maxihunter expansion?

[buttonbuck]

I am probably going to use a maxi hunter this year since I have a good load worked up. I really want to go with a prb but want to work some things out before I take it to the woods and will If I get some range times in. Past years have I used a remington hollow point bullet much like the plains bullet it will expand from .54 to .75 but will pass through most shots I have some left but want to use the home cast by another forum member Maxi hunter. Really what I want to know is does it expand like it claims to or is it a maxi ball with a dimpled nose? I know they fly great out of my renegade with 90 gr of 2f.
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[rabjr]

Well T/C brought out the maxi-hunter because people complained the maxi-ball just punched a hole and did not expand. Thats about all I could tell ya because I tried maxi-hunters in a .50 cal Renegade and just could not get them to group any where near what maxi-balls did. So I gave up on them. But that was a long time ago.

 

[paulvallandigham]

WADR, the body of a whitetail deer is too soft to cause much upset to even hollow point bullets. Don't expect to see much enlarging of the primary wound channel. A PRB made of soft lead will expand much more rapidly, and at lower velocities than will any bullet with a hollow point, cast of soft lead or not. The bullet just pushes through the deer too fast to give it time to expand!

Work on your tracking ability and skills. A deer shot with a bullet will go much further than one shot with a PRB, all things being equal.

The one thing a bullet will do better than a ball in that caliber is break bones. If you insist on hunting with a bullet, angle your shot so you break a foreleg, either going into the lungs, and heart, or on the way out after hitting the lungs and heart. :thumbsup:

 

[nkbj]

To paraphase Elmer Keith, large diameter chunks of soft lead anchor animals out of all proportion to their energy. 54 diameter at 430 grains weight is overkill for my open sight distances on Texas brief case deer.
The maxihunter has wider support under the front of the bullet to prevent loosing the cap on the mushroom like a maxiball sometimes can. It's a function of velocity. If it's going "too fast" when it hits the maxiball can do that, depending on the density of the target. The maxihunter has a more solid cross section...a great big chunk.

One point I pondered long ago...please forgive me here if I get preachy.
At open sight muzzleloader distances it does not appear to be expansion or penetration that are important, but rather the rate of tissue displacement(cubic inches/second)that makes round ball work. Think about the effects of that honking sphere. A hard wheel weight alloy ball from a smoothbore will whack 'em and stack 'em. By this measure a slower slug's weight engenders a substantial penalty. A slug may expand just like a soft lead ball, it may have a dump truck load of energy, but it's still a given diameter that's moving slower. I really believe that in hunting larger game with muzzleloaders we already have the diameter so any expansion we get is a happy bonus and the velocity at target makes the difference.

 

[longcruise]

Really what I want to know is does it expand like it claims

I don't know for sure what the claims are regarding the expansion of the maxihunter, but I had a good opportunity several weeks ago to observe first hand what it actually did. One of the guys in our group had a cow moose tag. He shot it at a distance of about 30 yards on a sharp quartering angle from the rear. MaxiHunter entered behind the ribs on the left side and was found under the skin on the right side just behind the shoulder. The moose walked about 50 yards and then layed down. He had to approach it and dispatch it with another shot to the neck. It was a .54 caliber store bought maxiHunter. I don't know what the shooters powder charge was but know from past hunts that he favors 80 grains of Goex ffg with his conical loads. The recovered bullet showed no evidence of expansion. There was still a lot of lube left in the grooves.

This is one hunter that I and my other partners have not been able to convince to leave the conicals behind. Originally, back in the '70's, I and some of my hunting buddies had first hand experiences with conicals moving off the powder charge. As a result, we went to prb loads. Even one of the young guys who hunts with us with a plastic stocked in-line makes it a point to shoot prb for that reason (BTW, he gets adequate accuracy with a .530 ball and 90 grains of goex ff). We all soon found that the deer and elk we shot with the prb went down faster and displayed better wound channels than those hit with conicals.

Just bringing that up as a coincidental discovery. Not trying to stir the prb vs conical debate. After all, we've already done that 1,286 times this year.

 

[nkbj]

Tried 80gr with the 54 maxihunter this week. It hardly recoiled in a stingy barreled New Englander. Send me a pm and will send the video. It needs more smoke. Me I'ma gonna try 100gr and then 120 just in case I get to go after some of these piggies we're getting over run with.

 

[BrownBear]

All second hand because it was other people's trigger fingers and not mine, but here's what I've seen first hand.

I helped skin and and recover a 50 cal maxihunter from a good buck shot at a lasered 55 yards. It traveled lengthwise from the brisket to the back of a ham without hitting any bone after the brisket. The nose was smeared a little, but there was no expansion. IIRC, the load was 80 grains of 3f.

I also helped skin and recover a 54 cal Hornady Great Plains from an elk. It cut one rib right behind the shoulder and angled back through the lung, liver and front of the paunch to lodge under the hide on the opposite side from the shot. It was expanded to more than twice diameter after passing through only a couple of feet of elk. That one rib was the only bone it encountered, but it left an impressive wound channel through lung and liver. It had expanded to about the size of a quarter while retaining most of its weight. IIRC the load was 90 grains of 3f and the range was around 40 yards.

That's a pretty small sample to draw from, but if I was intent on expansion I'd pick the Hornady Great Plains over the TC. I'm not convinced of the need for and expanding conical after my experience with expanding RBs, but there ya go.

 

[Ohio Rusty]

Back when I had my .50 T/C hawken, I had the best accuracy with the Hornady Great Plains bullet. It killed everything it hit. I have moulds for the .50 Maxiball and the .54 Maxi-hunter, and the Horady bullet was the best preformer IMHO ...
Ohio Rusty >

 

[longcruise]

His was a .54 renegade with factory barrel so it should have been 26". No doubt barrel length is going to affect the velocity though.

His bullet hit no bones whatsoever.

 

[Stumpkiller]

I used Maxi-Hunters for a few years in my .50 T/C New Englander. Never recovered one, so I can't tell exactly how well they expanded. I can say they held together, did a good job inside and seemed to have opened up as the exit holes were thumb sized. I don't think I ever hit any bones except the thin ribs. Wounds looked similar to 20 gauge slug damage. Plenty for whitetail.

I was steered away from Maxi-Balls based on complaints I had heard from other shooters and never tried them on deer, so I can't give a first hand comparison. Nailed some woodchucks with the .36 size and they just poked on through.

On a side note - I have used nothing but round balls in that same New Englander since 2003 and the deer have, in fact, dropped quicker with a .50 round ball. May be other factors or a statistically small sample, but that is my experience. One dropped where it stood and three others took a hop and piled up within 10 yards. I really like the round ball for my region - dense brushy woodlots with shots at 10 to 75 yards. I've only ever recovered one round ball and that one went the length of a buck and lodged behind the femur. Only expanded to about 0.52" from 0.490" but it was home cast and slightly "hard".

 

[buttonbuck]

As memory now serves me I failed to mention and make a mental connection that I have hunted with a
roudball making a head shot on a squirrel they do have a tough hide and make great bags for roundballs use the tail for a drawstring I recall my roundball expanded great and lodged in its neck. Well time to burn some powder and work up that 50 yard load again I have a box of 535s to use up and or cast some 530 with the mould. I have some conicals to shoot off for fun as well.

 

[smokymtnsmokepole]

I have one percussion CVA Hawken that I shoot 350 grain maxi-hunters out of (it's what the gun likes, shoots tight with the maxis and all over the place with a PRB.) Anyway, I've probably killed 20-25 deer with maxi-hunters out of that gun, and they're absolutely devestating on deer. And yes, they certainly expand. Half the deer I have shot with maxis dropped right there in their tracks.The others left a blood trail like you had poured it out of a bucket. I have had absolutely no problems with them. One of my hunting buddies uses them too, and has killed a pile of deer with them with no problems.

 

[boar]

I have killed 5 deer with a .50 hunter. If I hit the deer I had it. I allways used real soft lead to make them. I casted them just before the hunt. I allways tapped them a little bit on bottom to make them fit tighter and not drift in the barrel. Will do the job as good or better then RB. It just what you want to use. TC cheapshot will drop them too. Dilly

 

[Rat Trapper]

The Hornady great plains hollow point bullet is my go to bullet for any caliber. Backed with a heavy charge of Triple seven, I'm good to go !

 

[smokymtnsmokepole]

Me and a friend killed 4 deer last week with T/C 350 grain maxi-hunters, one buck I shot dropped dead literally in its tracks, as did one of his, the other two were couple-of-jumps-and-fall-over. One of the deer he shot was quartering, and we recovered the bullet. Talk about expansion, it was expanded out to about an inch diameter.That has been true of every one that I've ever recovered (most of them make two holes on broadside shots.) Don't know where people get the idea that they don't expand or work well on deer. Probably over 50 deer killed between the two of us over the years with them with absolutely no problems. I like roundballs, too, and shoot them exclusively from my flintlock-but certainly nothing wrong with maxis, or at least the T/C variety. From my experiences shooting both into deer over the years, they kill quicker than roundballs, probably because they're twice as heavy-they're like Thor's hammer.

 

[Tom Compton]

Let's see.

.50 cal w/ penetration thru and thru.

Just why is expansion needed on a deer sized animal w/ this? A .40 may benefit on deer from some expansion and a .50 on Elk and larger may benefit from expansion.

Shoot what's accurate and what you can tolerate.

TC

 

[tg]

"We all soon found that the deer and elk we shot with the prb went down faster and displayed better wound channels than those hit with conicals."

I have had a lot of hunters I know say pretty much the same thing about several of the modern bullets,but let's not let facts based on a lot of experience cloud the waters here, I'll go on to other things and give this thread back to the modern projectile advocates, as I have no personal experience with the modern bullets.

 

[nightwolf1974]

personally i prefer roundballs and maxiballs. i like penatration over expansion. i shoot maxis in my .54 cal. Renegades. the bullet is already .54 cal. and put that on top of 120 grains of FF, and you have a bullet capable of bone smashing results.

 

[smokymtnsmokepole]

"Shoot what's accurate and what you can tolerate."


'Zactly. That's why I started shooting maxis in my Hawken was because it had that 1 in 48" twist and they were a lot more accurate than roundballs out of that gun. The smackdown they put on a deer is just a bonus. They do put a lot of kick on the shoulder, though. I wouldn't even think about stuffing a maxi down my flintlock, but it has a good slow twist and is accurate with PRBs. I like staying as traditional as possible, and I'm not a "modern projectile advocate," I don't reckon- I prefer to shoot round balls myself, but claiming that maxis don't work on deer just because someone don't like 'em is not going to convince me they don't work when I've been filling my freezer with them for years with absolutely no problems. :v

 

[Little Wattsy]

"Shoot what's accurate and what you can tolerate."


'Zactly. That's why I started shooting maxis in my Hawken was because it had that 1 in 48" twist and they were a lot more accurate than roundballs out of that gun. The smackdown they put on a deer is just a bonus. They do put a lot of kick on the shoulder, though. I wouldn't even think about stuffing a maxi down my flintlock, but it has a good slow twist and is accurate with PRBs. I like staying as traditional as possible, and I'm not a "modern projectile advocate," I don't reckon- I prefer to shoot round balls myself, but claiming that maxis don't work on deer just because someone don't like 'em is not going to convince me they don't work when I've been filling my freezer with them for years with absolutely no problems. :v

Exactly!! :thumbsup: