Energy foot pounds, velocity

[Wes/Tex]

I figured out many years ago that hunting with muzzlerloaders gave about the same results as hunting with magnum handguns. Seemed to hit with approximate energies, yielding the same effects. The old geezer who stared me out handgun hunting used to say that they usually didn't knock them down like a rifle, so shoot'em and sit down and roll a cigarette to smoke. His theory was that if you didn't go chasing after them, deer would usually lay down from sickness from blood loss and you'd find them there already dead. Worked about 99% of the time! I've kind of adopted that as my hunting style. Don't fix it if it ain't broke! :wink:

 

[Squeeze]

Wow the off season is hard on all the forums. At least it doesn't go to politics too much here :yakyak:

 

[roundball]

Don't fix it if it ain't broke! :wink:

Amen...PRBs were the traditional projectiles commonly used during the early American traditional muzzleloading era. Claiming that a conical is better than a PRB when using traditional muzzleloaders is irrelevant, no point to it, sort of a never-ending apples & oranges circular discussion.
:wink:

 

[crockett]

On the PRB/Conical thing. The conical, theoretically, ought to get through bone better but on soft tissue, if what is killing the animal is the projectile path and not massive, surrounding tissue damage, then - if the wound path is about the same, the damage ought to be about the same, so there wouldn't be much difference- at say 80 yards or less. Theoretically the conical ought to maintain speed and momentum farther out and would be better at a longer distance.
I've read a lot of the mountain man diaries, they usually crawled up to 100 yards or less to shoot a game animal. A lot of the long distance shooting was at hostile Indians where the purpose was to keep them far away.
Thanks for sharing on that Elk that wouldn't go down. I think we have all experienced the same thing, similar shots, similar placement- you would think the results would be the same. I've never been able to figure it out why some animals can run. Maybe just before you shoot they sense something is wrong and brace and are able to run while others just drop. When things like that occur we tend (myself included) to look at the gun or load but there is an unknown factor of the individual animal, not just the big stuff, I've had similar things happen on rabbits, yotes, etc.

 

[Billnpatti]

You can go to this site and use their ballistic calculator to find the information that you are asking about http://www.hornady.com/ballistics-resource/ballistics-calculator. The program asks for a lot of data but just fill what you know and use the default settings for the rest of the info. If you are shooting patched round balls, you can use the figure 0.070 as the ballistic coefficient. If you are using any of the conicals, you will have to find out what the ballistic coefficient is for the specific conical that's you are using. That may involve a call to the manufacturer of the bullet.

 

[nkbj]

Wow the off season is hard on all the forums. At least it doesn't go to politics too much here :yakyak:

You mean like two parties championing slightly different ways of achieving the same results? :rotf:

 

[hanshi]

You do have a valid point, there. I used the .357, .41 and .44 and two deer hit with the .44 dropped DRT; all the others ran a few yards and dropped. I will say, however, that the damage from a prb was nearly always greater than even from the .44mag. But especially with the two larger magnums they dropped about as well as with a .45 or .50 prb, which means fast.