Patched round balls or conicals for big game?

[jrmflintlock]

I have posted these pictures many times but the proof is in the victuals!!

A fellow by the Name of GreenMtnboy as put down every type of critter in Colorado with a patched lead ball! The key is distance and shot placement. Stay inside 100 yards and the lead ball will be good medicine. If as others have said you do your part and poke them in the right spot the ball will do its job!

Cow elk taken with a beautified Bobcat in .50 cal with a patched lead round ball and I believe 70 or 80 grains of FFg. fell over dead within site of my nephew!

This a one of the bulls I shot with my flintlock Jaeger in .54 with a patched lead round ball using 80 grains of FFFG. This bad boy dropped like as sack o' taters!

The gent who told you lead balls were no good was probably the guy who made the regulation change in Colorado requiring .50 cal to use a conical. Unfounded in my opinion. My hunting partners and I have harvested more elk with unexpanded copper jacketed .308 and .270 bullets, because they shoot them at 500 yards, "cause they can". In fact I have never shot a critter that had been "wounded" by a lead ball. All the critters I have shot with the lead ball have become Dead critters!

My two cents, worth what you paid for them!

Good Luck this fall, maybe we will cross paths! If you see a guy with a flintlock in buckskins it might be me if'n I can draw a tag!

 

[jrmflintlock]

Here is a picture of the .50 cal ball recovered from that cow next to a unfired ball. Patched led ball is good medicine to make meat!

 

[dsayer]

Nice pics! Thanks.
Which unit did you apply for?

 

[hanshi]

If you need more than a round ball . . . shoot a bigger round ball.
The Eastern Elk was hunted to extinction before conicals. They came into "common" use among hunters right around and after the Civil War.

...and that's the truth. I've only killed 2 deer at 100 yards or a bit over; I was hunkered in a huge hay field behind some bales. Two different flintlocks but both were .50. Hits were through and through with signs of only slight expansion. One ran maybe 30 yards and the other maybe 15 yards.

The average, though, is much closer; I'd guess under 30 yards. The distances ranged from the previously mentioned 100 yds to about 7 feet. Up to at least 50 yds expansion was always impressive.