Flintlock's killing power

[John Wasmuth]

All I use for hunting, or shooting for that matter, is Hornady roundballs, they flatten out nice be it deer or hogs, elk and buffalo as well.

 

[hanshi]

The thing about the soft round ball is that it will expand even at low velocity. Try that with a bullet.

 

[longbow1]

Yes sir they will flatten out like a milk dud when they hit :thumbsup:

 

[Dphar]

I like neck shots on deer -- just the way I was taught a long time ago. How effective are .50 cal round balls taking neck shots? Centerfire neck shots drop deer instantly. Same for PRB? Thanks.

A 22 rimfire will drop them in their tracks if the spine is struck.

Dan

 

[Dphar]

The thing about the soft round ball is that it will expand even at low velocity. Try that with a bullet.

Under 750-800 expansion is not all that great. I recovered a ball from a deer fired from a FL pistol that made about 825 and it was only slightly distorted and this not flattened just egg shaped.
Penetrated shoulder muscles on one side and angled through to the off side at about the diaphragm.

Below was a pass though at about 60 yards. Have not skinned her yet will autopsy when I butcher.
Heard a heavy bone strike and deer made about 40 yards on a pretty steep downhill with inop legs.
She fell on the exit side.

Lung damage.

495 rb 90 gr of FFF Swiss about 60 yards.

Ball passed through at an angle. Think the doe jumped the flash in the pan and was moving when the ball stuck. I thought I had blown the shot since it was high but the ball exiting in front of the shoulder indicates the deer may have been turning when the ball struck. Angle of bullet track is way off from where it should have been from the angles when the trigger broke.
I have had this happen once before that I know of. Deer WAS looking at me intently when I touched the trigger.
Or I blew the shot.

Dan

 

[hoochiepapa]

Another neck shooter! I've had so much success with that shot, I just automatically go for it if the circumstances allow. My other favorite shot is high shoulder. In this country, if that animal goes any distance, you got your work cut out for you.

 

[Swede50]

I have shot deer with .54 round balls, Swaged .44 bullets and .44XTps with a Sabot all deer died none went very far. The large doe that I shot with a round ball in the front shoulder/neck dropped on the spot at 85 plus yards with 80grs of Pyro. The ball went all the way through and buried its self in a tree.

Will a round ball kill a deer yes if you put it in the right spot.

BTW I took the TC flint lock out last year didn't get a shot sure had a lot of questions to answer.
Many hunters thought it was a cool rifle some thought I had severely handicapped myself.
But I sure had a lot of fun and when the day was over it fired on the first try like any of my inline or center fire rifles.

 

[TKelly]

Flintlocks are beautiful muzzleloaders and I sing their praises daily. However, the problem with the trajectory of the projectile exiting the barrel of the average smoothbore Flintlock, is velocity. The lack of velocity impedes it's effective lethality.
A Flintlock with a rifled barrel will have similar percussion trajectories and therefore exhibit much higher velocities and demonstrate greater degrees of accuracy.
Given the same amount of charge, a heavier roundball, or projectile will have a slower velocity due to it's increased mass.
Flint can be a beautiful stone and when cut properly, can be an exquisite delight to be witnessed all alone. When appropriately placed beside a Curly Maplewood stock, a more beautiful musket is impossible to behold. The Flintlock was heralded as the most deadly long gun up until 1841. It was employed in all manner of military campaigns. It was succesfully used for hunting, mammal, fowl, and man. There is no question about its high place in the hierarchy of lethal firearms.

* Any Flintlock containing a .50 caliber roundball (or greater) and adequate charge, will kill any large North American mammal under 50 yds.

 

[Josh Smith]

Wait... maybe I missed it, but who is saying a LRB bites as a killer?

Take a bullet and drop it nose first into a bucket of water. Repeat with a round lead ball.

Which makes the bigger splash?

I judge thumping power by the aerodynamics. If it sucks in flight, it's going to suck even more in the animal or whatever - meaning, it will do a lot of damage.

The only thing I can think of that would kill better than a LRB would maybe be a spinning cylinder of soft lead - a wadcutter of the same caliber, in other words - but it would have to be a true cylinder and not just a flat point.

Even then, the thumpability factor would likely not be noticed as the sharp edges would round off the cylinder while the ball hits, forms a flat surface, then starts to form into a teardrop shape... that is, until it comes to an abrupt end and flattens out.

I do a lot of terminal ballistics testing with smokeless handgun defensive bullets. If I start doing this with muzzleloading, I can pretty much prove that anything other than a round lead ball out to about 150 to 200 yards is a waste of lead.

Josh

 

[nkbj]

Lead round nosed bullets are generally not favored by hunters because they think the nose form can give poor results on game. And, they are correct unless the round nose is heavy enough, big enough in diameter and moving fast enough.

Now, I understand that didn't say anything that every one of you didn't already know. So it's safe to say that we all know that lead round balls out of a flinter will kill just fine if they are heavy enough, big enough in diameter and moving fast enough.
And I'm still waiting on my .577 flinter barrel dadnabbit.

 

[Josh Smith]

Lead round nosed bullets are generally not favored by hunters because they think the nose form can give poor results on game. And, they are correct unless the round nose is heavy enough, big enough in diameter and moving fast enough.

Not... necessarily.

Josh

 

[flintlock75]

As far as lead balls not being favored, all the Moose, Caribou and Deer that decorate my walls would disagree with that. I have taken several moose with smoothbore muskets, big balls moving slow = full pass throughs and dead animals.Modern ballistic tables do not properly compute the striking/killing power of a lead roundball.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The limiting factor of shooting a RB out of a SMOOTHBORE is that there is NO rifling to spin the ball. If the ball is fired out of a rifled, barrel, you have NO difference in velocity between a percussion action and a flintlock action, providing that the correct amount of powder is used in both guns to produce the same MV.

The larger the caliber of the RB, the slightly( I emphasize "Slightly") better the Ballistics coefficient is. But, that is off-set by the recoil forces produced to send a larger caliber ball the same velocity as a smaller caliber ball.

What gives any RB its "Killing Power????" is both the diameter of the ball, and its ability to expand even at relatively low velocities, compared to modern jacketed bullets.

Modern Jacketed hunting bullets have a " Window" of velocities where they expand the best on hitting flesh, and that range differs depending on the bullet design. If a bullet that is designed to expand above 2,000 fps, and below 3500 fps, is only going 1500 fps when it hits the game, its likely to pass through flesh without expanding at all, leaving a small caliber hole, and no secondary wound channel.

By contrast, a soft lead ball is going to expand on hitting flesh even if its velocity is down to 400 fps, and sometimes, less than that, depending on caliber.

The larger the caliber RB, the larger the Primary wound channel through vital organs will be using a soft Lead Round ball. Do NOT expect to find a Secondary wound channel, which is common with high-velocity Modern bullets, traveling in excess of 2,000 fps when they strike game, in animals shot with RBs. Its the Secondary Wound channel, caused by the vacuums created by high speed bullets, that cause the substantial tissue damage to internal organs, and promote quick hemorrhaging, shock, and a quick loss in blood pressure, that causes game so shot to lose consciousness relatively quickly. By Contrast, a Lead RB will cause a huge hole in internal organs, create a channel that will allow rapid bleeding, loss of blood pressure, and therefore oxygen in the brain. Only when a RB strikes part of the Central Nervous System will it kill be shock, and then death is as quick as when such a hit is caused by any CF round.

Since most new MLers come from the ranks of CF shooters, its absolutely VITAL for your education that you do comparison testing of Penetration, With RBs, comparing them to your favorite CF rifle load.

The President of my local club and I did this back in 1979, and saved what was left of our "box" to show to club members at the next month's shoot. Almost none of the guys had ever done any kind of penetration testing on their own. When they saw what a .50 cal. RB did, compared to several different CF and Rimfire rifle cartridges, they were all impressed with the RB.
I don't think one of them who saw that box continued to use bullets in their MLers for hunting, except when hunting wild boar. Since the only "Big Game" species here in Illinois is the Whitetail deer, bullets simply are not necessary, nor desirable, considering all the problems using them, and the close range deer hunting we have here. :hmm:

 

[FPDoc]

It seems that modern ballistics and bullet research is to try and get a smaller bullet with a flatter trajectory to act like a big round ball as soon as it hits a target. We tend to skip the middle ground, sneak up on our target and take it with the round ball from the start. :thumbsup:

 

[nkbj]

It seems that modern ballistics and bullet research is to try and get a smaller bullet with a flatter trajectory to act like a big round ball as soon as it hits a target. We tend to skip the middle ground, sneak up on our target and take it with the round ball from the start. :thumbsup:

Yup. To increase the effective range muzzleloaders just add powder and/or lead.

 

[nkbj]

Lead round nosed bullets are generally not favored by hunters because they think the nose form can give poor results on game. And, they are correct unless the round nose is heavy enough, big enough in diameter and moving fast enough.

Not... necessarily.

Josh

That hunters generally do not favor lead round noses or that lead round noses are considered to give poor performance unless they are heavy enough, big enough in diameter and moving fast enough?

 

[TKelly]

The limiting factor of shooting a RB out of a SMOOTHBORE is that there is NO rifling to spin the ball. If the ball is fired out of a rifled, barrel, you have NO difference in velocity between a percussion action and a flintlock action, providing that the correct amount of powder is used in both guns to produce the same MV.

Your statement here merely confirms that of my own.
I completely agree with everything else you've stated here, as well.

Thank you! :applause:

 

[Josh Smith]

Lead round nosed bullets are generally not favored by hunters because they think the nose form can give poor results on game. And, they are correct unless the round nose is heavy enough, big enough in diameter and moving fast enough.

Not... necessarily.

Josh

That hunters generally do not favor lead round noses or that lead round noses are considered to give poor performance unless they are heavy enough, big enough in diameter and moving fast enough?

With dead soft lead, a .22LR will flatten in game. Not nice and neat like if it had been hollowpointed, but it definitely won't act as a solid.

Lead wadcutters and semi-wadcutters are still sometimes favored by defensive shooters in .38spl and .44spl. They cut and deform, especially when handloaded. An attacker could be viewed as dangerous game that needs to be stopped now, if not sooner.

They only lost favor because of leading problems. Still, in a .38 snub, I favor lead semi-wadcutters or lead semi-wadcutter hollowpoints, dead soft, for carry. They will not lead appreciably in five to six shots. Harder cast handloads work well for practice and keep leading to a minimum.

A similarly shaped projectile, dead soft lead of .36 caliber would bring down a deer just fine. Not recommending it, but at close range, I would guess that it would hit has hard as a, oh, say, .357 magnum flat point.

And I say this knowing full well that the ballistics of a Colt Navy cap'n'ball are, on paper, roughly equivalent to a .380acp.

They damage all out of proportion to their paper ballistics because they expend all their energy in the target, whereas pass through with modern projectiles are not uncommon. The question, then, is simply "How much energy is really transferred to the target, and in what aspect?"

I don't think anyone would argue that a .22-250 is more powerful than a .36 (or .45, or maybe even .50, I've not done the math) black powder rifle at any range.

However, the golden question would be if it's capable of downing a deer. Yes, it is. Reliably? Nope. At those speeds bullet materials begin to fail. I've heard tell of deer hit with various calibers, bullet failure occurs, and the deer is lost.

Bullet failure is uncommon with muzzleloaders, from what I can tell, because of the monolithic projectile and slower speeds. There is also the matter of dwell time, which is just a theory I have, and I may explain it later. We'll see.

Inside of 25 yards, I would bet a .45 or .50 caliber loaded with a Minie ball and 50gns of black before I'd bet on a .30-30 hard cast flat point.

Josh

However,

 

[FPDoc]

"Lead wadcutters and semi-wadcutters are still sometimes favored by defensive shooters..."

In the 70's we would load hollow base wadcutters backwards in snubbie .38's/.44's, they tended to want to flip around and "fly right" eventually but for the first few yards they were acceptably accurate and expanded ferociously.

 

[Josh Smith]

"Lead wadcutters and semi-wadcutters are still sometimes favored by defensive shooters..."

In the 70's we would load hollow base wadcutters backwards in snubbie .38's/.44's, they tended to want to flip around and "fly right" eventually but for the first few yards they were acceptably accurate and expanded ferociously.

Yup. Daisy cutters, they were called, right?

Josh