mississippi
32 Cal.
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has anyone used buck & ball for deer hunting
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buck & ball
- Thread starter mississippi
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It would be illegal in Maryland. You can only shoot a single all lead or jacketed sabot.
Seems like at best you'd just tearup more meat or worse miss with the bullet and hit with a small buck shot.
Now if your keen to try scattergun'n there's a link somewhere around here to a guy with a cannon.
Seems like at best you'd just tearup more meat or worse miss with the bullet and hit with a small buck shot.
Now if your keen to try scattergun'n there's a link somewhere around here to a guy with a cannon.
Rat
50 Cal.
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- Sep 16, 2004
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Well, the question is....of what advantage would it be, and I can't really think of any.
The accuracy range of the ball is greater than the effective range of the buck shot...and the buck shot it's self really has no accuracy...so really all it's going to do is make peripheral hits and damage meat. And if you missed with the ball, and hit with a couple or three buck-shots, most likely all you'll get is a wounded deer. Would be just blind luck, an accident if one of them little balls hit the heart. But i'm thinking that you are not going to miss with the ball, until the deer is WAY out of effective buck-shot range.
I've tried buck-shot many years ago, and found that it's effective range is way LESS than a roundball, anyway you look at it. Round ball from a smoothbore has a good 50 yard range, both in terms of accuracy and terminal ballistics. Personally I would not use a FULL load of buck shot much over 25 yards. With buck-n-ball, you are thowing what...three tiny buck-shot balls? If a full load of buckshot is inferior to a single ball, which it is, what advantage can there be to adding three or four?
Buck and ball goes back to the military theory that it's good to wound the enemy too, because then the wounded man requires care and attention from his comrads. For hunting there's not any advantage to wounding the game. I'm not sure buck-n-ball has ever been taken seriously as a hunting load.
All things considered I'd say put a single large calibre round ball in the heart lung area and forget about adding three .30 calibre balls in the butt, gut, back-straps, or the air.
Rat
The accuracy range of the ball is greater than the effective range of the buck shot...and the buck shot it's self really has no accuracy...so really all it's going to do is make peripheral hits and damage meat. And if you missed with the ball, and hit with a couple or three buck-shots, most likely all you'll get is a wounded deer. Would be just blind luck, an accident if one of them little balls hit the heart. But i'm thinking that you are not going to miss with the ball, until the deer is WAY out of effective buck-shot range.
I've tried buck-shot many years ago, and found that it's effective range is way LESS than a roundball, anyway you look at it. Round ball from a smoothbore has a good 50 yard range, both in terms of accuracy and terminal ballistics. Personally I would not use a FULL load of buck shot much over 25 yards. With buck-n-ball, you are thowing what...three tiny buck-shot balls? If a full load of buckshot is inferior to a single ball, which it is, what advantage can there be to adding three or four?
Buck and ball goes back to the military theory that it's good to wound the enemy too, because then the wounded man requires care and attention from his comrads. For hunting there's not any advantage to wounding the game. I'm not sure buck-n-ball has ever been taken seriously as a hunting load.
All things considered I'd say put a single large calibre round ball in the heart lung area and forget about adding three .30 calibre balls in the butt, gut, back-straps, or the air.
Rat
Tried both buck and ball and just #4 buckshot loads a while back. Wasn't impressed with them at all. The buck and ball put only a couple of buck on the target at only 25 yds. With the buckshot only the pattern was pretty wide at 25 yds. At 15 yds it was a good tight pattern. I wouldn't use it on anything bigger than coyotes and even then not past 20yds or so.
irishjim
32 Cal.
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2004
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Illegal in Ohio also.
If you read anything about buck & ball loads they were originally used in smooth bore military weapons at very close range, usually 75 yards or less. The loads were designed to be fired into massed infantry formations.
A friend and I experimented with buck & ball out of a .75 cal Brown Bess Trade Gun replica flintlock.
We used what the Britsh called a 3 in 1 load. One .75 cal RB and three .30 cal buck RB pushed by 80 grains of Goex.
We were hard pressed to get the main ball to hit a grocery bag sized target at 75 yards (none of the buck hit). At fifty yards we were usually able to get the main ball to hit and one or two of the buck to hit about 25% of the time. We had the target hung on two pieces of 3/4" plywood tacked together back to back . The buck shots didn't even penetrate the 1 1/2" of plywood.
We were not overly impressed with Buck & Ball as a hunting load. I'd much rather use on well placed ball with properly developed load.
I've heard lots of "legends" about hunting with Buck & Ball but after our experiment I take all those claims with a grain of salt.
If you read anything about buck & ball loads they were originally used in smooth bore military weapons at very close range, usually 75 yards or less. The loads were designed to be fired into massed infantry formations.
A friend and I experimented with buck & ball out of a .75 cal Brown Bess Trade Gun replica flintlock.
We used what the Britsh called a 3 in 1 load. One .75 cal RB and three .30 cal buck RB pushed by 80 grains of Goex.
We were hard pressed to get the main ball to hit a grocery bag sized target at 75 yards (none of the buck hit). At fifty yards we were usually able to get the main ball to hit and one or two of the buck to hit about 25% of the time. We had the target hung on two pieces of 3/4" plywood tacked together back to back . The buck shots didn't even penetrate the 1 1/2" of plywood.
We were not overly impressed with Buck & Ball as a hunting load. I'd much rather use on well placed ball with properly developed load.
I've heard lots of "legends" about hunting with Buck & Ball but after our experiment I take all those claims with a grain of salt.
