Ammunition for a muzzleloader.

[sethwyo]

Looking for some input, experience and if anyone has some actual historical accounts to share,

Wanting to try to get a mini bullet to load for my 50 and 54 and start doing some long-range shooting I'm going to try 300 yards and if it works out going to try a little bit farther.

Wanting to try the mini so I can have a bit more weight than the round ball, more weight =[•]= more power to stop a buffler with one shot.

Also looking for something that would be historically accurate for around 1800 to 1850 for a paper patch bullet in a muzzleloader

 

[sethwyo]

cylindro-conoidal bullet is a type of muzzleloading firearm projectile with a convexly cone-like front end ("nose") and a cylindrical rear body, invented by Captain John Norton of the British 34th Regiment in 1832. It had a cavitied base, so when fired, the thin concavity wall ("skirt") would expand outwards and seal up the bore diameter. The origin of his idea is an interesting one: when in southern British India, he examined the blow pipe darts used by the natives and found that their base was formed of elastic lotus pith, which by its expansion against the inner surface of the blow pipe prevented the leakage of air past it.


1836, Mr. W. Greener, a London-based gunsmith, improved on Norton's bullet design by inserting a conoidal wooden plug into its base. Although both inventions were rejected by the British Ordnance Department, the idea was taken up in France, and in 1849 Claude-Étienne Minié adopted Greener's design and produced the "Minié ball

 

[sethwyo]

so it looks like the only way to get a historically accurate more powerful rifle round is to go ahead and do what they did back in the day , bigger ball , a thicker patch more grease an a heap more powder, the reason why rifles like the Hawkins where built with those heavy Barrel an big bores.

There were some conical bullets back in those days that would have gave a lot more weight than a round ball, but they seem to have been made for a specific model of rifle and would not be historically accurate to figure somebody in the Rocky Mountains or the great Plains would have had been using these in their hawkin

 

[sethwyo]

The cylindro-conoidal bullet is a type of muzzleloading firearm projectile with a convexly cone-like front end ("nose") and a cylindrical rear body, invented by Captain John Norton of the British 34th Regiment in 1832.

 

[sethwyo]

 

[rafterob]

Unless you have a military type musket, you don't want a minie ball. A conical, yes. If your rifles have relatively shallow rifling, paper patching will work well. If deeper rifling, paper patching is not the best choice. You have a lot of experimenting ahead of you.