Hunting load for 54

[timothy prouty]

HEY guy I have a 54 cal green mountain barrel and would like to know a good hunting load for deer right now I use 80gr ff 535 ball 18th patch do I need more powder?

 

[azmntman]

no, maybe less though would be accurate. 55 gr will roll a buck

 

[tenngun]

I don't know how big a New York deer is, I would guess about the size of our white tails here in the Ozarks.
70 in my .54 with a PRB killed Mule deer in New Mexico and Wyoming and put paid on a deer or two around here. 60 in my .50 is plenty.

 

[BrownBear]

My wife smacks them flat with 60 grains of 3f in her 54. She never takes a shot past 50 yards and we've never recovered a ball from her deer.

I'm using 90 grains of the same, not for "power" but for the trajectory I want for shots to 100 yards.

 

[Carolina_Skinner]

That's what I use in my GPR. Works just fine!

 

[Spikebuck]

Flinter, could vary a lot. While you don't need more than 80 grs for deer, I don't know if that's your most accurate load. I have one .54 with a 44" barrel and 1-70 twist (old Green Mountain)that did not reach it's best accuracy until 105 grs of 2F. 110 grs opened the group up again and my usual 90 gr load that works in my other .54's didn't do it at all in this slow-twist barrel.

So, as many have said here, you can certainly go down in powder and still have plenty, or you could go up if needed for the accuracy and flat shooting you want.

As a side note, I'd much rather NOT shoot 105 grs. But I do find 90 grs to give what I call a 100 yard .54 cal gun...a tad high at 50, right on at 75, and just a tad low at 100...all within a range that I can just hold on the chest center and if the shot is done well, it's a dead deer.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Your load is fine. I load 85 gr FFFg w/.530" & 0.018" patched ball in my .54 and it is way plenty for NY whitetail.

 

[robert bw]

I have seen some very enlightening chrono test with loads that seem to suggest,at a certain point,your wastin powder,decreasin accuracy,just inaccurate noise and smoke In other words.i personaly killed a sow hog 180ish pounds with a "light load"in a 1858 cap n ball@ 50 or so feet(18 grains)double lung shot DRT in 15 ft or so.instead of increasing loads I would suggest decreasing range(of course this may be difficult if you aint in the fl backwoods with a lot of cover available)FWIW happy huntin,now make some smoke!!!

 

[Loyalist Dave]

My state requires a minimum load of 60 grains of powder in a muzzleloader long-gun when hunting deer. So I upped the ammount to 70 grains of 3Fg in case some eager beaver GW pulled my load to ensure I was compliant...might lose a little powder during the unloading and say "well you've only got 55 grains not 60." :shocked2:

So then I found it was a very accurate load so I kept it...I was using a .50 back then. When I went to a .54 I kept the same load and it worked just fine. Puts the ball through the deer broadside out to 100 yards. Some of the PA deer are larger than what I'm hunting, but IF your load is accurate, your load should be fine too.

LD