Round Ball effective range?

[pepperbelly]

I was thinking that traditional meant buckskins. I could not imagine walking into the woods looking like a deer.
I know there are other clothes you could wear and be pc.
That's interesting about camo becoming a blob. I had wondered about that for a long while. Up close it looks good, but at 100 yards the little mossy oak sticks would not be visible.
I think good camo is necessary for a bowhunter, but not for a rifle shooter.
Hmmm, would a ghillie suit be pc? The old English game wardens used them, so they were around the right time period.
Jim

 

[Keith]

Interesting about the colors and patterns. Can you post any pictures for reference?

 

[Stumpkiller]

Unfortunately, no. He passed away in May of '02 and I have no idea where the pictures ended up. They were prints, in any case.

We set up his 35mm on a tripod and went into different cover behind his house and wore different patterns (or solids) side-by-side.

Assuming deer see B&W the way we interpret B&W the solid blaze orange behind just a bit of cover is fine stuff. I have a pair of light gray wool pants (Swiss or Swedish surlus) and they just disappeared unless something dark was behind them to outline the contrast.

I have a backpack and hat that is brown ASAT in Polarfleece. The image below is me under the ASAT hat.

I wish I'd bought the whole clothing set (Two Rivers Archery used to carry it). That is another very good all location pattern. For a long time it was unavailable, but I think someone brought it back lately.

The bigger blotches like Winona and ASAT work best at 50 t0 70 yards, which matters to m/l'ers.

At the time we took the pictures Treebark was all the rage, and that was lousey unless you stood with your back to a dark-barked tree. In oak & hickory woods you look like a big, dark man. Neither of us had Mossy Oak or any of the 3-D/Ghillie Suit type of clothing. I had a set of reversable bibs with a goose hunting river cane/cornstalk pattern that was really good in dogwood and thornapple tangles.

I have killed two deer within ten FEET while wearing hat/jacket/bibs/gloves of blaze orange. Motion control is more important than camo. And working with the wind is the most important of all. A deer MAY pause and look at something it can't figure out, but it will leave immediately if it catches any whiff of you.

Thet deer in the picture was 7 yards away at ground level with me with no interveining cover between us when I shot (with a 60# recurve that I can hold for about five seconds at full draw). There was a blown-down tree behind me. That's Rock-a-flage camo for mountain goat hunting above the treeline. :haha: At the time it was all I could find that wasn't dark camo.

 

[olgriz]

I'm an old coot, and I've killed a lot of deer over the years. I'll admit I own some hi-power rifles, and some BP cartridge guns, but I've hunted with traditional muzzleloaders for years, and in them traditional smoke poles I've never shot anything but patched round balls, and I aint gonna start shooting something differen't now. No peep sights and no shaders, and dang it, I'm about out of the shooting business on account of I can't seem them open sights. I'll figure something out, but it won't be a peep sight or a scope. Getting back to hunting, I've had good experiences and bad ones and real eye opening mind boggling ones, and on top of that I've seen other people have bad experiences. Most bad experiences that I've seen have come about from shooting at critters too darn far away. So far everyone that has answered you has given excellent advise, but I aint famous for keeping my mouth shut, so I'll give my 2 cents also, and it's going to mostly repeat what them other fellers are saying. First off, the most important thing is to hit the critter where he lives. You got to inflict a mortal wound. The heart on a deer isn't as big as the black on a 50 yard target. If you can't hit pretty close to the 10 ring on that target, then you should get closer until you can. In my humble opinion there are only two places to shoot a deer with a round ball. One is the heart, the other is the neck. Heart shot deer will travel a bit, neck shot deer usually drop in their tracks. So fast in fact that when the smoke clears you wonder where the deer is. If you can hit the deers heart at 100 yards you will kill him, but there is still a limit you might want to think about. That limit is what energy the ball has left when it gets that far out. Without enough energy the ball won't pass through. If the ball doesn't pass through, and a lot of times especially at longer ranges it will stop against the hide on the opposite side, it won't give you much of a blood trail. Now we are talking about tracking skills, and if you make many long range shots with round balls your best bet is to become a really good tracker. One of the things I learned years ago is that the heavier the ball, the better it will buck the wind, and it will shoot further and flatter and have more termianl energy when it gets there. Bigger just works better -- to a point. The only way to make a round ball heavier is to make it bigger around. I've ended up shooting a .62 caliber flinter and have had lots of success with it. I won a rifle in a shooting match one time, because the wind was blowing a gale, and you had to bust a clay pigeon about a hundred yards away, miss and out. I only fired one shot, and I was the only one to hit the target. The wind blew everyone else's ball and they all missed. I held right on the clay and busted it with my .62. Another time we had plywood sheets with targets posted, shooting a hundred yards. The wind was moving 50 caliber balls as much as 8 feet (EIGHT FEET) but the guy with a .58 was doing great. That's when I made the move to .62. All that said, I like to think that a primitive ML is about twice as good as a bow and arrow. I usually try to keep my shots under a hundered yards and I try to stick to standing shots. But I've broke my own rules and then you win some and loose some. I don't like to loose, so I manage to follow my rules pretty good. Hope this helps.

 

[Slamfire]

Get some fiber optics, you can see three glowing dots, can't you? Two green on either side of one red. Just need a little light to make 'em glow. Still open sights. :m2c:

 

[olgriz]

Those type sights are illegal to hunt with in Oregon's traditional ML season, and can't be used at any of the shoots I go to. I took the wedding band my X gave me way back when, cut it up and soldered a gold post on the front sight, and that worked pretty good for a lot of years, but now I'm seening 2 and sometimes 3 leaning fuzzy posts for the front sight, and a undefined haze for the rear. I'm thinking the answer may well be a smooth bore, but I aint done yet.

 

[Bob J]

Roundball-
That sounds like an excellent idea (offhand practice)! I was already getting antsy, thinkin' about what ML I should get next (like I really need another one with one daughter just starting college?). Anyways, maybe its time to buckle down with the one I hunt with, the .54 GPR, and just start practicing 25 - 50 - 100 yards! :thumbsup:

 

[jeremyc]

I'm reading the book "Muzzleloading, The Complete Hunter." When I purchased my T/C New Englander (2 days ago) the in-house muzzleloading expert steered me to round balls instead of conical bullets or sabots. He stated that a good patched round ball and 80 grains of powder is all you need for a deer in a 100 yard range, anything else is an overkill.

I took his advise, but reading the book it says on page 87 that a 50 cal round ball w/90 gr powder at 100 yards has 378 ft/lbs. of energy while a 240 gr sabot has 995. In the foot notes it reads: "Many black powder experts feel that about 700 ft/lbs. of energy is the minimum for cleanly taking deer and other big game."

According to this page it seems that a round ball is far inferior to a sabot, infact the 50 yd rating for the round ball is 606 ft/lbs. which is still less than the 700 they recommend for taking down a deer.

My question is which should I believe?

To build on the thread, assuming I can hit (which I can not, obviously) the kill zone of a deer 100% of the time all the way to 50 miles with my muzzleloader at what point will the muzzleloader not have enough energy to kill the deer? According to this book it's about 40 yards...

Jeremy

 

[Deadeye]

Where you hit them is what kills them. Energy has very little to do with it. That .50 RB will kill them much farther than you can hit them in the right place. The 9"
plate is still a good measure. When you can't hit it every time offhand then you know that's too far.

 

[Java Man]

I think ft-lb energy ratings are almost as useless with round balls as with arrows. Round balls and arrows do not impart much energy to the animal, they just tear stuff up, so the animal bleeds to death.

The reason for such conservative remarks in print, may be liability of some sort. You never se anybody recommending .45 RB's for deer in books, but a whole lot of deer have fallen to them.

Java Man

 

My question is which should I believe?

Listen to the "in-house muzzleloading expert",.... 'cause IMHO he knows more 'bout roundballs than tha auther of thet book!!

"More" ft/lbs of energy are required to "deform" a small dia. jacketed bullet so it can "perform proper",.... "less" ft/lbs of energy is needed with a large dia. soft pure lead roundball.

Proper "shot placement" is still required with either type bullet, for clean kills.

YMHS
rollingb

 

[olgriz]

Listen to them last three guys, they got excellent advice. I'm assuming your TC is a .50. I shot 85 grains of FFFg in mine, and with a soft pure lead round ball it hit point of aim at 50 yards, and the ball flattened to just about twice it's size in the buck's neck. It didn't come out, but the buck died on the spot. You gotta hit 'em where they live and they are dead. Practice so's you can hit what you are shooting at, or learn to be a good tracker. I'm not a bad off hand shot, but hunting I take any rest I can get.

 

[Ohio Joe]

My question is which should I believe?

You can believe this. Throw that book in the fire. Sounds like nothing but hogwash written by someone who has never hunted deer (or anything else) using the patched roundball.

700 FPE at 50 yards to take deer... I've been taken deer with half or less then that depending on what caliber rifle I use and the yardage I take them at. It boils down to good shot placement, period! You can't kill 'em if you don't hit them in the kill zone. I like the heart and lung area myself.

Who wrote that book???

 

[roundball]

As an example of that, I took a doe just last weekend while squirrel hunting with a .45cal patched ball and only 40grns Goex FFFg...shot her in the heart, ran 35yds and dropped.

 

[Ohio Joe]

I took a Mully doe at 63 yards the first Saturday of December using my Dickert Flintlock, loaded with 65 grains of 3fg Goex and a .445 PRB.

Let's see; that's about in the 450 FPE range. The ball went right through her lungs! She maybe staggard 15 feet on the stubble and went over.

Roundball, your shot would have been what??? In the "320" FPE neighborhood or there abouts???

Just goes to show folks you can throw out about 99% of what the experts get published :imo:... I'll give them 1% for spelling their name right, maybe? :hmm:

 

:imo:... I'll give them 1% for spelling their name right, maybe? :hmm:

"HAH"!!.... Ther's "proof" thet yore a liddle more "generous" then I am!! :crackup: :crackup:

(.... in fact I rate some of them "authers" equal to most "store clerks",.... they might be able to spell good, but they don't seem ta know anythin 'bout traditional roundballs!!)

YMHS
rollingb

 

[BLAHMAN]

The longest shot I ever took (that actually paid off) was about 95 yards (give or take a foot) and I had what seemed to be forever to set up the shot, so I had plenty of time to think about the shot,and wait for the deer to get into the open. Another time I took a long shot (Hail Mary type) at a group of deer on a hillside. They were all crowded together and they were walking up towards the top and then soon over. I aimed high and let a shot go....got nothing, oh well!

 

[Ohio Joe]

[/quote]
"HAH"!!.... Ther's "proof" thet yore a liddle more "generous" then I am!! :crackup: :crackup: [/quote]

:haha: :haha: :haha: I'm speechless, :haha: :haha: :haha:

 

I hope yore not reccomend'n "Hail Mary type" shots at real live critters!!!! :nono: :shake:

 

[Ohio Joe]

Don't take "Hail Mary" shots... How do you know there wasn't some other hunters on the other side of the hill?

Even so, shooting to make a certain kill is the way to hunt. Not "Hail Mary" flock shooting. Gives all hunters a bad rep.