Comfortably_Numb
The Evil Mike Brooks
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Hand built vs production
- Thread starter Dialn911
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Dialn911
36 Cl.
I understand, and I'm not upset at all. I just think it's worth having a conversation, because I think there's a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to this topic.
This idea people have that a 50 caliber ball round is insufficient to take Elk is not based on any hard reality.
it's been done for literally centuries, and this seems to be a phenomenon of more recent times, where people are starting to think you need to have these massive calibers to take game like an elk.
The difference between a 54 and a 50 at a 100 yd, is a 100 foot-pounds of energy, energy on target between the 2 is not a massive difference,.
Nor is the destructive capability on vital tissues with a good placed shot.
Now if I was talking about shooting a threatening target that is going to potentially kill me, then that's a different topic altogether, but when we're talking about elk with pretty thin hides and a good vital shot, this claim I'm seeing from some that you need to have massive calibers or big round balls to achieve it, this is not the case.
We're not hunting elephants.
it kind of reminds me of the gun culture view of high capacity handguns.
A lot of people today seem to think they need a handgun with 20 rounds of ammunition, when the average Shooting is only 3 rounds.
I am in the school of thought that bigger is better, but I'm also a realist and pragmatic about how I approach these things.
Go on the muzzle loading hunting forums out there and look into this topic, and you'll see old-timers laughing at these claims who have been taking big game with 50 for over 40 years, and there's a lot of them.
and no they don't have their game running off and getting lost.
Unless of course you have people taking hasty shots and not doing what they should be as a hunter, and of course then you could have that happen with any caliber potentially even very large ones.
I would love to see some hardcore scientific real world data to show the claimed differences I'm seeing by some.
Dialn911
36 Cl.
The latest edition isn't that old, do you have any links or suggestions of where I should look?
You have fun now ya hear
Dialn911
36 Cl.
That my point though.
Both the .54 and the .50 have plenty of energy to reach vitals and destroy tissue.
Reaching vitals is reaching vitals, haven't 25% more energy isn't going to matter.
There's a point of diminishing returns, do you need that 25% more energy to reach the vitals? No.
That 25% more energy between the 2 will have no difference when it comes to destruction on vitals.
The round isn't moving fast enough to cause hydrostatic shock, Which is a debated topic anyway, so the only thing you're relying on at that point for more destruction is the .4 larger ball.
Will that do more tissue damage?
Some.
enough to be a massive difference? Not likely.
Now where I would agree with you on the 25% more mattering, is it if you were trying to lob that ball further down range, that 25% more energy and heavier weight could help, but regardless of the caliber, you're still going to be trying to take a shot without a 100 yards.
Interestingly enough, there's some literature out there that actually says depending on the charge and speed, the 50 actully has better penetration than the 54, but I haven't done enough research in that to know for sure what the data shows.
The slightly larger bore could potentially destroy a little more tissue, But it's not massively significant to the point where one is far superior over the other.
If You are talking about penetrating hard cover, that's a different story. 25% more could be what you need.
If you were comparing the 54 to a 45 ball, then I would agree a lot more, although people take big elk with 45 all the time.
If we were talking about JHPs, then I would argue yes there would be a noticeable difference in expansion.
But that's the crux of my whole point.
Let's take a 9 mm and a .357 for example
One hss massive power over the other.
when it comes to shooting a human being, you don't need all that penetration On a soft target the 357 magnum provides, going 18 inches to reach vitals is all that is needed.
But shooting through cover it's a different story.
The larger bore is where the differences are seen indestructive capability.
Hence the reason a 45 ACP is a destructive handgun caliber.
It can easily reach 18 inches, and it leaves a massive hole.
A four legged critter, like a bear, now the .357 shines because it can punch deep enough to get to the vitals.
So that's what I'm trying to get at, the penetration capability between a 50 and a 54 on an elk with a good placement shot, Both can equally reach the vitals, so it really doesn't matter in that regard.
But,
Whether it's cutting with an arrow, or crushing it with a bullet, they both rely on tissue damage and hemorrhaging.
The .50 is not anemic and unable to reach the vitals. That's the point. And a broadhead is NOT going to do more damage on vitals then a .50.
That was their argument.
So this idea that a arrow is magically different and more capable than a 50 round ball, is just nonsense.
Destroyed tissue is destroyed tissue.
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Psycho Mike
Free Cdn
@Dialn911 I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make and I think you and I are generally on the same page here...
Ballistics is an exceptionally complicated topic with the transfer of energy from a projectile to a target (the way a bullet does) depending on a great number of factors like speed, mass, diameter, projectile shape, elasticity and plasticity of the projectile, surface texture of the projectile, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
I was not saying that a .50cal cannot take an elk...it's been demonstrated that it can for many, many years. What I was trying to get across is that, again, depending somewhat on the projectile, the performance envelope for a .50 cal to deliver sufficient energy for a clean kill will be different than a .54 cal, or a .45cal, or a .58 cal or a .75 cal. In general, assuming relatively consistent qualities for the projectile, the .50cal will reach the limits of its performance envelope at a slightly shorter range than a larger calibre given the relatively similar velocities that muzzle loading arms produce (though how much shorter and whether that makes an *effective* difference to someone taking *reasonable* ranged shots in the field is debatable).
The archery point I was trying to make was that comparing an arrow with a broadhead to a bullet is, quite frankly, comparing apples to oranges. A broadhead works by cutting and not by bulk energy transfer like a bullet. With broadheads, you can have a "damage path" width/diameter of several inches, through which there will be 2, 3 or 4 sliced paths radiating from a central point. The energy transfer and corresponding energy damage to the tissue is negligible....it's the cutting that does the killing. Often the arrow can pass through an animal with a fair bit of residual energy. It's not "more capable", but rather differently capable due to the different method of action.
Bullets, on the other hand, create their damage by the bulk transfer of their kinetic energy to the target while penetrating the tissue. It's why we want round balls to flatten or saboted HP rounds to mushroom...it helps increase the area and improve the energy transfer. The damage path diameter from the penetration of the bullet itself is relatively small...usually much, much smaller than a broadhead...but the damage from the energy it imparts is absolutely massive in comparison.
Regardless of the method, though, you still need to put the projectile on target to where you can reasonable expect a lethal outcome for its method of action.
I'll go back again to knowing your tool and it's limitations....any "average joe" flinging arrows at a game animal at 100 yards is an irresponsible idiot. It's simply outside the effective range of the average archer to have a reasonable liklihood of putting the arrow where it needs to go to be lethal. It may still have sufficient energy for the broadheads to be effective (depending on draw weight, draw length, weight of the arrow, etc.), but too many other factors come into play for it to be a shot with a realistic expectation to put meat in the freezer.
Similarly, I personally would tend towards a correspondingly closer range shot on bigger game as my caliber goes down as I'd want to maximize the available energy to effectively take down the animal. For a fixed range, say 100 yards, with someone who is capable of placing the shot where it needs to go, the difference between a .50 cal and .54 cal may be statistically / experimentally significant but *effectively* insignificant as it is still within the performance envelope.
Ballistics is an exceptionally complicated topic with the transfer of energy from a projectile to a target (the way a bullet does) depending on a great number of factors like speed, mass, diameter, projectile shape, elasticity and plasticity of the projectile, surface texture of the projectile, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
I was not saying that a .50cal cannot take an elk...it's been demonstrated that it can for many, many years. What I was trying to get across is that, again, depending somewhat on the projectile, the performance envelope for a .50 cal to deliver sufficient energy for a clean kill will be different than a .54 cal, or a .45cal, or a .58 cal or a .75 cal. In general, assuming relatively consistent qualities for the projectile, the .50cal will reach the limits of its performance envelope at a slightly shorter range than a larger calibre given the relatively similar velocities that muzzle loading arms produce (though how much shorter and whether that makes an *effective* difference to someone taking *reasonable* ranged shots in the field is debatable).
The archery point I was trying to make was that comparing an arrow with a broadhead to a bullet is, quite frankly, comparing apples to oranges. A broadhead works by cutting and not by bulk energy transfer like a bullet. With broadheads, you can have a "damage path" width/diameter of several inches, through which there will be 2, 3 or 4 sliced paths radiating from a central point. The energy transfer and corresponding energy damage to the tissue is negligible....it's the cutting that does the killing. Often the arrow can pass through an animal with a fair bit of residual energy. It's not "more capable", but rather differently capable due to the different method of action.
Bullets, on the other hand, create their damage by the bulk transfer of their kinetic energy to the target while penetrating the tissue. It's why we want round balls to flatten or saboted HP rounds to mushroom...it helps increase the area and improve the energy transfer. The damage path diameter from the penetration of the bullet itself is relatively small...usually much, much smaller than a broadhead...but the damage from the energy it imparts is absolutely massive in comparison.
Regardless of the method, though, you still need to put the projectile on target to where you can reasonable expect a lethal outcome for its method of action.
I'll go back again to knowing your tool and it's limitations....any "average joe" flinging arrows at a game animal at 100 yards is an irresponsible idiot. It's simply outside the effective range of the average archer to have a reasonable liklihood of putting the arrow where it needs to go to be lethal. It may still have sufficient energy for the broadheads to be effective (depending on draw weight, draw length, weight of the arrow, etc.), but too many other factors come into play for it to be a shot with a realistic expectation to put meat in the freezer.
Similarly, I personally would tend towards a correspondingly closer range shot on bigger game as my caliber goes down as I'd want to maximize the available energy to effectively take down the animal. For a fixed range, say 100 yards, with someone who is capable of placing the shot where it needs to go, the difference between a .50 cal and .54 cal may be statistically / experimentally significant but *effectively* insignificant as it is still within the performance envelope.
Looks like a Dixie to me. Semper Fi.
Luck of the draw. I have a Perdisoli sharps that will hit a 3" bullseye at 200 yards using the stock iron ladder sights.
HighUintas
45 Cal.
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2022
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And dangerous!
Congratulations on the acquisition!
Go out and buy a "production" flintlock and learn to shoot it.
In the time it took for this thread to play out, you could have ordered a Woodsrunner quick kit from Jim Kibler, assembled it and learned to shoot it!
Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving!
Hey Mike, the date that I saw floated up here for this rifle was 1790 to 1810. Yet, that rifle has incise carving and not relief carving and I thought that by the early 1770's, Rococo-style relief carving was pretty much the norm. Plus, the butt-stock looks to be much wider than that later 1790's to me and doesn't have the more severe crescent shape from those post-war rifles. The width of the buttstocks after the war became narrower. The patchbox is also much simpler than that later period's when they covered most of the stock on the side they were mounted on, were much more ornate, and by 1800, (I think, not sure) the pierced patchboxes had already made an appearance. My impression when I saw it was that it was a pre-Rev War rifle and, if the carving on it was any measure, more of a slightly post-F&I War rifle than anything else. That's based on the pictures that I saw and it may be that I'm not seeing everything clearly; and my identifying characteristics may be wrong.
But you make beautiful rifles and I'm sure have a better grasp of their history than I do. So, am I out in left-field on this?
There is a school of thought for target rifles that eliminating the half cock notch shortens the fall time of the hammer for a faster ignition of the charge. One of the old-time builders of over the log match rifles or table or plank shoot rifles did not like a half cock notch as he felt that the short hammer fall was more beneficial to providing target accuracy than having the half cock notch and longer hammer throw. I have one of his rifles and it does not have a half cock notch. The hammer just does not have far to fall. It was built to specifically compete in the NMLRA squirrel rifle competitions. Not having the half cock notch is not necessarily that much of a safety issue on the target line as the rifle is shot very soon after the rifle is primed. It is more of a safety issue when hunting. When hunting, the half cock notch is needed.
Dialn911
36 Cl.
I don't think we're on different pages...
the .54 could statistically be significant in outcome because it might give more people confidence.
Confidence goes a long way, And if you're convinced that a 54 caliber is somehow going to make you more proficient within a certain range, That can absolutely affect outcomes based on how the data is collected.
That would be hard to measure though.
You would have to try to gather data of elk by the same shooter, putting balls where they need to be, on multiple Elks in the same general area between the 2 calibers to get a real base point of capability.
There's a lot of hunters on forums who've used both that don't notice a different, I'm likely to bet that a lot of these personal claims, is seat of your pants of dyno stuff.
In other words, anyone that tinkers with cars, who puts a cold air intake on the car and the marketing says it's gonna give you up to 20 or 30 horsepower, and then they drive around and they're convinced that they can actually feel significant differences... and yet you put it on the Dyno and the gains are marginal at best and would likely not be noticeable at all.
just to clarify,
bullets do not depend solely on kinetic energy to deal out damage to tissue, i.e the impact.
Is tissue damaged by impact and energy?
To some extent, but bullets primarily rely on crush tissue damage in its wound channel path, no different than an arrow severing blood vessels in its path.
the only difference is that a bullet is crushing tissue as it travels in the channel path.
Take for example an 855 green tip 556 round.
You'll often hear guys that were overseas complain how the bullets would zip right through their Target, still hitting it with full Energy but not doing a ton of Damage.
That's because those are penetrator rounds, and they're not really meant for anti personal use, like the 55 grain softcore 556 round, swap that out with a 55 grain softcore, and you have a much significant effect on target, because it begins to fragment and mushroom travel through the body creating a much bigger wound channel.
That's one downside of steel core penetrator rounds used by the enemy, 762x39 with a steel core, a lot of times zip right through in and out and the wound channels are not terribly significant.
That's the entire concept for using jacket at hollow points in a pistol, because ball rounds create small channels compared to a jacket hollow point opening up and creating a big wound channel in its path, severing blood vessels by crushing as it moves.
It's not relying on it's kinetic energy to destroy the tissue, it's relying on enough energy to reach the vitals and destroy as much blood vessels and important tissue in its wound channel as it travels, no different than an arrow needing to go deep enough to get to vitals, cutting blood vessels and tissue in its path.
A mushroomed or opened up bullet expanding, and traveling through, definitely creates more destruction than a Broadhead that doesn't expand.
Different mechanisms of severing blood vessels, same concept.
The point between comparison, is that regardless of an arrow slipping in and cutting, it has far less foot-pounds of power to enter into the vital area, there is no way it outperforms a 50 Cal round ball placed on a vital shot, and yet nobody sits there and questions the capability of a Broadhead on a hunt, and tells people they need to step it in to something much bigger or else it would be unethical or impractical.
Look a Heart hit with a 50 ball, vs an arrow, the Heart hit by the ball is hamburger.
But here's a real reason why I got on this topic.
I'm seeing guys out here acting like anything under a 54 caliber for an elk is completely out of the question, which is just ridiculous when you really get into the science behind it, a 50 caliber ball is not going have any problem even at the end of its range envelope of practicality at a 100 yd, reaching the vitals within an elk and doing significant damage.
That's really the crux of it right there, both calibers are pretty much limited to the same range envelope, and both calibers will absolutely effectively cause enough damage in the vitals to put the animal down, so everyone sitting here acting like you have to hunt elk with a 54 caliber or higher, that's just not reality.
I'm not saying you're making that claim, but that is why I got into the weeds of this, because I see this all the time when it comes to ballistic claims, and I'm actually involved in ballistic studies and testing, so it's something that kind of drives me nuts a little bit
Don't even get me started on 9 mm verse 45ACP, totally different animal, because you're dealing with a human threat that may be trying to kill you as quickly as possible with a firearm, and in that particular scenario, larger bore in a pistol caliber is absolutely significant when comparing differences in its ability to put the Lights out quickly, Given it's not an central nervous hit.
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Dialn911
36 Cl.
Yeah...seems to be the concensus
Dialn911
36 Cl.
Yeah that's the first time I've heard anyone complain about them.
almost everyone I've spoken with says the quality is good.
Dialn911
36 Cl.
I'm not new to black powder, I've shot alot of cap and ball, but yeah I would prefer to go Flint lock.
Also, I can't find caps to save my life locally, and they don't seem to be very easy to find in general.
I figured if I couldn't find a little better quality build rifle for the hunt, I'll put in an order in for production and it will be here in time.
Dialn911
36 Cl.
Lol
Probably true. I know how to shoot them, just want to get one that I would like.
I had a few deals fall through.
Dialn911
36 Cl.
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to question anybody's expertise, but your perception is what I had gathered based on literature I had read and a few people back easet I spoke with.
I was told likely French and Indian war era, or American revolution in the 1770s.
So said 1790s..
I was trying to figure out in more detail by seeing if I could find more information on John guest.
I can't find when he was born, but I do know that he was supposedly building during the American revolution, and that The men he also worked with, Abraham Henry, built-in the 1770s.
Of course I don't know how old these men were, so they could have been building in the 1760s and 1770s and into the early 1800s.
The only thing I know for sure, is that John guest was making rifles and pistols under contract for Thomas Jefferson's presidential administration, from 1802 to 1808.
They had heavy work orders, and were overtaxed and struggled to deliver all of the orders by the government.
That leads me to believe, that this rifle is definitely pre 1800 T least, because he was so busy with the contracts.
Dialn911
36 Cl.
That's interesting, the seller just told me there's wood interfering with the notch when it's assembled, but half cock works fine when it's off, so he's working on the stock to try to clear away the interference.
