On deer calibers

We often have discussions about whether or not some particular caliber rifle is good/OK/adequate for deer/etc. We have several folks advocating the .40 for deer and others avowing that only .54s are good enough. In the modern gunwriters world (Guns & Ammo, Field & Stream, ad infinitum) we are repeatedly advised that the .30-30 is marginal for deer--the minimum if you will. Of course many of us know that is baloney and the .30-30 has taken millions of deer. Let's look at some ballistics. The .30-30 ballistics for a 150 gr bullet (the weight equivalent of a .46 lead ball) shows MV =2390 fps, ME = 1902 ftlbs; at 100 yds, E =1356 ftlbs. Now lets look at some BP ballistics for several "deer" calibers: Out of a 43" barrel with a stout charge of 60 gr fffg the .40 (.395 ball, 92 gr) reaches ~2000 fps but has a ME of only 826 ftlbs [the .30-30 beats that at 200 yds]. I don't have the 100 yd E for the .395, but estimate it to be ~200 ftlbs. The .45 (.445 ball, 133 gr) out of a 43" barrel can reach ME = 2100 fps with a stout 80 gr fffg and yields 1308 ftlbs ME. At 100 yds the E = 364 ftlbs. The .30-30 retains that much E at near 500 yds [and no one thinks of the .30-30 as a long range round]. The .50 (using a heavy .498 ball, 180 gr) in a 43" barrel can reach 2000 fps MV with heavy 90 gr fffg, for a ME = 1596 ftlbs. At 100 yds the E = ~500 ftlbs. The .30-30 retains this E at near 400 yds. {all of these figures are lower for short barreled rifles} The .54 out of a 43" barrel, using a .535 ball (220 gr) and a big 100 gr fffg charge only attains 1740 fps MV and 1477 ftlbs ME. At 100 yds E = ~550 ftlbs. To reach 2000 fps in a .54 would require a charge of 130 gr fffg--a little too much IMHO. With the .58 you cannot reach 2000 fps with any safe charge out of a typical Hawken barrel. Out of a 32" barrel a .58 (.560 ball, 260 gr) can reach 1400 fps MV with 120 gr ffg, and ME = 1133 ftlbs--retained E at 100 YDS IS ONLY 500 FTLBS. Clearly we need to think of BP MLer charges and ballistics differently than modern gunwriters do. The bullet weights of round balls and ballistic efficiency of rd balls do not compare well with modern pointed ammo of similar caliber. But just as clearly, the smaller caliber rd balls do not look good as deer killing ammo--they will kill and has been pointed out, even .22s have been used to kill deer; but they look like poor choices to me at least. The large hole drilled by the larger caliber rd balls makes up for the lack of retained energy down range--clearly experience tells us that .50 and greater balls work, despite the ballistic charts. Clearly enough energy is retained to penetrate the animal and the larger wound channel of the bigger bores is the killer. A friend who has taken infinitely more deer than me tells me that he has never recovered a .50 ball from a deer--all were shot through and ranges up to and over 100 yds from his TC Hawken rifle. I am not sure I remember his load but it may have been 90 gr ffg. Out of a 32 " barrel 90 gr fffg for a .50 attains 464 ftlbs E at 100 yds. In other words between the muzzle and 100 yds the E falls rapidly from 1427 to 464 ftlbs. But it is enough. I don't intend this to be a complete analysis, but food for thought in the ongoing discussions.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Very informative and good post, Mike. But with any caliber, shot placement is King, penetration is Queen. I've taken several deer with my .50, using an '06 caseful of powder (3f about 66 grs.) and recovered 2 balls. One deer ran aways, about 1/4 mile but left blood trail after about 100 yds easy to follow, I shot it again but it was down and near dead when I found it. This was due to a shot that was too far back and clipped both lungs, the buck was running when I took the shot through light brush at about 30 yds. The rest dropped there or went a few bounds.

 

I agree. And I was purposely using stout loads to prove a point--my own .50 load is more like 75 gr fffg which has less than 450 ftlbs E at 100 yds. My own philosophy is to achieve accuracy with decent trajectory with my loads, because I, like you, think shot placement is key.

 

[captgary]

Very good info.. :thumbsup:

Thanks

 

[Headhunter]

This year during our Missouri Doe season, I was squirrel hunting with my 50 and a 490 PRB. Yep, that has more than enough power for squirrels. Anyway, A nice doe came by and I decided to take her. She was at 65 yards. The bullet went right behind her shoulder. She ran 25 yards and piled up.

Now this story is not anything special except for my powder charge. It was 50 grains of FFFG Goex.

Now, according to some people, that 50 cal .490 PRB should have bounced off that deer. But, In Fact, the bullet exited.

People need to understand that the PRB is a different critter.

Headhunter

 

[paulvallandigham]

The literature on the PRB is full of stories like this one from Headhunter. Even a light load of powder( 50gr. FFFg) is sufficient to drive a round ball through a deer at 65 yds, and cause a very quick death. The 25 yd. run he observed is typical of what people experience deer hunting with any caliber, or size bullet or ball, and load. If you hit the deer in the right location, the deer is going to die fairly quickly. Death is dependent on how quickly the Blood pressure drops and the blood stops providing oxygen to the brain.

Hunters laugh at the .30-30 doomsayers because the critics obviously have not seen how well that cartridge can kill deer. Everyone concedes that this cartridge was not designed to be used to shoot deer at 300 yds. But, most deer are killed at 50 yds. or less. So, while the .30 caliber magnum cartridges have a place in hunting, they are not necessary for a majority of hunters. When you consider how many deer are killed by archers, even given the newer, powerful, fasters bows and arrows used, no one who uses a PRB feels undergunned at all. Keep your 24 power scopes, and your 500 yard rifles. I will stick with my .50 cal. RB flintlock for deer hunting any day.

 

[PreglerD]

A very good and informative post. This strengthend my opinion that bullet energy is not all when hunting. But here in Germany many hunter think so, even the lawmakers, because they rule in the hunting law that for hunting at roes a 100 meter vel. of 1000 J/734 flps is necessary. For big game a min. cal. of 6.5mm and 100 m vel. of 2000 J/1468 flps are necessary.They are not recognizing that a deers body is only able to absorbe a certain amount of energy and everything more is only blown away. As one of the respnders said. Shotplacement is king!Because of this german law you only can deerhunt with conicals. PRB is only possible for smallgame.

 

[bob1961]

A friend who has taken infinitely more deer than me tells me that he has never recovered a .50 ball from a deer--all were shot through and ranges up to and over 100 yds from his TC Hawken rifle.

all my deer shot at with my .50 T/C hawken have all drilled through them also, mine's a stock 28" 1/48" twist too under 70 gr 3f goex and .015 prelubed patch and .490 ball :v .........bob

 

[BRUN]

Shot a mule deer last year at 65 yards with 54 cal rb 70 grains 3f and went clear through,lung shot.After that I think the load was overkill.Think I will go to 60 3f and save a little powder.

 

[hawk]

Paul this is something that I have been thinking about for some time now ,
do you have any stats for larger cal balls ie 62-75 cal?
I was wondering how little powder would be required to drive a .69cal ball with enough energy to harvest deer at 50 yrds. and keep a tight accurate group.
There are some formuals out there for calculating " leathal factors" ,but I haven't seen any physical test data(ft/lbs@"x"no of yrds) for these cals,
And I tend to agree that placement is the most crucial part of the exercise
I guess my though would be along the lines...why use a hammer to kill a fly? that sort of idea.

 

I have some data on .75 (.715 ball, 545gr). 70 gr ffg obtains only 817 fps MV but retains 616 ft lbs E at 100 yds. 80 gr ffg gets you 879 fps MV and 700 ftlbs E at 100 yds. For bruiser load, 100 gr ffg gets you 1006 fps at the muzzle and 859 ftlbs E AT 100 YDS (1223 ftlbs at the muzzle). These were from a Brown Bess, 42" barrel.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Hawk: I would think that as little as 60 grains of FFg powder would drive a 1 1/8 oz. round ball through a deer at 100 yds. I don't have guns in this caliber- except a double barreled 12 ga. shotgun, which I don't think is appropriate to use with PRB, so I don't have any personal information. I do know that 60 grains of FFg powder in my .50 cal. rifle will send the ball through 6 one inch boards at 10 feet, and that 100 grains of FFg sends that same round ball through ----- 6 one inch boards ! I know that this load is good enough to penetrate a deer.

If you were to shoot a brown bess, using one of the loads recommended here, where someone has found the ball penetrates a whitetail deer at 100 yds, at a penetration box, and then reduce the load to some arbitrary lighter load, and fire that load at the same box, you should have a good idea of the ability of that round ball, at that powder charge, to penetrate a deer.

I believe that its the weight of the round ball that gives it its penetration characteristics, and not its muzzle velocity. Muzzle velocity becomes important when considering mid range trajectory- or how much the ball drops over a given range when fired at a given muzzle velocity. The reason people load more than the minimum powder charge needed to kill a deer at 100 yds is because they find it desireable to flatten out the trajectory curve. The faster the ball flies, the less it drops.

However, recoil becomes a serious factor when you get to the heavy lead balls, such as the 16, 14, and 12 gauge round balls. If your gun kicks you too much, you will not place the ball where it needs to be in order to have a quick kill, and no amount of energy is going to kill a deer if you flinch so badly that you miss the deer!

So, having suggested that a light load of only 60 grains would probably be sufficient to drive the ball through a deer at 100 yds, I cannot say that it is the best load to use. I think something between 70 and 90 grains is in order, and will produce manageable recoil forces.

See my article on controlling Heavy Recoiling guns,
[url] www.chuckhawks.com/controlling_heavy_recoil/htm[/url]

I would not choose to use FFFg powder in a large bore smoothbore, simply because with heavy loads you get eratic pressure spikes, and a sharper recoil.

In a 42 inch barrel you have enough length to allow all the powder to burn, and for the ball and gases to stop creating serious barrel harmonic vibrations, so that your accuracy will improve. Remember, most of these large ga. guns come with round barrels, like the Brown Bess. Round barrels tend to be a bit " whippy" and vibrate when a load is fired through them, producing harmonic waves similar to taking a clothes-line rope strung from a pole on one end and giving it a shake at the other. An Octagon barrel being an collection of several triangles, resists the vibrations, and vibrates much less.

Once you go above 90 grains, you are going to get serious recoil, no matter how big the caliber of the gun. And, you rarely are able to gain enough additional velocity DOWN RANGE to justify the heavier powder charge. REMEMBER, ABOVE ALL ELSE, THAT A ROUND BALL SHEDS VELOCITY very quickly, and most of that extra velocity is going to be lost in the first 30 yds. Its the nature of the round ball, and you can't change certain laws of physics. Using lighter charges of powder makes an easier gun to shoot, as least as to recoil forces on your shoulder. That will help you be much more accurate.

When you read the amount of powder carried by British soldiers in their paper cartridges for the Brown Bess, and you look at the effectiveness of that round ball on battle fields, its hard to suggest that you need 150 or 200 grains of powder to kill anything with a rifle that throws such a heavy round ball. Aerodynamically, the faster you push a round ball, the faster it slow.

Finally, I read a story in some book on shotgun patterns where the author took three round balloons, of equal size, in his living room, and determined the maximum distance he could throw ONE balloon, no matter how much force he used, or how little force. The most distances was somewhere between the least the the most force. Then he repeated he test using 2 balloon, and then 3 balloon, wanting to see what would be the optimum force to use that would let the balloons stay together ( pattern) at their farthest distance. He found the force needed was less than the force needed to throw one balloon the farthest.

From that experiment, he deduced that because air acts against round objects the same way, there is only so much force( velocity ) you can send a round ball( pellet) out of a gun to send it a maximum distance. He further deduced that to keep multiple pellets together, you need to find a velocity to throw them all together that will be less than the maximum range force found with one ball. Since aerodynamics explains how round balls are affected by air resistance, these same principals can be applied to firing shotgun pellets, ( and I have concluded that they also explain air resistance on round balls, too.)

Paul V.

 

[roundball]

Shot a mule deer last year at 65 yards with 54 cal rb 70 grains 3f and went clear through,lung shot.After that I think the load was overkill.Think I will go to 60 3f and save a little powder.

On an easy, unencumbered 65yd soft tissue lung shot....but the flip side, however, could be the next buck I see might be 115yds, at an angle with bones in the way, on alert and about to vanish, wearing a B&C rack...so if I'm out hunting for a good deer (elk, etc) I want to be able to take the shot without hesitating because I'm carrying a target load in the barrel...just a different viewpoint

 

[Slake]

I shot my first deer when I was fourteen with a .22 rimfire single shot rifle
and then graduated to a 30/30 for many years thereafter. I stll carry a model 94. I used 30/06, 270, 35Rem, 26/06, 243, 222Rem, 45/70 and various shotgun slugs..not mentioning my muzzloaders.
To this day I have taken most of my deer with 30/30 model 94 and the second most with a 50 cal PRB muzzloader. I love using ball and cap muzzloaders but I also love my model 94.
and neither shoot through which is not what I want

 

[ryoung14]

My two kills with PRB were both with a .54 and under 50 yards. I was very impressed with the results.

Last year's doe was a heart/lung pass thru, ran 100 yds. to a pileup, and dyed the snow red on both sides of her path. This year's small doe was a pass thru of both shoulders; animal dropped in its tracks. Used 90gr. RS both times. The PRB is much more effective than KE figures imply.

I like this calculator:[url] http://www.beartoothbullets.com/rescources/calculators/php/thornily.htm[/url]
because it takes into account bullet weight and diameter and, as a result, gives high grades to PRB loads. Using the calculator, at 100yds with normal loads(using velocities from the Lyman BP manual) the .54 scores significantly higher than a 150gr. from a .30-30 at the same range and about on a par with 150 gr. from a .300 Savage. This means that at any range less than 100 yds, the .54 is probably much better than either, because the .30s hold their velocity well compared to the .54 which sheds its velocity rapidly over the first 100yds.
Bob

 

[LarryB]

I have killed 3 Elk and more deer than that with my 54 prb Liman Planes rifle. I load 100 gr of 2ff. I build a fire in it and I don't begrudge the loss of one load of powder in the last 6 shots by loading heaveyer than necessary. I never feel the recoil either when shooting at game. I try to keep my shots at less than 100 yds if possable. As said befor accuracy is king and that leads to another problem, Here in the west in places you can see game too shoot much farther than the gun will shoot accuratly. This is where we should learn something from our bow hunting brothers.

 

[Mad Professor]

H'mm seem like PRB works, real good too!!!!

Besides $$$$ why not?

P.S. What are you shooting? what does it cost? How much makes YOU a MARKESMAN?

.22 shooters, JAIL is a nice place to be. Got a piece of soap on a rope :haha: See ya :blah:

 

[Slamfire]

A very good and informative post. This strengthend my opinion that bullet energy is not all when hunting. But here in Germany many hunter think so, even the lawmakers, because they rule in the hunting law that for hunting at roes a 100 meter vel. of 1000 J/734 flps is necessary. For big game a min. cal. of 6.5mm and 100 m vel. of 2000 J/1468 flps are necessary.They are not recognizing that a deers body is only able to absorbe a certain amount of energy and everything more is only blown away. As one of the respnders said. Shotplacement is king!Because of this german law you only can deerhunt with conicals. PRB is only possible for smallgame.

So would they let me use my 6.5x57 on Red Deer? :bow:

 

[PreglerD]

Oh yes. The 6,5x57 is a often used nitro cal. in GE. GE hunters use it for chamoise and smaller red deer like calves, yearlings, light bucks and does.With bullet weights from 100 to 140 grs it works good. But only when you keep the distance and shoot at the right place of the deers body.

 

[romeoh]

A very good and informative post. This strengthend my opinion that bullet energy is not all when hunting. But here in Germany many hunter think so, even the lawmakers, because they rule in the hunting law that for hunting at roes a 100 meter vel. of 1000 J/734 flps is necessary. For big game a min. cal. of 6.5mm and 100 m vel. of 2000 J/1468 flps are necessary.They are not recognizing that a deers body is only able to absorbe a certain amount of energy and everything more is only blown away. As one of the respnders said. Shotplacement is king!Because of this german law you only can deerhunt with conicals. PRB is only possible for smallgame.

Did you already try to find out if it really is so? :hmm:

The law says the energy is necassary for "rifle-cartridges"
Many hunters use this argument when talking about shooting slugs out of their shotgun, as you surely know. They say a shotgun doesn´t have to bring the laws energy because it uses no RIFLE-cartridges.

And with your ML you use a rifle - but no cartridge. :winking:

I still don´t believe the energy-limit is for MLs and I also think it´s no mistake in the law. I think at that time the law was made they were aware of what´s possible.
They had to different ballistics to keep in mind. A very small group of the last ML-hunters maybe, hunters with shotguns (both of them shooting lead) - and many guys with cartridge-rifles. The guys with rifles at that time may often have used former military rifles such as the 98k and/or surplus ammo.
And that´s the point - the lawmakers had to keep in mind that even with a full-metal-jacket bullet enough energy was there that the small part of the energy which is absorbed by the animals body when using full-metal-jacket ammo is enough to kill and not just wound.

For shooting with lead and it´s own terminal ballistics it was not necassary and so they used the expression "rifle-cartridges".

Many greetings from the "bavarian forrest" which now has decided to become white... better late than never.

romeoh