A difference in terminal performance between 54 -62 caliber?

[zimmerstutzen]

Barrel weight and caliber are unrelated. You can make any profile you want to get the weight you want.

Sort of. You can't make a 3/4 ATF 62 caliber barrel that can actually safely be shot Most folks do not have the equipment, time or $$$ to shave down an octagon rifle barrel. (I have done it by hand with files) Best balanced rifle I ever had, was built from a straight taper barrel that was light as could be. Most hunters are looking at straight oct barrels for their half stock guns, not an expensive combination of custom tapered barrel paired with a custom stock to match the barrel taper. If you are building a fancy custom gun, you aren't overly concerned with knock down power down range. Yes there are a few folks with more money than anything and can spend a lot of cash having a custom barrel and stock milled out. The barrel maker I would have used retired decades ago, and to my knowledge no one makes that style of wide round bottom rifling today. (the maker was H&H) and I mean wide, as in 4 or 5 times wider than the lands, not a series of narrow trenches like what is being turned out today) So it would cost a grand just to get a barrel made.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

Almost everything I build has a custom profiled barrel made to my specs. As long as you have a breech on a .62 that is more than an inch the rest of the barrel can be quite thin. You can probably get the weight of a 48" rifled .62 barrel down to around 3 1/2 lbs. Most custom profiled barrels are in the $300 range these days.

 

[hanshi]

It's really uncanny, but you really resemble Tom Selleck.

Thanks, but you have no idea how worrisome it is to constantly have autograph seekers following you around.

 

[Mad Professor]

Do a search here for author Roundball, and "whompability".

RB was a big TC fan before he went to traditional guns, not seen for quite a while here, and he liked the 58 an 62 w/GM barrels. He shot a lot of deer.....

I miss his posts, he did a lot of interesting things.

 

[Mad Professor]

I've got a 15/16 octagon to round 12ga barrel drop in for TC. Made in Spain by Toledo, and I have the proof sheet. That is pretty light. It is choked so more of a turkey/goose gun than PRB

 

[Rat]

Physics would dictate that the bigger the ball, the harder it will kill. It's just that a .54 kills well enough, that there's no way to actually see the difference between it and a .62". You would need to go to extremes to see the difference, in the field, such as shooting big game with a .32", and then the same game with a .62". The difference is there, and real, between a .54", .58", and .62", but you just won't see it. Kind of like trying to compare "perfect" to "more perfect" to "even more perfect".

I'd love to see the barrel makers make lighter barrels, and a very light barrel can be quite safe, if loaded reasonably. But there lies the problem, some you-tube yo-yo would take a light for the caliber barrel, compared to what is the standard now, over charge it and wonder why it blew. So we get barrel weights that are almost, if not, impossible to blow up. I have a Colerain barrel, .62" on my Jeager, and that's the biggest caliber I could get in that weight. But, I believe that barrel would still be perfectly safe as a .66", or maybe even .69".

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

Physics would dictate that the bigger the ball, the harder it will kill. It's just that a .54 kills well enough, that there's no way to actually see the difference between it and a .62". You would need to go to extremes to see the difference, in the field, such as shooting big game with a .32", and then the same game with a .62". The difference is there, and real, between a .54", .58", and .62", but you just won't see it. Kind of like trying to compare "perfect" to "more perfect" to "even more perfect".

I'd love to see the barrel makers make lighter barrels, and a very light barrel can be quite safe, if loaded reasonably. But there lies the problem, some you-tube yo-yo would take a light for the caliber barrel, compared to what is the standard now, over charge it and wonder why it blew. So we get barrel weights that are almost, if not, impossible to blow up. I have a Colerain barrel, .62" on my Jeager, and that's the biggest caliber I could get in that weight. But, I believe that barrel would still be perfectly safe as a .66", or maybe even .69".

As I have pointed out above, The barrel makers DO make lighter barrels you just have to order them that way. I just got a .62 fowler barrel from Hoyt yesterday that is 1 1/4" at the breech and 3/4" at the muzzle. It has a very rapid taper in the first 6"-8" at the breech. It's as light at you'd care to have and you could load it as heavy as you could stand.

 

[nkbj]

.62 rifle on a TC Hawken with a 32" barrel is really just all right.
Handles nice. Hangs nice. Shoots nice.
Too bad TC didn't make them that way.
80 grains of FFg gives over 1300 FPS.
Have fired loads at over 1500 FPS as well.

 

[45man]

My .54 kills deer right now and one looked like a .378 Weatherby hit it. Big is better with a RB but there might be too big. T Rex has not been seen for a while.
Years ago I was told a .45 was too small for deer but after several hundred shot with my flinter you can't tell me different. After all this time there is nothing better then a ML and BP.

 

[Einsiedler]

I frequent a south Texas ranch with ample nilgai. I always manage to see a few when Im there.

I've got several .54 caliber rifles, a .58 Zouave and a .62 smoothbore. I know my ballistics with these:
.54 230 grain 1654 fps (average of 4 rifles) (ball)
.58 555 grain 1120 fps (conical)
.62 338 grain 1488 fps (ball)

All of the .54's are sighted in dead-on at 100-yards and so is the .58. Out to 125-yards I know where to hold to hit. The .62 being smoothbore is sighted-in at 50-yards. It may be accurate "enough" past that distance but I won't shoot game further.

Taking the trajectory out of the equation - has anyone seen real proof of an advantage of one over the other? Does anyone have a story or theory that would point to one "out-doing" the other(s)?

My immediate thoughts are to send off two or three of the .54's and replace with one .62. This would be for hunting. Most often this is antelope, deer, hog, elk. In Texas I frequently encounter Aoudad, Nilgai and all kinds of other critters. I so shoot out to 100-yards but self-restrain after that distance.

I have been 100% one-shot lethality with my .54's on all the game mentioned. Sometimes I get a pass-through and sometimes I don't. The .62 has only accounted for 3 head of big-game but the distance was closer and the results mimicked the .54 performance. I've shot just one deer with the .58 because it is not quite as accurate and I have few musket caps. Examing that deer you wouldn't know which rifle I shot it with, the damage mirrored what the others tend to do. So maybe I am trying to improve something that doesn't need improvement. Thoughts?

Greetings Sparkitoff,

I passed up a nice bull (nilgai) this past January on the ranch I frequent (Kenedy co.) as I did not have adequate freezer space at home for as big an animal. (Full of elk as well as remains of last nilgai cow I shot). And besides, I do prefer a cow.

Speaking of cows, I would not hesitate to take a cow with my .54 Jäger w/round ball. But if I had my druthers, I would much prefer my .62 Jäger w round ball for a larger bull.

From my personal experience and experiences of those hunting with me ( we’ve harvested a few nilgai on the place) I would much rather try a spine shot with round ball. One thing that was not mentioned here was the thickness of a nilgai bull’s hide Especially back and shoulders. As you know usually an inch or more thick.
Fathest I ever tracked a wounded bull was 1.5 miles. And we did retrieve him. That was after picking up handfulls of lung off the ground he was coughing up after the first mile. I’m sure you have heard all the "horror" stories. Then again, Ive seen one shot DRT kills too. Im certainly no authority on the subject and like I said, I passed up an awesome 70 yard broadside shot this past January ( I was doing a bit of porcine eradication that weekend) with my .54 Jäger. But just some of what I have experienced in the past.

Good luck in your endeavors! Look forward to a future photo of you and a muzzleloading Blue Bull kill!

E.