PRB penetration vs. velocity

[Rifleman1776]

When I first started deer hunting with my .45 cal flinter I used fairly heavy charges. I found I was ruining more meat than I wanted to. I finally reduced (in steps) the charge to 65 grains of bp. with prb of pure lead. All of my kills have been complete pass-throughs, except one that hit hard bone. All went no more than a few steps after being hit.

 

[paulvallandigham]

In that context, your deer won't know the difference between a .54 and a .58 caliber lead RB!But you will. Difference in weight is noticeable; cost of lead increases, and recoil is felt more with the larger caliber. That .54 is sending a ball that weighs 1/2 oz.+, and that is why so few lead balls are recovered from deer shot with that caliber. The same result as being hit with larger RBs. A .50 cal. Round LEAD BALL will kill any whitetail that walks this continent. So will the .54, but you are less likely to recover the ball inside the deer.

I think you need to go out and do some Penetration COMPARISON testing of different caliber RBs, against some of your familiar modern day "Deer" loads, so that you learn first hand how truly awesome a pure lead ball can be as a killing machine for soft-skinned animals like the Whitetail.

Too many shooters read that nonsense put out by some of the gun companies and shills for them like Toby Bridges, who claim that the RB will bounce off a deer at any distance beyond bow range, and other nonsense.

Too few shooters take the time to go out and do their own testing. They expect this to be all available for them to see in their homes on U-Tube or elsewhere. As long as people continue to rely on secondary sources, they will be USED by folks who have something to sell you that doesn't work any better than what you already have, and you don't need. :hmm: :idunno: :hatsoff:

 

[mnbearbaiter]

A 50cal prb will and has killed grizz :shocked2: Im a 54 man but i respect the 50, 53, 58, 62, etc! Im a fan of the saying "a big gun will do what a little gun can do but...a little gun will never do what a big gun can do" :hmm: Mountain men wouldve never dreamed of going into the mountains undergunned after the rumor of the grizz spread, and theres no such thing as overkill to me! That being said, velocity/energy/ko factor all need to be considered! A larger projectile that weighs more, ie 54-62cal moves slower but loses velocity slower whereas

 

[BrownBear]

I have been thinking about the .58 caliber.

Jumping over 54 cal from 50 to 58 cal will be quite noticeable, not only in impact on deer, but also recoil if you're trying for flatish trajectory to 100 yards.

With a 177-grain .490 ball on top of 80 grains of 3f and a 32" barrel, I'm sighted in dead on at 75 yards, which puts it no more than an inch high at 50 and around 3 low at 100. Put 80 grains of 3f under a 279-grain .570 ball and sight in at 75, and it's something around 3 high at 50 and 6 or more low at 100. At 110 grains of 2f and a 75-yard sight in I'm back down toward an inch high at 50 and around 4 low at 100.

I'm not at home with my manuals and can't preach velocity at you for those loads, but the recoil of a 279-grain ball over 110 grains of 2f seems like three or four times as much as that of the 177-grain .490 on top of 80 grains of 3f. And easily twice that of a 224-grain .530 on top of 90 grains of 3f.

That's neither here nor there depending on the shooter, but I'm here to tell you that you'll really notice the difference on a deer at the receiving end of the 110-grain .570 load at any range, while I can't say I notice much difference between .490 and .530.

I think it's RoundBall that coined the term "whompability" for the 58 cal, and he got it absolutely right! :shocked2:

 

[mnbearbaiter]

Deer to me arent really the measuring stick for lethality of a projectile! Whats next, "is my 40cal enough for the woodchuck out back" :bull: I say at normal hunting ranges with loyalties aside, look at it this way if my last 'ism wasnt clear enough! Lets drive a corvette into a brick wall and then lets drive a cement truck into that same wall and measure the damage!!! The corvette is a hot loaded 40-50prb and the cement truck is the 54+cal prb! Theres really no argument here other than 45cal is enough or 50cal is enough! We know what works and what doesnt! This is stemmed over from the 50 vs 54 argument in another forum :surrender:

 

[roundball]

Yeah, love the .58cal...lucky to have shot & hunted various calibers and after years of .45/.50/.54cals, when I made my first range trip with a .58cal, the 'wow factor' was obvious from the first shot...a serious hunting caliber for sure...so when I pared down & switched to a few long guns for retirement, the .58cal Virginia was the first to anchor the lot

 

[longcruise]

shot a cow elk with a 530 round ball and never found an exit hole nor the ball it self

Not uncommon when the ball stops under the skin on the far side. As the lungs collapse, the ball tends to fall back in to the chest cavity. Had this happen on two different mule deer during one hunt. We did not search hard for the balls, but it was obvious what had happened.

Interesting thing was that both were hit with .54 balls over 80 grains of goex ff. Both were near identical hits in the chest cavity. But..., one was hit at about 25 yards and the other at 180 yards. :shocked2:

I tend to agree with those who say that the slower moving ball will tend to penetrate better or at least as well as the fast mover. Wonder if recovering those balls would have shown the 25 yard hit to be flat and the 180 yard hit to be round.

While I'm rambling, I think it is worth considering that a ball that stops under the skin is not necessarily one that ran out of steam. The skin tends to act like a net or trampoline in that it stretches way out, slows the ball and then stops it. If the skin were not so elastic and tough, the balls found under the skin probably would be pass throughs too.

 

[nchawkeye]

Plus the face of the ball flattens, so it has more surface area for the hide to stop it...

 

[hanshi]

Your experiences with the .45 seem to mirror mine. I used 80 grains 3F, and it was fine, but came down to 70 grains and about 1750fps. Accurate to 100 yards and gentle on the shoulder.

There's no such thing as "too much gun" for deer hunting; dead is dead. But being frugal I tend to use ball toward the lower spectrum. Works fine and I have never lost one. the only things I've ever killed with a .58 are :redface: squirrels.

 

[tg]

The only two balls I have recovered from Deer were pretty badly deformed one looked just like Richard Nixon and the other was a dead ringer for Barbara Striesand

 

[buttonbuck]

I recovered a 32 ball from a squirrel head, it was about flattened 3/4 size of a dime. Last deer with a 54 prb 70 gr goex the exit wound was about 3X the size of entrance wound. The squirrel fell where he stood, the deer ran about 30 yards.

 

[roundball]

Personal preference is to use stout powder charges for big game hunting and while 99% of my shots are 25-40yds, I very rarely get and inside stop and don’t want to...my .45cal deer load is 90grns Goex 3F.

This is a .440" I recovered from a 6 pointer at 60yds...broadside shot, ball broke a rib going in, plowed across the internals passing through the heart, and stopped bulging the hide on the far, inside his off leg...I suspect had the leg not been there against the hide, the ball would have completely passed through.

The ball did not flatten to a diameter hardly much larger than the .440 to begin with...just looks like a little 'igloo'...you can see the mark on the flat side made by the breaking rib. Didn't damage edible meat with good shot placement for a heart shot.

 

[roundball]

PS:
Typical of heart shots on every NC whitetail I've taken, the 6 pointer I took with the .45cal made a mad dash for 15-20 yards and piled up in plain sight of me.

Personal preference is to use stout powder charges for big game hunting and while 99% of my shots are 25-40yds, I very rarely get and inside stop and don’t want to...my .45cal deer load is 90grns Goex 3F.

This is a .440" I recovered from a 6 pointer at 60yds...broadside shot, ball broke a rib going in, plowed across the internals passing through the heart, and stopped bulging the hide on the far, inside his off leg...I suspect had the leg not been there against the hide, the ball would have completely passed through.

The ball did not flatten to a diameter hardly much larger than the .440 to begin with...just looks like a little 'igloo'...you can see the mark on the flat side made by the breaking rib. Didn't damage edible meat with good shot placement for a heart shot.

 

[longcruise]

Plus the face of the ball flattens, so it has more surface area for the hide to stop it...

Yes, I have often wondered if the flat ball continues forward flat facing line of travel. Maybe a shot into gel would tell the story.

 

[Vaino]

Found a .54 RB beneath the skin of the opposite shoulder of an adult elk...the elk had traveled 40 yds and the shot was a broadside at 107 paced off yds. The load was a.535 RB in front of 120 grs 2f and the "RB" was the size of a quarter, similar to your pic. Pure lead due to it's plastic qualities will not break apart even when contacting bone but will be greatly distorted. Pure lead is the perfect projectile mat'l but because of mainly military applications, was guilded for easier feeding and less distortion in handling in modern rifles......Fred

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I have only had one ball not pass through..., and that was with a bad powder load..., head a thoomp instead of BANG but it stopped just inside the opposite side skin of the buck. Otherwise, out to 110 yards, my .530 ball launched with 70 grains of 3Fg goes through the deer broadside.

As for not penetrating with soft lead, the discussion where this came up that I have read were on very large game like moose, or something big in Africa, and were either head-on shots where the ball had to chop through a big chunk of bone like a shoulder, or going through a large, tough animal like a Cape Buffalo, or American Bison and Moose.

Any round folks, modern or otherwise, reaches a point where terminal ballistics will not give the needed results. Unfortunately, modern ammunition is often accurate and powerful much farther than most hunters actually shoot, and coupled with a scope, thus an inaccurate comparison arises in their minds.

For PRB most folks take a shot at 100 yards or less, and for the big three calibers of .45, .50, and .54 with the proper amount of powder, the PRB will do very well.

The other problem is understanding what to expect when the shot is made. Many modern hunters who use cartridge guns on deer, especially the belted magnums, expect instant results with mediocre shot placement. They get away with this with their modern cartridges, but make mistakes with PRB and even conicals. They don't wait, they don't get a massive blood trail, and end up pushing the mortally wounded deer much farther than they expected, so think "It must've not done the job" or "I winged him" or "I missed". :cursing: On another forum a fellow explained how he sighted in his caplock to a known distance, checked the distance where he hunts, used a rest, and completely "missed" on more than one deer :slap: (I suspect he didn't miss. He just didn't wait and pushed the deer, and needed to improve his tracking procedures.) He was of the opinion though, it was a gun problem, when he needed to tighten the nut behind the rear sight. :grin: I say this with a grin, for it was a lesson I had to learn the hard way myself..., but I only needed to learn it once.

LD

 

[hanshi]

This "mad dash" from a heart shot seems to be the norm. This has been my experience with both modern and ML guns.

 

[Bill Hall]

Same here. Heart shots tend to cause an animal to bolt away like it's on fire, then crash like it was dead before it hit the ground.

A little off topic. I once knew a cop who worked in Oakland Ca. He said people shot in the heart react the same way. Bill

 

[Rat Trapper]

[/quote]
My conclusion its it's "cover for using wimp loads"...oh wait...balls from using wimp loads already stop inside a deer.
:grin: [/quote]

:thumbsup:

 

[longcruise]

This "mad dash" from a heart shot seems to be the norm. This has been my experience with both modern and ML guns.

Ditto for me.

This is confirmed by a study I read many years ago where a public hunting area documented every white tail killed with a bow. Of interest was where hit and how far traveled. The deer with a broadhead through the heart had by far the longest distance traveled before going down.