no round balls?

[nkbj]

Ah so Grasshopper. Salesman with no spin only tumbles.

 

[newtewsmoke]

[/quote]
. . . my BP goes up just when I see or hear his name.
[/quote]
BP?....Y does yer Black Powder go up? LOL!

 

[rudy parnell]

Gentlemen,

I don't know the guy [TB]....haven't read his work......I don't think.

But, for the sake of conversation.....maybe I'll stir the pot just a smige with this revelation.

I have been shooting along time.....not as long as many of my brothers here...but more than 30 years.

I took up the habit...back in the 70's and we had basically 2 choices for a projectile. That would be a round ball or a Buffalo Bullet.....later came a "Ballet", which was promised to be the best of both worlds.

Years later, came a plastic wad and a pistol bullet. Then somebody figured out that a Spire Point in a specific caliber would be more accurate.

I shot the coated pistol bullets and the semi-jacketed hollow point round nose rifle bullets.

I've killed big game with all of them...they worked.

I settled on the 300 grain solid lead spire point bullet for long range with 110 grains of Pyrodex from a 50 caliber TC Renegade. I can put it in the black consistently at 150 yards.

This is still my rig for Elk, Bear, and Hog....but that was just a dream back when I practiced and day dreamed of big hunts out in the West.... I've never taken any of these critters.

Today, all my deer fall to a patched round ball and Black Powder. I have never had a wounded or gimbed up animal to my credit. They go down inside of 20 yards and outside of 80 yards.

I think that for the most part....you can't improve on a patched round ball.....it's kinda like a canoe.

The BRB is perfect.

Now I dream of a time long ago but not forgotten...

Somehow, I feel close to the men that founded our country and built a nation.

Mastercard can't buy it.

Those feelings belong to those who seek the dream and wish to keep the memory alive.

You can count on it :thumbsup:

 

[OLDPUPPYMAX]

Round balls have taken everything from deer to elephant for the past few hundred years. An awful lot of 17th and 18th century hunters would be surprised that they were doing it wrong!

 

[dptammyverizon.net]

like others have said patched round balls have been taking game for 250+ years. I wouldnt shoot anything else out of a flintlock they go together like peanut butter and jelly.now if you want to shoot a synthetic stocked scoped fast barrel twist camo stocked stainless steel bastardization of a centerfire rifle and try to pass it off as a muzzleloader so that you can "knock down that bigun at long range "the you should shoot some other kind of projectile.or you could learn to be a woodsman and accomplished hunter and gain the satisfaction of taking game at close range with a truly legendary weapon and a projectile that fed civilizations and established this nation. the choice is yours and I wont judge you either way but I know which I will be doing.

 

[Dphar]

Does anyone know Toby Bridges? He is a writer for North American Muzzleloader Hunting. He says we shouldn’t use patched round balls for hunting deer!
His quote from an article, “I don't care much for the round ball as a big game hunting projectile!”
I never heard of the guy but he supposedly has shot 300+ deer with muzzleloaders of different types. Since have never shot a deer, or any other animal with a muzzleloader, I have no right to contradict him. But I know some of you do have the authority to do so.
If it is OK with Claude I will post a link to his online article. Otherwise it is easy to find at North American Muzzleloader Hunting web site.

Toby is in bed with the inline/bullet/sabot makers and has been for as long as I can remember. Since this is the case traditional MLs using the PRB must be deficient. If they are not then there is no reason to buy the stuff he gets paid to shill for.
He has been on the "round balls won't kill game" band wagon for a very long time. Largely because he gets paid to use something else.

Dan

 

[hanshi]

Toby isn't the only one to trash round ball hunting. Robert Sherwood wrote an article in Gun Digest over 20 years ago and claimed a prb simply wouldn't kill deer. He said even a fatal shot would allow them to run miles and die slowly. He didn't like prb even in .58 caliber as they simply didn't drop deer. He gave many examples I do not believe were actually true. His article was about cylindrical bullets being the best killers in any muzzleloader. Like Bridges, Sherwood was 100% wrong. The prb is an awesome big game projectile and drops deer much better and faster than conicals. I don't know where this "bullet" manure came from.

 

[MSW]

slippyfoote, i think you got it in one!

:hatsoff:

 

[Enfield1]

I guess the rutting buck that I harvested with a .50 flinter and a patched round ball, while he was on the run, chasing a doe (I am proud of that shot) hadn't read any of those articles, because I found him folded up in a heap about 30 yards from where he was when the ball struck him.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

the first deer I shot with my .50 capper (filled a doe tag) the PRB went through it's neck/spine bones DRT pass-through at about 100'.
couldn't be any deader if I had shot it w/my '06. I usually take my .50 to fill doe tags but have got some horns w/it. only one (running shot through the bush) did I have to track far but I found it about an hour later. shouldn't have taken that shot won't do it again it went nearly 1/2 mile.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The proof of the pudding is that Bridges has had NO success in convincing State Game Departments to outlaw the use of the Lead ball for deer hunting. :rotf: :nono:

Neither man has seriously considered where this country would be if the RB could not kill deer? How would those early explorers and settlers eat? Or survive the attacks by Indians?

I vague remember the Sherwood article, and it was all numbers using Ballistic's coefficient, and Ft. lbs. of Energy, comparing those to modern cartridge bullets. If you believed the nonsense he wrote, you would picture these lead balls bouncing off the deer's hide! :blah:

I don't recall him having actually hunted with a lead ball, nor having field dressed a deer shot with a lead ball, or observed anyone else field dressing a deer killed with a lead ball to see the nature of the wound channel. He obviously gave NO credence or consideration to the fact that the RB we use is almost always much larger in diameter than any center fire rifle caliber used to shoot deer, and leaves a bigger hole going in than most "deer cartridges" leave going out! :shocked2:

I first saw what a lead round ball would do on a deer back in 1968, when I was in college, taking on a weekend job to be a Deer Checker in Southern Illinois. More than 98% of the hunters were using shotguns shooting shotgun slugs, but a few hunters came in with deer they had killed using Lead RBs. One I remember well was shot with a .50 cal. rifle at about 6 feet, right between its shoulder blades. The exit wound was gone because of the field dressing. But, the hunter gave me a full description of what it did to one lung and the heart as the deer died in its tracks. He had to step over the deer to climb down out of his treestand!

Other hunters made killing shots at longer ranges, of course, and what impressed me the most was how FEW holes there were in those deer. Most were one shot kills. And those exit holes were HUGE!

One man recovered his lead ball, all flattened out. He shot the deer in the chest as it walked towards him, and the ball was found under the skin of a rear leg. He happened to feel it under the hide as he was gutting the deer while holding the legs open. He peeled back the skin from his cut to retrieve the spent ball.

Compared to what I was seeing with the shotgun slug shot deer, I became much more interested in those Mlers, and shooting RBs. The 20, 12, and a few 16 gauge slugs killed deer, and made huge holes in the animals, but I often saw deer with multiple wounds, and many far from the animal's heart and lungs.

I found that those hunters were just blasting away with the same shotgun and same front sight( only) that the barrel wore for hunting birds. They had made no attempt to sight in the guns, nor thought there might be a difference between brands of shotgun slugs in their guns as to performance, and "accuracy". They bought the cheapest slugs they could find at the discount stores, and fired away at any deer they saw come into view.

These were very honest and sincere men, and boys. They simply didn't know they could get better performance with a rear sight on those shotguns, nor that some guns shot one brand of slug better than others. When a hunter showed up with a gun that had a rear sight on it, the local bars spilled out and all the other hunters wanted to see the gun. :idunno: :surrender: :thumbsup:

I can't say the same thing about Mr. Bridges, or Mr. Sherwood. I think what they peddle is knowingly false information to curry favor with one or more of the gun companies. :cursing:

 

[jethro224]

If you took ALL of the writers/experts who badmouth the PRB and gathered them around as I load up my .50 with 75 grains of 2F and a PRB, and asked which one wants to run out to the 100 yard line and play "catch", I bet there wouldn't be any takers. I rest my case.

 

[roundball]

"...writers/experts..."

They all suffer from the same disease:

Absolutely zero actual hands-on experience, massive egos, and know-it-all attitudes.

 

[nw_hunter]

RB said:

Ask a question at places like the MLF here and you'll get the true sense of the right answer by seeing the common theme in the majority of all the replies.

I couldn't agree more!If you totaled up the hours of muzzleloader experience on this forum,you would jam the calculator. :grin:

 

[hanshi]

I still have the Gun Digest with the Sherwood article. I agree he has probably no real experience with prb and large game. Don't know what Toby B's problem is.

I can't count the deer I've taken with prb (never used anything else) but all were one shot dead. Ive also had about the same percentage of deer drop in their footie prints as I did back when I used centerfires. I also never had one run anywhere near 100 yards after being hit!

I think this attack on prb will keep turning up like a no good brother-in-law. But those of us with real experience know it's all bull$@#%* and can prove it. I find it annoying but not worrisome.

 

[Huntin_Dawg1215]

I found Tobys site last year and read some of it, got to the part about were he said that round balls would not kill deer and had to read it twice. The first deer I killed with a m/l was with around ball and I still shoot them out of my T/C I also shoot them in my in-line they will kill deer from one of them type rifles too.

The new modern stuff will kill deer too, it all amounts to where you put that bullet and what range you use in.

I knew meet a guy who wrote articles on rock climbing gear, told me that the companys that gave him the gear to write about got the best write up, I guess Toby is much the same way.

Just my thoughts on this .

 

[Dphar]

I found Tobys site last year and read some of it, got to the part about were he said that round balls would not kill deer and had to read it twice. The first deer I killed with a m/l was with around ball and I still shoot them out of my T/C I also shoot them in my in-line they will kill deer from one of them type rifles too.

The new modern stuff will kill deer too, it all amounts to where you put that bullet and what range you use in.

I knew meet a guy who wrote articles on rock climbing gear, told me that the companys that gave him the gear to write about got the best write up, I guess Toby is much the same way.

Just my thoughts on this .

You will not see writing that makes advertisers look bad in magazines. They live by advertising. Subscriptions may not even pay the postage.
Folks that read magazines or even "E-zines" need to keep this in mind at all times.

Dan

 

[fyrfyter43]

I found Tobys site last year and read some of it, got to the part about were he said that round balls would not kill deer and had to read it twice. The first deer I killed with a m/l was with around ball and I still shoot them out of my T/C I also shoot them in my in-line they will kill deer from one of them type rifles too.

The new modern stuff will kill deer too, it all amounts to where you put that bullet and what range you use in.

I knew meet a guy who wrote articles on rock climbing gear, told me that the companys that gave him the gear to write about got the best write up, I guess Toby is much the same way.

Just my thoughts on this .

You will not see writing that makes advertisers look bad in magazines. They live by advertising. Subscriptions may not even pay the postage.
Folks that read magazines or even "E-zines" need to keep this in mind at all times.

Dan

Yep, and it's becoming more and more obvious, especially in the bigger outdoor magazines. I bought a one-year subscription to both OL and F&S a few years back, only to let them run out because I was tired of reading a magazine that was more like one big advertisement.

 

[Huntin_Dawg1215]

YOU ARE RIGHT! I have always tryed to tell folks to be more informed. Just because he believes that bull don't mean I have too.

 

[oldfart1956]

Fellers the last article I read by Bridges stated flat out that traditional muzzleloaders should be outlawed. "Underpowered, lousey sights and poor ballistic performance ..." Then he went on to state how "unethical" they were on account of all their (traditional) shortcomings. The man is a whore for the inline manufacurers, scope manufacturers and substitute powder manufacturers..simple as that. But what would you expect? How many outdoor writers today don't accept bribes for good write-ups? I only know of 1. Mike Nesbitt.(Muzzleloader Magazine) Possibly Mike Venturino. Just my 2 cents. Audie..the Oldfart.