern breech-loaders and repeaters are all too much inclined to sneer at the muzzle-loader. But a good muzzle-loader, properly handled, is a very deadly and effective weapon---provided is limitations are fully realized."
This from page 76 of "Pondoro".
His "limitations" were that he was not confidant that a 10 bore could stop a charging Elephant with a head shot.
He did say that "I didn't have a single misfire and didn't lose a single wounded animal". Shooting a total of 21 Bull Elephant and Rhino with the percussion gun before running out of suitable balls.

Dan

 

[ryoung14]

A well reasoned response, Dan.

In your opinion, is the problem with marginal conical stability addressed by faster rifling twists? I can see a heavy conical being "on the edge" in a 1:48 twist; but how about 1:32 and 1:28?

As I recall, the old Whitworth rifles were conical shooters and had a 1:20 twist, but they were mostly paper punchers.

 

[tenngun]

I like lots of lead but to agree with dan nothig short of a cannon has knock down power. Somthing that has surprised me when a simular post came up I looked up ft/lbs at 100 yards and found very little differance between a .50 and .54. That said I'll stay with big bores.I'ed like to hunt gizzle bars with my .62 smoothy,but I doubt I ever will :wink: