conicals or round balls

[ONEYEDIK]

ive got a lyman gpr. im going to use in the wisc. muzzle loading season next week.i have both barrels.......1/60 & 1/32.....after hearing of the loss of energy of round balls at a distance im wondering if i should go with the conicals....the powerbelt bullets seem to have a bad rep. for not leaving blood trails.......but the ballistics are a lot better......any thoughts......

 

[BrownBear]

I have no experience in WI, so this is a SWAG based on my own field time elsewhere. I choose between them based on anticipated range. 100 or less and it's RB for me. If I wanted the capability to reach further, conicals would win hands down. Of course, my old eyes don't allow much shooting past 100 with iron sights these days.

As for which conical, I've heard too many first hand horror stories about the powerbelts. On the other hand, I also hear lots of first hand happiness with the Hornady Great Plains. The Hornady often shoots best with a lubed felt wad between powder and bullet, but that's an individual rifle thing.

 

[ONEYEDIK]

i use a felt wad ...010 patch. 80 gr. 2f with the round ball......off a rest it will cloverleaf at 50 yards.....the gpr is a very accurate rifle.....the power belts will not group at all like that but still are in a 3" bull.......after the season i will have to thy the bullets you suggested....thanks

 

[rabjr]

i use a felt wad ...010 patch. 80 gr. 2f with the round ball......off a rest it will cloverleaf at 50 yards.....the gpr is a very accurate rifle.....the power belts will not group at all like that but still are in a 3" bull.......after the season i will have to thy the bullets you suggested....thanks

Just how far can you see and expect shots to be? Unless conditions are perfect I wouldn't trust my self shooting at 100 yards with open sites. So I try to limit myself to 75 and under. Actually when I avg my previous shots out, it's about 40 yards. So roundballs do just fine for me.

 

[Kentuckywindage]

lac of blood trail is mainly due to them being pushed to fast and them fragmenting or just plain ol, Oopps i hit'r in the gut! Those so called perfect shots often turn out to be just that... Gut shot!

We've had a few of the cabelas hawken's before and they all shot the 295-348-405-444 powerbelts great. I like to stay in the 80gr pyrodex RS range with the 295's. No over expansion.

This is what you can expect from the 295gr powerbelt with 80gr RS @ 100 yards.

Part of a short 5 yard blood trail ( she went that far and then rolled another 15-20 feet)

With a .490 round ball and deer, i'd look for a charge in the 90-110gr range, i like to push them hot and normally use a max load of 110gr 3f goex in my flintlock.

Either projectile will do the job if its placed correctly :thumbsup:

 

[ONEYEDIK]

i sight in for 50 yards.........probally never going to shoot over that by much.....hunt in the pines so you dont have any long shots.....at my age eyes arent what they used to be......ive shot deer with powerbelts.....but never recovered a bullet some poeple ive read posts by say that the roundball will flatten out more.....but the energy at the same range is no where near the same

 

[tg]

I would give the PRB and slow twist barrel a try with reguards to range and caliber being catrefully worked out in your nind, it is very rare that one really NEEDS a comical to take Deer or even Elk or Moose.

 

[Idaho Ron]

If I were going to use the 1-32 twist I would use a Hornady Great plains bullet. I have used the 410 gr flat point 50 cal on several trophy class deer and they work, and that is plain and simple. If your hunting small whitetails only the PRB will work with the slower twist.
If there is a chance that you might be shooting at a very large buck and maybe at an angle that you have to drive a bullet through a shoulder or come in from the flank I will say that the Great plains bullet will have energy to get it done plain and simple. I like to use loads I know I can count on. When I was working up a load this one did ok but the 410's were better. This is a 3 shot group with the 385 gr Hornady Great plains out of my Green mountain 1-28 twist. Ron

 

[Headhunter]

I would rather pound my nads flat with a rubber mallet than shoot a conical bullet out of a traditional muzzleloader.

you should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Headhunter

 

[Walks with fire]

IMO thought needs to be given to the conditions you anticipate your shot will be taken. If it's going to be windy and shots could be taken over 75 yards or so I would choose the faster twist with a heavier conical. I know from shooting roundballs in the wind a great deal that it affects them a great deal; I have no intention of dropping the hammer on big game in heavy wind using kentucky windage by holding off the vitals 8 or more inches when shooting roundballs. Wind limits the range I am willing to shoot with roundballs and even the other projectiles.

A longer higher BC bullet with more weight is a better choice in wind and longer ranges. The best way to determine the limitations of roundballs is to use it and then draw your own conclusions. I love testing loads rb vs. conicals in high winds; and suggest you do some yourself. You have a nice barrel combination and it gives you many options of weight; length and bullet designs in addition to rb's. Test em out on range at various distance and use the 2 barrel combination to your advantage.

Ron- +1

 

[roundball]

Just a general comment, not a rebuttal to any post:

Some people are going to upgrade elements of technology to fit their modern view of hunting even though they've decided to use a traditional styled ML rifle or smoothbore, and that's the "different strokes" thing among all of us.

But its at least worth mentioning that the main 'draw' of taking up traditional muzzleloader hunting is the associated challenge to adapt the way we hunt to fit the limitations of traditional muzzleloaders & patched balls like the settlers hunted, not the other way around...not to immediately start thinking about ways to retrofit a traditional muzzleloader with modern fast twist long range barrels & projectile upgrades to make them hunt more modern and side step the traditional hunting adaptation part of the challenge...ie: if that's going to be done then why not add a scope too, etc.

To me its analogous to deciding to take up traditional bow hunting which is typically self bows and recurves, and then start adding gadgets all over them like arrow rests, stabilizers, string silencers, mechanical releases, string peep sights, high visibility adjustable glow-in-the-dark bowsight pins, etc, etc...all to enhance the performance of the traditional archery equipment by expanding their capability to a more modern state...rather than learning and adapting to the hunting limitations of the traditional equipment like it originally existed.

It seems to me if capability upgrades are added to what are supposed to be Traditional Muzzleloading/Archery equipment, then it begs the question: "what's really been accomplished" ?

Possibly one way to help the never ending circular discussion on this conical subject continuing to come up in the Traditional Muzzleloader Hunting category would be to have a "conical category"...either stand-alone, or as a sub category in the General Muzzleloading section...or a sub category in the Civil War section which was the general timeframe of conicals compared to the whole of the early American Traditional Muzzleloading era.

 

[Vaino]

I've used both PRBs and conicals on elk and deer and found no difference in "killing power" or whether one creates a bigger blood trail vs the other. My reason for finally settling on the PRB is for ballistic and safety reasons. The 410 gr. conicals that I used req'd a 60 yd zero because of the excessive mid-range height w/ a 100 yd zero and in a clean bbl, moved off the powder charge and required numerous checks w/ the RR while hunting. The last elk I shot was at 107 paced off yds w/ a .54 PRB, ran 40 yds and piled up. Guys in our elk camp still use both conicals and PRBs and with a proper hit, both perform well.....Fred

 

[BrownBear]

Just a general comment, not a rebuttal to any post:

Some people are going to upgrade elements of technology to fit their modern view of hunting even though they've decided to use a traditional styled ML rifle or smoothbore, and that's the "different strokes" thing among all of us.

But its at least worth mentioning that the main 'draw' of taking up traditional muzzleloader hunting is the associated challenge to adapt the way we hunt to fit the limitations of traditional muzzleloaders & patched balls like the settlers hunted, not the other way around...not to immediately start thinking about ways to retrofit a traditional muzzleloader with modern fast twist long range barrels & projectile upgrades to make them hunt more modern and side step the traditional hunting adaptation part of the challenge...ie: if that's going to be done then why not add a scope too, etc.

To me its analogous to deciding to take up traditional bow hunting which is typically self bows and recurves, and then start adding gadgets all over them like arrow rests, stabilizers, string silencers, mechanical releases, string peep sights, high visibility adjustable glow-in-the-dark bowsight pins, etc, etc...all to enhance the performance of the traditional archery equipment by expanding their capability to a more modern state...rather than learning and adapting to the hunting limitations of the traditional equipment like it originally existed.

It seems to me if capability upgrades are added to what are supposed to be Traditional Muzzleloading/Archery equipment, then it begs the question: "what's really been accomplished" ?

Possibly one way to help the never ending circular discussion on this conical subject continuing to come up in the Traditional Muzzleloader Hunting category would be to have a "conical category"...either stand-alone, or as a sub category in the General Muzzleloading section...or a sub category in the Civil War section which was the general timeframe of conicals compared to the whole of the early American Traditional Muzzleloading era.

Trouble is, I don't think a dedicated conical section would accomplish a thing. Guys who prefer RBs would just have a convenient place to go and heist their leg, rather than having to search all over the place to find a dry spot.

Discussion of conicals is allowed on the site. Period. If they're not acceptable, ban them from the site and folks that don't like the ban can migrate.

Probably a good idea to ban caplock discussions at the same time, because guys who have questions about caplocks have to wade through "flint is more traditional" posts to get to the information they need.

Both technologies started appearing at about the same time, and by the time the Civil War rolled around, the end point of the era covered by this site, both were well established, especially out west where ranges are long and the wind is known to blow now and then.

Heck, wanna make the discussions round ball, flintlock only, why not ban discussion of anything that happened after 1830 and west of the Rockies?

 

[brubincam]

-----why not a ball-peen hammer-----

 

[smokehouseman]

........or a sharp skinner :shocked2: .

 

[rabjr]

Just a general comment, not a rebuttal to any post:

Some people are going to upgrade elements of technology to fit their modern view of hunting even though they've decided to use a traditional styled ML rifle or smoothbore, and that's the "different strokes" thing among all of us.

But its at least worth mentioning that the main 'draw' of taking up traditional muzzleloader hunting is the associated challenge to adapt the way we hunt to fit the limitations of traditional muzzleloaders & patched balls like the settlers hunted, not the other way around...not to immediately start thinking about ways to retrofit a traditional muzzleloader with modern fast twist long range barrels & projectile upgrades to make them hunt more modern and side step the traditional hunting adaptation part of the challenge...ie: if that's going to be done then why not add a scope too, etc.

To me its analogous to deciding to take up traditional bow hunting which is typically self bows and recurves, and then start adding gadgets all over them like arrow rests, stabilizers, string silencers, mechanical releases, string peep sights, high visibility adjustable glow-in-the-dark bowsight pins, etc, etc...all to enhance the performance of the traditional archery equipment by expanding their capability to a more modern state...rather than learning and adapting to the hunting limitations of the traditional equipment like it originally existed.

It seems to me if capability upgrades are added to what are supposed to be Traditional Muzzleloading/Archery equipment, then it begs the question: "what's really been accomplished" ?

Possibly one way to help the never ending circular discussion on this conical subject continuing to come up in the Traditional Muzzleloader Hunting category would be to have a "conical category"...either stand-alone, or as a sub category in the General Muzzleloading section...or a sub category in the Civil War section which was the general timeframe of conicals compared to the whole of the early American Traditional Muzzleloading era.

We already had a modern muzzleloading forum remember? This would only turn into the same thing and end up going down the same path that forum did.

I have always believed the answer lies in how far can you see with open sites and how far do you expect to shoot at deer. If your gun is not scoped and you can't see to shoot at 100 yards, roundballs should do you just fine as long as you place the ball where it needs to go.

 

[roundball]

Trouble is, I don't think a dedicated conical section would accomplish a thing. Guys who prefer RBs would just have a convenient place to go and heist their leg, rather than having to search all over the place to find a dry spot.

Not convinced that would be the case at all...there are already separate sections of focus for pre-Flintlock, Flintlock, and Caplock...and nobody is 'heisting their leg' from one section to another...no different than there is a Civil War section and a Revolutionary War section...you don't see Civil War buffs going into the Rev War section and talking about mini-balls.

Personally I think any talk of bans on them is completely inappropriate and nothing in my suggestion even hinted at that...I simply raised the possibility out loud wondering if like the separate sections that were established for pre-Flintlock, Flintlock, and Caplocks...there might be some value to establishing separate sections for hunting categories...

 

[Walks with fire]

I would like to see two additions to the forum. One would be a round ball forum and one would be a conical forum. I don't know why some people wish to "raise their leg" on the ones that wish to experience the difference in the two projectiles but it does happen here.

I also know that many of the dedicated round ball shooters have used conicals at least to some extent and went back to the ball exclusively. They have a wealth of knowledge and experience in the field about rifles and various projectiles; why not discuss those in a proper arena without supression of the evidence or a my way or the highway attitude. I admit I try to use newer technology to my advantage while staying within the confines of the weapons requirements of my state or others I may hunt. I only think outside the box because I want to harvest my game quickly and effectivly; I think I owe that to myself and the game I persue.

I started out hunting with round ball and see no reason not to attempt to improve the performance of my flintlock. I use a round ball whenever the hunting conditions allow me and I certainly prefer to use round ball; but, I don't think it's the most effective projectile in some situations.
I live in western PA and our primitive season comes after the buck/doe centerfire season the day after Christmas. The deer are spooked and it's difficult to get close; the wind howls most days and the deer stay bedded but are difficult to approach. Shots can be long and in windy conditions; score under them or go home with an un-attached tag. Shots come towards dusk unless they are gang driven (not my idea of hunting really) so I have fiber optics on my rifle. Modern; yes. Wrong. Not according to the regulations of my state.

 

[Vaino]

WOW! Here we're on a MLing forum that includes many sub-forums and because we don't like to hear other's views that are well w/in the allowed subject matter, we want sub-sub forums. I guess it's human nature to find solace in like thinking orgs., but I for one, accept all views and unless misinformation is proffered, have no criticism of other's views or the present setup. We're one "big happy family"....eh?.....Fred

 

[Idaho Ron]

I disagree. I don't see the need for more forums. If someone is wanting info on BOTH PRB' and conicals where is it to be posted. Sometimes an alternate opinion is good for conversation. As long as it stays on track and does not get into a fight.
Calling conicals “comicals” is lifting a leg. Isn’t that right TG.
Now if the PRB boys want the filthy conical shooters out of their special place make only a PRB ONLY forum and I will stay out.
Ron