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Ballets

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RedFeather

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These seem to be scarcer than hen's teeth nowadays. I do like the ease of a conical but don't want to shove 450+ grain slugs at the range for plinking, et cetera. Does anyone make a mould to duplicate these? For instance, there is a short Minnie for the .58's.
 
What caliber? Don't know if you can get a mold for balletts. Lee's REALs come in short and long or light and heavy and the short one isn't much heavier than a ballett. You might try them. You would need a starter to get them started down the barrel but once started they go easy.
Fox :thumbsup:
 
How well do these shoot from a 1 in 70" twist barrel? I have a GM .54 barrel and I'd love to be able to use a 300 grain bullet in it. But does accuracy suffer?
 
Generally the slower twist rifling does not stabilize long bullets well. That 1:72 ROT is designed for use solely with round ball. Now, the more commone 1:48 is a compromise ROT, in that ie will work fairly well with round ball in .45, 50, and 54 caliber guns, and it will ALSO shoot short conicals, such as the Lee, Real ballets. If you start adding length to a bullet, you need to use a barrel with a faster rate of twist to stabilize it. For a reference, the .50-70 cartridge, and the .45-70 cartrides, shooting 500 grain bullets, had barrels with a 1:22 ROT. Target shooters today, shooting those same calibers, generally prefer an even faster rate of twist, namely 1:16 or 1:18.

I would only suggest that you not try to make your gun do something it is not designed to do. If you have a slow Rate of Twist(ROT) then leave it as a round ball gun. A round ball is an incredibly efficient projetile for killing game. Just read all the posts under " hunting ", below. Modern shooters, used to jacketed bullets, and smokeless powder cartridges, have a difficult time accepting that, simply because pure lead balls, pushed by Black Powder is an entirely different system. The human brain wants to relate things to what it already knows, and does not accept changes well. In this case, you need to trust in the thousands of testimonials, and the dozens that appear on this forum from members telling you how quickly deer drop when hit with a round ball. Almost all the members here have had prior experience shooting modern guns, and many have taken big game with them as well. All will admit being impressed with how effective a round lead ball can be in the field after their first BP kill. Me, too.
 
boy! ain't it the truth? everything you said, that is . i've got that t/c WMC with 1:20 twist and what a pain it has been. the only thing it will shoot well are big 370 grain maxi balls. i never wanted to be lobbing monster chunks of lead out of my rifle but i bought this thing when i knew absolutely nothing about muzzleloaders. right now i'm in the process of buying a 1:66 barrel for that carbine just for the sake of simplifying shooting.if i don't wind up with this slow twist barrel i'm going to save money for one that will accomondate my lee R.E.A.L. bullets at 250 grains. live and learn. i just wish i could find a less expensive way of learning. i have found one though, and it's this forum.

:hatsoff: :hatsoff:
 
Hey flat,
If you're looking to shoot a 300gr. bullet from your GM 1:70 .54; try the 295gr. Black Belt (aka. Power Belt). I have the same barrel and have found that the lead 295gr. Black Belt shoots to nearly the same POI as the PRB and seems to group a bit better. I shoot both the PRB and the Black Belt over 90 gr. RS. At .54 caliber and only 295gr., they're a short bullet and don't need a fast twist to stabilize.

I haven't shot this combination much; just two sessions at the range where I finished up by shooting a handful of Black Belts. Both times I was surprised at the accuracy. At 85 yds, they appeared to be hitting about 1.5" below the PRB.
FWIW
Bob
 

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