Has anyone on here hunted with a patched roundball before? Likes/dislikes? Please share stories&pictures!

It seems this is always a good debate between muzzleloading hunters...especially when it comes to big game like elk.

That's all I shoot outta my Hawken. 50 caliber, 32" Green Mtn. bbl. Iron sights, 90 gns. blackpowder. Killed 2 deer with it. Neither of them moved outta their tracks. One was 35-40 yds, one was @ 100 yds. The only reason I took that longer shot was because I had already paced off the distance from my stand to the edge of the field where he appeared. My time at the range provided me with absolute confidence at that distance, especially given I had a good rest on the edge of my stand for support. The low sun was behind me providing excellent light...in other words, it was a perfect set-up. In general, hunting in S.E. Georgia, we get very few shots even that long.
Never tried anything bigger than our Southern Whitetail.

I shot a big doe with a 50cal round ball at 45+- not much of a story. Hit her in the shoulder and exited the other side she ran about 10 yards and fell over. I am going to start doing some muzzle loader hunting again and plan on using round balls. I don't think that I would hesitate to take anything that stepped out as long as I could get a decent shot.

This issue has been covered, but I will add that I use round balls for deer and democrats and bullets for big game.

I always enjoy hearing stories of hunts with a patched roundball on big game. There is a very definite line between people who advise others to hunt with them, and the latter who wouldn't wish a roundball on any animal.

I plan to try this year with either my newly acquired .54, or my .58.

I shot a medium doe at about 70 yds with a patched 50 cal ball from a cheap Italian no-name caplock. While she was laying in the field struggling I hurridly loaded a second shot and about that time a buck came out and walked up to her to see what was going on. I shot him too. He died instantly. The doe ball was a pass through too far back and the buck ball stopped under the skin on the far sholder. Had the shot palcement been better on the doe she would have been dead on the first shot. I did finish her with a third closer shot.

I replaced that rifle with a Thompson Center caplock and was not pleased with the patched ball performance with that rifle. The rifling twist rate was meant to stabilize a ball or maxi ball (conical). It did neither well. When using balls if you loaded powder enough for hunting (80-90grs) the ball was spun too fast and would fly off in undetermined directions. It would shoot balls alright if 40-50gr af powder were used.

I now have two rifles. A flint lock specifically for ball and an inline for conicals.

The first elk I ever shot with blackpowder fell to a round ball. This was in Colorado over 20 years ago. Back then, black powder tags were either sex and you could hunt statewide. No specific units or restrictions on what you could take. I was a pretty serious deer hunter then and hunted elk as more of a diversion than as a passion.

Anyways, I was making my way along a trail in some really thick pine trees. What we back west often refer to as black timber. I was making my way to a ridge that had a small creek flowing at the base. It was always a good place for deer. I had both deer and elk tags in my pocket but that area was a lot better for mulies than elk so I wasn't really expecting an elk.

I walked around a big pine and there was a good cow elk standing broadside in the middle of the trail. She had absolutely no idea I was there and when I came around the tree I was less than 5 feet from her. I don't know which of us was more surprised, her or me. I tossed up the .54 and sent a Hornady round ball into the crease behind her front leg. She made less than 40 yards and went down in mid-stride in the middle of the trail.

I couldn't ask for anything better from that round ball. It went clear through her and absolutely trashed the lungs. It was kind of strange because when I rolled her over to field dress her, she actually had a powder burn on her side. I doubt it the muzzle of the gun was much more than a foot from her side when it went off.

Not long after that I switched gears and set most the deer hunting aside and started to hunt elk really heavy. I stopped using round balls and went to the pre-lubed Buffalo Balls. They have tipped over a lot of elk over the years out of my Renegade.

All that being said, I picked up a 50 caliber Renegade flintlock a few years ago. Haven't played with it yet, but I intend on using it on a fat doe sometime in the next few years. And it will be firing a round ball when I do it. Somehow a flintlock just needs to shoot roundballs in my opinion.

I started deer hunting with a CVA Mountain Rifle I had put together from a kit. It has a 1/66 twist for patched ball. I got hold of some water soluable oil and mixed it at 25% oil. My field load was 90 grs of powder behind pillow ticking for a patch. You could cloverleaf balls all day at 50 yards. My first deer was a button buck at about 30yds facing away. The ball entered behind the left ribs and exited the front shoulder leaving a 2inch hole. Didn't know he was down until the smoke cleared. I shot several more with that rifle before I went to something else. Don't forget to load immediately. I'd rather face a wounded deer with a rifle than an odd shaped club.

I've shot several deer with roundballs, .54 cal and .45 cal. There is a little more margin for error with the .54 cal, but you still have to hit the deer where it counts.

My first deer was shot at 15yds with a .54 cal roundball. It jellied the heart and lungs, but that damn deer ran 150yds before falling over. My first lesson on how far a deer can run!

Another deer taken with a .54 cal ball was a 240lb, 9 point that scored 166 B&C. One shot in the shoulder, pass thru, deer took one step and expired.

Two deer were taken on Thanksgiving morning several years back with my .45 cal flintlock, 44" barrel, 1-72" twist. A charge of 50gr of Swiss 3F and a .445 ball gets me about 1900fps. First deer was 75yds, pass thru, went 20yds and died. Second deer was right under my stand and was shot down into the chest through the side of the neck. Instantaneous death!

If anyone tells you roundballs don't work, it's because they're not using them right. They kill exceptionally well when you put them where they belong.

A friend and I are building 12-bore English sporting rifles with 1:104 round-ball twist and narrow lands, a la Forsyth. Plan is to find the best load between 150 and 200 grains with hardened, patched round ball.
Will report once the project is completed and rifles have been blooded, but might well be next year.

Bill- what weight round ball will that be? How heavy are the rifles?

Justin

I've taken 10 deer with the round ball, 5 with the .45 and 5 with a .54. Never had a problem with either. Killed a 7 pt buck at 130 yds or so with the .45, didn't know any better at the time. I've found them to be very accurate and lethal in my guns.

The last deer I killed was a 7 pt at about 60 yds. with my flintlock GPR .54. Little mist in the air, at the shot my vision was so obscured I had no idea in which direction the deer had gone after the shot. No blood at the point of impact. Walked the trail he was headed on and found blood after maybe 25 yds. Found him piled up just off the trail in about another 15 yds.

I have killed 9 whitetails with a .54 flintlock and patched round balls and have found them to be accurate and deadly. The limiting factor for me is the open sights. I'm 50 and can't focus on the front sight like I could as a kid. My favorite flintlock was a shorter barreled mid-1700's styled "transitional" rifle, but the shorter barrel made the front sight hard to focus on. My new baby is 44" barreled octagon to round long rifle. It shoots a 230 grn/.535 ball about 1750 fps second (very much like the ballistics of a .44 Mag carbine)--it will kill deer. [URL= ]

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Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
A friend and I are building 12-bore English sporting rifles with 1:104 round-ball twist and narrow lands, a la Forsyth. Plan is to find the best load between 150 and 200 grains with hardened, patched round ball.
Will report once the project is completed and rifles have been blooded, but might well be next year.

A friend of mine just built a .75 cal Jaeger/Transitional style flintlock for another friend of his. I think he said the balls weigh 600+ grains. 120 to 150 grains of Swiss 2f shot pretty well the other day at the range. My builder friend hunts with a .69 cal Jaeger style rifle he built. Those round balls are well over 400 grns I believe (?) and when we chronographed last winter 100 grns of Swiss 2F averaged about 1375 fps--powerful stuff. I'll stick with my "little" .54!

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Originally posted by paia:
I have killed 9 whitetails with a .54 flintlock and patched round balls and have found them to be accurate and deadly. The limiting factor for me is the open sights. I'm 50 and can't focus on the front sight like I could as a kid. My favorite flintlock was a shorter barreled mid-1700's styled "transitional" rifle, but the shorter barrel made the front sight hard to focus on. My new baby is 44" barreled octagon to round long rifle. It shoots a 230 grn/.535 ball about 1750 fps second (very much like the ballistics of a .44 Mag carbine)--it will kill deer. [URL= ]

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Nice looking rifle, I'll trade!

Beautiful rifle Paia!

I watched a friend shoot a moose 4 times with a 54cal patched round ball. Range was under 40 yards each time. Took FOREVER for the bull to die. 3 balls were found under the hide on the off side rib cage. Lungs were punctured but very little blood loss. I wasn't impressed, neither was he.

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Originally posted by Ivan:
I watched a friend shoot a moose 4 times with a 54cal patched round ball. Range was under 40 yards each time. Took FOREVER for the bull to die. 3 balls were found under the hide on the off side rib cage. Lungs were punctured but very little blood loss. I wasn't impressed, neither was he.

I've heard the same story from people using a 30/06 or better.

My hunting partner only uses a round ball. He normally uses his 54 and it kills well. He has taken over 100 head with it. It kills moose well too, he killed a muskox this year with it. One shot, as usual. Jim

Not sure what the deal was, and couldn't believe that we found 3 of the 4 bullets on the opposite side under the skin.

After the first shot we waited about 15 min before investigating, very little blood found after 150 yards. We backed off and figured we come back later and find him dead. Well he wasn't dead 4 hours later.

Not so, another shot to the ribs, he walks off, then another 10 min later, nocks him down... figure he'd die. 4-5 min later head still up. Walk up to him, he gets to his feet, another to the ribs, nocks him down. Finally about 3-4min later he dies. Total cluster fug. All shots would have been very lethal with anything, mater of fact 3 of the 4 were within about 3" right in the "pocket"...

Moose are not that hard to kill, or thats been my experince. one shot and its usually lights out pretty quick there after.

I love to muzz hunt, but I'll pass on the round balls for anything bigger than a deer.

I have heard lots of interesting moose stories before. Ive never personally hunted them yet, but i hear they are stubborn and can be hit by all sorts of centerfire rifles multiple times and not know when to stay down and expire. Tough animals!

My latest round ball kills. (last week)

Bugle: A .710 round ball runs about 550 grains. Guns should weigh 9 1/2 pounds or so.

Nice job Larry!

Tell us the Stories!

Well not that much to tell, I have put a climbing stand at the intersection of two deer trails about 200 yds from my house. Climbed up one morning and saw nothing until about 9:30 a.m. One lone doe, pretty good size deer, figured she might be out of the deer making business, so I decided to take her.

Shot her at about 15 yds, saw her running on the edge of the smoke and duck into the heavy stuff my stand was backed up to. I figured she'd die in there, but she busted out and died right in front of the stand about 20 yds out.

Shot the buck, two days later, after deciding to shoot only a buck. Shot him at the same location as the doe, but slightly quartering away from me ahead of the shoulder, angling into the chest cavity. He fell at the shot, gave a bawl and kicked a few times. I started congratulating myself at being the best flint rock hunter ever when the buck jumped up and ran into the thick stuff described earlier.

Went through the thick stuff on my hands and knees, no blood but easy to see the deer's tracks. Got to the a edge between where I was hunting and a pine plantation. The deer was following a trail along this edge. Small amounts of blood began to show up, 60 yds later, the blood began to be much easier to follow. Soon there was massive blood loss and found the deer piled up just off the trail, very much dead. The ball like I said took the deer ahead of the shoulder and exited through the bottom of the chest ahead of the shoulders or maybe just where the shoulders start. Something turned the ball off it's course into the chest cavity, however I found a big bruse on the off side of the bullet entrance, perhaps part of the bullet broke off and went the way the ball was intended to go.

First time I've had to do much tracking with the 7 deer I've killed with this rifle. 90grs. of 3f ahead of the .54 cal. hornday ball.

Oh well, all's well that ends well.

Thanks for the story Larry, I am going to attempt to take my first whitetail this year with a muzzleloader.

What kind of rifle will you be using? Let me know if I can be of assistance. Some times a bit of tuning is required to make a flintlock reliable.

I've shot quite a few deer with roundballs out of my 58. It just knocks 'em flat.

Me and a couple of buddies from Georgia got invited up to a mutual friends place in Indiana for a week to hunt some private property he has permission on.

On the first day I managed to bag a big doe as she was coming out of a thicket.
70-80yds, PRB 80gr FFG in one side and out the other.

I flinched a little and hit her a bit high, but it still dropped her in her tracks. She was heavy

We came in and out by boat, so it was kind of an amphibious invasion from the South. lol

Pulled this out of a cyst in her shoulder.



got this guy on the last day I hunted. I was sitting on the ground on the bank of one side of a ditch/creek in between 3 trees that were growing right next to each other. He came in on the right, from the completely opposite direction I expected them to be coming. He was walking along the bank opposite to me. So I was trying to ooze my gun around to get him lined up and had it pretty well around when he got directly opposite to me, spotted me and started that staring thing they do. At that time I only had the gun around and not my other arm. I did'nt know what else to do and knew he was gonna bug out any second. So I leveled the gun and shot him one handed. lol. If it had been more than 10 or 15' away I would never even consider doing something like that. But I got a clean double lung and a blood trail a vegetarian could follow. Lungs were complete mush.



That same morning my buddy Adam got a nice doe with his flinter, also from the ground, 100 yds from where I was sitting, 15 minutes after I got my buck. And my other buddy, Chris, got a nice buck with his levergun. .44. Also hunting from the ground

Hey, great stories there, fellas.
Nice to see all that meat harvested with the round ball.
A couple of mates and I recently went hunting, in SW Queensland, for pigs.
It was a mixed rifle hunt with a .243 Sako,.308 Remington,.303 SMLE,.30-30 Marlin LA, 450-400 2&3/8" Martini, .58 Zouave & a .52cal rifled musket.
We accounted for 80 pigs for the four days and on the last day Dave and I used our muzzle loaders.
This was the first boar for the day and the first for Dave's Zouave, shooting minnie ball.


This was my first ever pig taken with a 200g round ball.


A delightful end to a very successful outing.

PA has a traditional muzzle loading season requiring a flintlock and a full bore bullet. Therefore I decided to use a traditional flintlock for all muzzle loader hunting. I have a T/C .54 Renegade. I heard many horror stories on deer getting away from PRBs so I decided to go with a .54. Additionally I learned after hitting a deer with a double-lung shot and it running 300 yeards with little to no blood, that you need to hit the heart with PRBs.

This makes a huge difference in the outcome. A smaller hole thru the heart with a minimally-expanding ball will tend to kill quicker than that same size hole thru the lungs. Furthermore and most importantly, a heart shot will give you a good blood trail. Since using the heart shot I seldom have a deer go over 50 yards, and if it does it is very easy to find. Longest shot was a 120 yard buck which went 40 yards and died.

Again I think the large variation in results or opinions on PRBs is whether you use a heart or a lung shot.

I might also add that I have reliable ignition utilizing the following:
1. drill out the flash hole to 5/64
2. keep the frizzen sanded so it don't glaze over
3. If using an agate stone, keep it sanded also to remove all glazing and a sharp point--reverse it occasionally
4. Use 4f in the pan and 3f in bore for better ignition
5. Pin thru the flashhole for the 1st shot
6. Make sure the the balls are rammed down to where the ramrod almost jumps back a good 6-9".
7. I like a 90 grain charge of 3f with .535 balls with an .010 lubed patch or .530 balls with a .015 lubed patch.

This is my first deer with a muzzleloader. I shot her in really thick brush from about 20 yards away. All I could see was her head, so that's what I shot. Surprisingly, the ball entered about 3/4" from the eye and didn't exit.

The gun is a cheap CVA (plainsman I think) .50 cal. I refinished the stock, added some inlays, and ditched the plastic buttplate in favor of brass. It turned out to be a decent looking rifle and it's been very reliable.

Over the years I have taken several deer with both my 50cal CVA Kentucky rifle and my 54 TC Hawken. Both were kit guns. I took a 6 point at 75 yrd with the 50 and Several yrs back I had the chance to take a cow buffalo. Shot was off sticks at 80 yards using 90 grains FF and patched round ball. No doubt she was going down after the first shot but I reloaded and put another in her. When we rolled her over both shots were thru shots, Buff walked approx 30 feet from first shot until she hit the ground.

All I use is patched round ball in my 54 Cal Lyman deerstalker with flintlock. First buck I shot with it was about 70 yards in the rain. No fooling, there was a light rain that day. I did a lot of prep work that day to be sure everything stayed dry and sat in a pop up blind to keep rain off me. I have had almost no misfires from my flinter. I love it and would never want to use anything else for muzzle loading.

Very cool!

I'm considering selling a few inlines to fund more Hawken style rifles lol

The first (and only) muzzleloader deer I shot was quite memorable. A friend and I put on a little deer drive during the WI muzzleloader season. It took all of 5 minutes for him to walk down around a little point with me waiting up the draw a bit. A doe came cruising uphill and I got ready with the hammer cocked and sights aligned. When she hit a little clearing at forty yards she saw me and slammed on the brakes. I shot for just inside the shoulder and she reared up on her hind legs, tipped over, and kicked all of two times and it was all done. I've got a few longrifles in the works and hope to have one finished in time for this next fall as it's a very enjoyable way to hunt as the WI woods isn't so full of hunters during the muzzleloader season and if you make little drives you're not too worried about pushing a small buck over the property line to a waiting rifle.

I hunted exclusively for ten years with one muzzle loader; a TC Hawken .45 caliber. Round balls for all small game (100+ animals) and three deer with round balls. One deer ran into a military base where I could not follow, and was lost. I then switched to TC Maxiballs for all deer hunting. Never lost a deer. Performance matched that of a 30-30 out to 100 yards. After 40 years, I am still using this rifle and Maxiballs for ML deer hunting.
RF

Built this .58cal. a few yrs back and do all my big game hunting with it.




Killed this buck using it and round balls in Shawnee National Forest, Il.

ifly....very nice rifle(i assume it IS rifled )