Hunting with Roundballs

[BS]

Roundball, Excellent picture!

Very nice job!

 

[WV_Hillbilly]

I have gotten 2 deer with smoothbores. The little buttonbuck was litterally knocked off his feet and never got up when hit with the 12 ga. roundball at about 25 yards. The little doe I got this year ran about 30 yards after gettin hit from my 20 ga. from about 20 yards while she was on a dead run. Roundballs will do the job if you stay within the limits of its and your capabilities.

I agree that a large gauge smoothbore firing round ball works quite well within it's limited range, but it would work at longer distances than smaller calibers due to the larger amount of mass alone. Typicall, we can't shoot them as accurately at longer distances is the real problem. That said, the coupla deer that I've gotten with my .648 round ball smoothbore gun dropped like "Thor's Hammer" hit them. I've not found anything that did much better within 35yds.

Now, as far as .50 cal (.490 diam) round ball goes... I'll only take shots with muzzleloading "rifles" that I'm sure of getting a perfect shot with. That applies even more as I get down to the smallest legal caliber that I have for deer which is a .40cal (.395 diam). In my State, a .38 cal muzzleloader is the minimum legal for whitetail deer.

I've seen deer drop better from a .22 Magnum used by my neighbors for taking out the crop damage permit deer. That's approx. the same muzzle energy as a heavy loaded .45cal round ball at 80yds and only about 1/3 the bullet weight.

Wonder if it's cause those .22 magnum killed deer were head shot? :crackup:

Shoot Safely (and legally I might add!)
WV_Hillbilly

 

[Jblk]

Sure like to hear a man talk about personal experiences.I have had similar experiences with the round ball.they are really under rated as a projectile.

 

[leadball]

I have had people look at the .490 balls and say, "that looks a little small for deer." But if you took a 30-30 caliber bullet out of its case, out of the jacket, melted the lead, and made it round it probably would look the same. I like good strong powder behind my balls(I mean, I like good strong powder loads behind my prbs :redface. Never had a complaint yet :front:

 

[Bountyhunter]

The top pic shows the hole from the .520 PRB fired from the .53 cal Hawken in the bottom pic. That is the same deer in both pics. Kansas whitetail, weighed about 230 field dressed. Wasnt a real big one by local standards, but fell to the Santa Fe at 50 yd loaded with 120 gr of FFg strongly compressed, and RB patched with ticking and lubed with homemade lube--venison tallow, beeswax and olive oil.

Dont know what the RB looked like, I've never seen one after it was shot, they always go all the way through. The above load makes for very little smoke, being compressed, and when I shot, the buck made one lunge forward skidding in on his chin about ten yards yonder. The thing that really ticked me off was I shot this one as he stepped out of a dense weed patch, (very strong emphasis on "weed") and there was a much larger one right behind him.

Bill

 

[tg]

Nice animal and nice shot, it takes two of our average Blacktails to equal that deer.

 

[Bountyhunter]

Yes, my son in law lives in Battleground and he hunts around there for blacktail and then comes and hunts with me for meat.

 

[Bob J]

fell to the Santa Fe at 50 yd loaded with 120 gr of FFg strongly compressed, and RB patched with ticking and lubed with homemade lube--venison tallow, beeswax and olive oil.

The above load makes for very little smoke, being compressed
Bill

Could you explain "compressed"? Nice rifle, nice buck! :front: :front:

 

[Bountyhunter]

OK.......

Black powder cartridge shooters know that the powder has to be compressed for best efficiency. It is faster igniting, cleaner burning and produces more UUUMPH!. I started shootin the smoke poles back in the early 70's. I belonged to a number of black powder clubs. There was a lot of experimentin goin on. I always packed my powder tight. I watched at the shoots at the rendezvous.....some of the guys rifles just went "ffffwoummmmppphhh" with a tremendous cloud of smoke. The next guys rifle would go "CRACK" with practically no smoke. I watched them to see what the difference was. Then I caught on. Those who just poured powder and then dropped a ball got the smoke. Those who poured the powder, then took their ramrod and pushed that powder down has hard as they could then seated the patched ball got the crack with no smoke. So, when I shoot, I blow thru the nipple until I get no more smoke out the end of the barrel. Then I measure my powder charge and close my horn.
Then I pour the powder down the barrel and take my ramrod with a tight button jag and while holding my rifle between my knees with the muzzle pointed away from my face, I take both hands on the rod~~NOTICE~~HANDS AROUND THE ROD, NOT OVER THE END OF THE ROD~~and push that powder charge down as hard as I can. I put my whole 200# on that rod till it wont go any more. I then put my ticking across the muzzle, push in the ball with my short starter and cut the ticking off, then ram it home. Again, laying on that rod so that the ball is fer sure tight into that powder.

If'n ya takes yer rifle out to where someone has a chrono....you will notice as much as 150 fps difference between loose and compressed powder with the same 100 gr or so hunting charge. You will also notice an almost virtual lack of smoke. You will also notice that you dont have the fouling. Same things that the BPC guys notice.

Dr Steve Wardlaw over on the TMMH forum has done a lot of testing of rifles with different degrees of powder compression. As with many things, tighter is better.

B

 

[Rebel]

At 230lb i think it would take more like 4 of these overgrown western jackrabbits they call deer around here. ::

 

[tcsmokepole]

So far I've taken 13 deer with a muzzleloader, all but 2 were taken with the roundball. The 2 taken with conicals were'nt that impressive. The first one, which was my first ml deer went about two hundred yards or so. It was hit through both lungs. The other conical kill was with a 410 gr. hornaday in a 50 cal. Also a double lung hit, it went almost three hundred yards. Why those deer went that far after such lethal hits I don't know. The ones that I hit with the roundball were all four feet in the air at the shot. My 58 cal. with roundballs is one of my favorite deer slayers. I have complete confidence in it.I put a roundball from this 58 lengthwise through a deer once. Most of the guys that say the roundball is'nt any good must watch too many hunting shows on t.v.

 

[3 stinky dogs]

I got a 12 guage slug into a deer one time and it dident even jump.I was about 15 or 20 yeards away and it just hunched down and ran off.When my hunting partner's showed up to see what I got I told them what happend and that I figured I missed.One of them found a tiney drop of blood and as we went ferther we fornd the deer about 50 yeards off in a ditch that had verry tall grass grown up all around it.

 

[tcsmokepole]

I don't know what shotgun slugs are made of. I threw some recovered ones in the casting pot and they floated and never melted.

 

[adkmountainken]

i took a fat 5 point at 50 yards today with one shot to his neck with a 45. shooting 65 grains of fff and a .445 round ball. ball broke his neck clen and lodged somewhere on the other side. the butcher said he would keep the ball for me. will post a pick of the ball when i get it. deer went down fast and didn't move at all. very quick kill.
Ken

 

[3 stinky dogs]

I dont either.I think they have enviro frendly non lead (all copper) ones but I was useing reloads my dad made and they were round ball's made of lead that he orderd.

 

[roundball]

i took a fat 5 point at 50 yards today with one shot to his neck with a 45. shooting 65 grains of fff and a .445 round ball. ball broke his neck clen and lodged somewhere on the other side. the butcher said he would keep the ball for me. will post a pick of the ball when i get it. deer went down fast and didn't move at all. very quick kill.
Ken

Congratulations Ken !

 

[Bountyhunter]

I was at Ron Petersons gunshop in Albuquerque yesterday and they had what appeared to me to be a Great Plains Rifle that had been shot loaded loose with the ball not firmly seated on the powder.

I have seen pictures of shotguns that were fired with a mud or snow plug in the muzzle, and the end of the barrel peeled back like a banana, but this rifle was peeled foreward from the breech. It had split up each flat of the barrel, only one flat still attached to the breech plug. They were not sure what happened to the person who shot it, but it must have been quite an experience. I did not have a camera to get a picture to post, but just to let you all know, seat those balls firmly or they can mess you up. This just confirms my convicion of compressing the power and firmly seating the ball.

They have big buck contests up there based on hanging carcass weight. That is the railed carcass left after the guts, hide, head and feet have been removed. The bucks in those contests will rail 180# or better.

Bill

 

[tcsmokepole]

The ones I tried to melt were from remington factory loads. They look like lead but must have some other harder metal in them.

 

[3 stinky dogs]

Dang what else do they make them out of ?