Hi guys & girls

Has anyone hunted buffalo with black powder in 50 cal ?

I need some advice on bullets to use, I have my own ideas but why reinvent the wheel, have you used something that worked PLease advise

Thanks

Kwan: Assuming you aren't considering a .50 round ball gun, which would only be a provocative irritation, something taking 6 drams or more under a 600-grain or heavier tempered conical might get you close to a reasonable minimum, or possibly an old .500 BPE 3-inch or .50-140 cartridge gun with a case of compressed Swiss and a heavy hardened bullet.
But I haven't hunted Cape buff except from an armchair, so maybe someone with field experience will weigh in. Most of the fellows who have tried this and written about it have used considerably larger bores -- from .577 on up to 8 bore, etc. The early African hunters seemed to like a double 10 bore or more for the work.

In 2001 I went to Tanzania with a client, he brought a .50 cal (don't remember the make) he also brought his .458. After shooting his first Buffalo with his .458, he "tested" the .50 on the dead Buffalo from about 10 tf away. We found the bullet penetrated about 6" He decided not to shoot his second Buff with the smokepole after seeing the first experiment.

It was some sort of sabot, don't know the weight (seems it was 300 grain maybe???). I do know he was shooting a max load. 150 grains of something.

Lot of help aren't I? At least I remember the year.

Thanks Wendell

This is the type of info I need I already said to clinet the 300 grain in a sabot will not work

I am actually turning mono solids 350 grain with wadcutter shape to use ? but I do not have any experience with Black Powder, my choice would be 416 or 450 Rigby, but the client would love to do it with his smokepole

Wendell, that makes sense. Sabots are always smaller than caliber and much lighter. I spoke several years ago with a fellow named Kenny something from Pennsylvania who killed a buff with his .58 Kodiak. I don't recall his load precisely, but it was something like 180 grains and a 650-grain conical and he did make it through the boiler room, but not out the other side. At black powder velocities, it seems that penetration must depend on bullet temper and long-for-caliber shape to punch on through.Why anyone would reduce caliber to use a sabot for this work is beyond me.

These did the job (the ones in the center):



I believe that this was the load:

"400 grains of Goex FG and a 1850 grain hard lead round nose bullet"

Great reading from African Hunter.

4-Bore Part I

4-Bore Part II

LOAD DATA PROVIDED FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. Caveat Emptor. Trust but Verify. Use at your own risk.

Okay so it is not a .50 caliber.

Gentlemen
Not with a round ball, but if he had a 50-90 or 50-140 Sharps loaded with heavy, hard cast bullets and a good backup rifle available it would be worth a go. Over on the Shiloh Sharps web site there are some good threads within the last week discussing penetration with these rounds. The right combinations produce some very impresive penetration, in one case exceeding a 500 Nitro solid. Just not a stopping rifle however.

50calshtr,

What was the medium used in the penetration test?

The ussual failing of these test is that the test weren't performed on game like the one Wendall's client did. No matter what you get in newsprint, plywood...etc no low velocity 50 cal round from a smoke pole or BPE or 50-110... is going to outpenetrate a 500NE on game, period.

I know a buff could be killed with a 50 cal smokepole or 500BPE or 50-?..., hell, it was done in spades in the 19th century. Problem is it never did work very well.

If a client really wanted to kill a buff with a smokepole I'd first suggest a bigger than 50cal. And no matter what he set his mind on cal wise I'd point him in the direction of heavy and harder flat meplat full diameter bullets.

Alternatively, I think a sabot might work if it were used to reduce diameter but not weight thus pushing up sectional density and penetration potential. How bout a 480 or 500 grain .458", a 410 grain .435" or a 400 grain .423" Woodleigh solid in a sabot out of a 50 cal smokepole?

And the client would really need to use a chrono to see what he can get. If he can get the 400 grainer to 2125fps he would have a single shot 404, at 2000fps he'd have at the muzzle what the 404 has at 50yds.

FWIW,

JPK

We had a hunter shoot a water buffalo with .50 caliber round balls from a flintlock using the hardest commercially made bullets he could find, results were not acceptable. Testing afterward on hogs showed very poor penetration on boars. Some balls barely penetrated to their own diameter in the shield.

quote:

Originally posted by loboga:
We had a hunter shoot a water buffalo with .50 caliber round balls from a flintlock using the hardest commercially made bullets he could find, results were not acceptable. Testing afterward on hogs showed very poor penetration on boars. Some balls barely penetrated to their own diameter in the shield.

I love these stories. Doesn't it amaze you that humans ever managed to survive before the advent of smokeless powder and copper bullets?

As for the cape buffalo issue, let history be your client's guide. What did they use? Really big roundball guns or very heavy conical bullets in smaller (.45-.577 calibers). The experiments with the light weight small conicals proved not to successful but the others seemed to work.

Brent

I'm pretty sure Doc White has done it. Both Asian Buffalo and Cape buffalo. Give him a call and talk to him about it. Nice guy.
http://www.whitemuzzleloading.com/

I'm sure Jim Shockey has done it. He's shot pretty much everything with a muzzleloader, and I seem to recall him using it on buff in one of his videos. Take a look at the Africa Gallery at http://jimshockey.com

JPK
The tests were done using 5-6 feet of wet phone books if I recall correctly. The 500 solid penetrated about 48" and the 45 black powder slug went about 55". Lacking a number of large bovines available for testing purposes that's probably the best we can do stateside. Wendell and Bill/Oregon also make good points concerning shorter/lighter bullets and round balls. About a year ago didn't one of the gun rags have an article about a guy using hard cast bullets killing two buffalo with one shot, passed thru the bull and killed the cow behind it? Pass thrus seem to be fairly common on bison also, although many will say they are not as tough as a cape buffalo. That said I will agree these are not stopping rifles but on a heart/lung shot I believe they would certainly do the job. What we really need is someone in Australia to conduct some tests.

Wasn't it just last year that one of the hunting shows, had a guy on there hunting and taking a Buff with black powder? As I remember he was using the 50 cal and some new bullet from the company that makes the belted conical,,some thing about a harden nose on it.

If you get your hands on one of the "Black Powder Hunting" mag's there are several back articles on several African species of game taken

50 Calshtr,

The problem with the newsprint tests are that the higher velocity slugs create a shock wave that rips the newsprint in a diameter much larger than calibre and that this wad of newsprint is driven through subsequent layers of news print, efectively requiring, say the 500 NE, to drive a much larger diameter and heavier total mass forward than a slower 50 cal that doesn't produce the shock wave. This doesn't happen with game.

There is an article in African Hunter Magazine by our own 500grains where he tested penetration of various bullets out of modern guns in elephants and buffalo he shot that refers to this problem. There is a link to that article in a recent thread here on Big Bores.

With regard to expanding bullets the rule is, holding the bullet as a constant, higher velocity tends to more expansion with lead, cup and core bullets or bonded bullets. Less velocity leads to less expansion and thus grater potential for penetration. At some point the slower bullet with less expansion will provide more penetration than the faster more expanded bullet.

Here, I'd suggest that since in any event the weapon is going to be marginal that the best choices, really only choices, are as close to a flat meplat homogenous bullet as you can get or as close to a Woodleigh steel jacketed solid as you can get and as close to .300 sectional density you can get. I'm not comfortable with the idea that a hard cast bullet will make it through heavy bone in one undeformed piece, but I don't really have any experience with any game with them and I don't even know if you can load them in a muzle loader. In addition most of the lead slugs are going to be way light for calibre compared to the trusted standards. That standard in 50 cal is 570 grains. A bullet with the .300 section density std will go about 520 grains.

I kind of like the idea of a .423 cal 400 grain Woodleigh solid in a sabot. At 2125fps it will match the tried and true performance of the 404 Jeffery, at 2000fps it would be what the 404 is at 50yds. I'd like the bigger Woodleighs in sabots too but you would still need the velocity.

Even on a pure through the lung shot on buff you've got two problems. One is that the Cape Buffalo ribs are relatively thick and hard and they overlap each other so in effect are a reinforced wall of bone. The second problem is that the heart and especially the lungs on all African game except the cats is much farther forward in the chest cavity than our game so your playing it close to the shoulder.

FWIW, I've read a bunch of the early hunters books and they thought a 577 BPE was on the light side for buff.

JPK

quote:

Originally posted by Brent:

quote:

Originally posted by loboga:
We had a hunter shoot a water buffalo with .50 caliber round balls from a flintlock using the hardest commercially made bullets he could find, results were not acceptable. Testing afterward on hogs showed very poor penetration on boars. Some balls barely penetrated to their own diameter in the shield.

I love these stories. Doesn't it amaze you that humans ever managed to survive before the advent of smokeless powder and copper bullets?

To me "loboga" post is an account of actual experience, not a "story".

If you read historical explorers or early hunters reports, one shot kills seemed very rare even on game such as zebra or wildebeest not even girafee or buffalo. A lot of game escaped wounded.

.50 calibre in a black powder was also a fairly small bore rifle. I would think a 12-bore would be better, or a 10 or 8-bore.

It is an actual account. He shot one buffalo three times and since he insisted that it not be shot with a modern firearm as far as I know the buffalo is still alive. I tracked it about 8K and though it seemed a bit stiff, it had no problem losing us again the next day. TWO different boar hogs were shot, both had to be killed with other guns. One had been hit over the spine and would not have been a fatal shot anyway, but the ball only penetrated about half way through the hog. The other boar was shot square in the shield and the .50 ball penetrated to its own diameter and was still visable. The hunter finally believed what I had been trying to convince him of all along.

quote:

Originally posted by loboga:
It is an actual account. He shot one buffalo three times and since he insisted that it not be shot with a modern firearm as far as I know the buffalo is still alive. I tracked it about 8K and though it seemed a bit stiff, it had no problem losing us again the next day. TWO different boar hogs were shot, both had to be killed with other guns. One had been hit over the spine and would not have been a fatal shot anyway, but the ball only penetrated about half way through the hog. The other boar was shot square in the shield and the .50 ball penetrated to its own diameter and was still visable. The hunter finally believed what I had been trying to convince him of all along.

using a ball

quote:

Originally posted by NitroX:
.50 calibre in a black powder was also a fairly small bore rifle. I would think a 12-bore would be better, or a 10 or 8-bore.

Nitrox,
a .45 or .50 with a bullet that is 3 calibers long (550 grn for a .45 caliber bullet) would be far more effective than a roundball 10 bore and probably much more than penetration than a roundball 8 bore.

If you are comparing roundball guns only, a .50 roundball is going to be woefully inadequate on a cape buff. But a bullet rifle - probably not.

It is a pointless discussion to say a .50 caliber is inadequate and then cite roundball "experiences" unless that is what the guy proposes. I cannot believe that is at all what he had in mind.

I would surely like to see these bulletproof "shields" on a hog. I've butchered a couple dozen (some with bullet holes) and never found anything remotely bullet proof even from a roundball rifle.

Brent

Brent,

Typically, the bore rifles used hardened bullets, not balls.

550 grains of 50 cal bullet is still short of the tried and true standard for controlled expansion softs and steel jacketed solids, which is 570 grains. It does make the .300 SD cut though.

As for your claim on the 45 and 50 being used on buff.., yes but they didn't work too well. Even the 570 BPE was considered too light.

To shead some light on this for you and others:

Quoting Gregor Woods' "Rifles for Africa", in which he is quoting Samuel Baker in "Fifty Years of Rifles" circa 1891,

"For animals above the size of fallow deer and below that of a buffalo I prefer the 577 solid Express-648 grains solid bullet, 6 drams powder....For smaller game from fallow downwards, I prefer the 400 Express...[A]ll animals from buffalo upward should be placed in a seperate catagory...I do not think any larger bore is actually necessary than a No. 8, with a charge of 12 or 14 drams of powder...It may therefore be concluded that for a man of ordinary strength, the battery for the heaviest game should be a pair of double No. 8 rifles weighing 14 or 15 pounds, to burn from 12 to 14 drams of powder, with a hardened bullet of 3 ounces. Such a rifle will break the bones of any animal from an elephant downward, and would rake a buffalo from end to end, which is a matter of great importance when the beast is charging"

For all your wishing, a 45 or 50 cal black powder ballistics era gun is going to be, at best, light for the purpose and marginal. I don't doubt that it can be done; I just expect it to work about the same now as it did in the 19th century, and no better.

JPK

550 gr would specifically be a .45 bullet in my book. That's what I make and use. In a .50 bullet rifle, I would think it would running around 650-700 to give a 3 caliber bullet. Just never done the calculations.

If the bore rifles used hardened bullets, they were short - much shorter than 3 calibers.

The ones that didn't work too well on buff, were - correct me if I'm wrong - EXPRESS calibers with very very light bullets - well under 500 grs.

Yes, there you state express calibers - which is descidely not what I'm suggesting.

If you feel they would be marginal, I'd be glad to put it to the test. I'm willing to bet they will pass through 90% of the time or better if you stick with 3 caliber bullets. This is one thing that the American's knew a bit better than the English, although they had their share of failed attempts as well (e.g., all the Winchester express cartridges).

Brent

didn't Jim Shokey shoot one with his Knight? I thought I saw this on a TV show. Think he took a hippo too!

Brent,

Yes, I see I misread your calibre.

Don't feel like looking through too many books tonight but COTW list bullet weight for the 50 cal 577/500 No.2 BPE up to 570 grains, and these would be hardened. 570 grains would match the tried and true NE weight but of course the bullet wouldn't have either the constuction or the velocity of the Kynoch or more modern loads. About this cartridge the COTW says,..."was popular in India for shooting thin skinned game such as tigers. The black powder and nitro for black versions were not popular in Africa as these cartridge were not powerful enough for general use there."

The 500 BPE list bullets of up to 440 grains, at 1900fps and these would be hardened. COTW says about this one, "...popular in India as a good general purpose firearm...not highly regarded in Africa....adequate for any North American game."

577 BPE list bullets up to 650 grains and these too would be hardened. COTW on this round, "...were for use on the heavier non-dangerous game,...some hunters used these cartridges against tigers and lions with varying success. there were a great variety of bullets available and success was directly tied to utilizing the proper bullet"

The missing link here are the thick skinned game, which would be elephant, giraffe, rhino, and hippo. Not in the thick skinned class but also missing is cape buffalo, see my earlier post on their overlapping ribs though.

Baker's three ounce, eight bore, hardened bullet would weigh, according to Wood, an ounce or more than a ball. This makes it, by my reckonning, a fairly short bullet, something on the order of one and three quarters diameter in length, not near a three times diameter length.

Can you harden these 550 grainers? What velocity can you get?

I will reiterate my believe that the 375H&H controled expansion TBBC bonded soft did not penetrate adequately on the game I shot with it to make me look forward to trying it on cape buffalo. And the game I shot with it didn't have the hide or the rib cage of the cape buffalo. Many others have a different view though.

If your bullet is soft I think you're heading for trouble. I'm a believer in SD and your bullet has it in spades. But it has got to keep that section density, and its original diameter, or close, to penetrate. Especially if you're short on velocity. If it is soft, I can't see it not expanding a bunch and not loosing a whole lot of weight on the onside ribs or on the thick and tough skin and muscles on the chest, in front.

Again, can you harden these bullets? and what velocity can you get?

JPK

quote:

Originally posted by loboga:
He shot one buffalo three times and since he insisted that it not be shot with a modern firearm ...

That guy makes our own resident trolls sound human.

Regards,
Martin

Marterius,

I don't get. The guy witnesses an event and reports on it and he's a troll? Not in my book. Not all reports can or should be good news. The bad news teaches just as much.

JPK

quote:

Originally posted by JPK:
Marterius,

I don't get. The guy witnesses an event and reports on it and he's a troll? Not in my book. Not all reports can or should be good news. The bad news teaches just as much.

JPK

JPK,
Sorry if I was not clear. I did not refer to loboga at all. I meant the hunter who made an animal suffer because if his stupid stunt and could not even allow someone to clean it up for him.

Regards,
Martin

Marterius,

Gotcha now, and couldn't agree more.

JPK

quote:

Originally posted by JPK:
Marterius,

Gotcha now, and couldn't agree more.

JPK

Ok, thanks!

Regards,
Martin

http://www.powerbeltbullets.com/trophyden5.htm

http://www.powerbeltbullets.com/products.htm#2

Power belt makes two solids designed specifically for dangerous game.

I will occassionally shoot 45 caliber 400 grain heat-treated solids in sabots out of my 50 cal. White muzzleloaders. They are a full one inch in length. With a fast 1:24-28 twist, they are extremely accurate in several of our rifles. These are WFNML's from Cast Bullet Performance in Wyoming, from the original LBT style mold, with a wide flat metplat.

I have never been able to recover one from a deer, elk, or bear - no matter what direction the shot. Penetration testing in various media with loads of 100-120 grains of Pyrodex "P" or 777 FFFg yields somewhere between 40-55" of travel. Heaviest loads have chrono'd over 1600 fps. They will blow up and drill thru 8 one gallon water jugs.

I had my son take a bunch to Namibia this year to use on a cull eland hunt, but they could never find a broken horn inside 100 yards. The PH promised to use them up and will report over dinner in Reno.

If anyone really has a desire to try them in Africa, I will be glad to send some for testing (free). I have no doubt they would drill right thru both shoulders of a buffalo, and would love to learn the result. Send a PM if interested.

JPK,
Yes you can harden them as you do any lead bullet. But I do not, because I don't have any cape buffalo to shoot.

The issue is how hard is hard and how fragile is hard. I shoot pure lead in many instances and they will expand to probably about 3/4" at most, but I've never recovered one.

Something as hard as 15:1 will probably not expand at all and yet not be brittle. Using an antimony mix like Lyman #2 will be much harder yet, but brittle. There is a way to temper these to keep them hard but increase tensile strength - I'm just not the guy that does it so I can't help.

Were I going to Africa, I would be taking a bp cartridge rifle in .45 caliber, with at least a 20" twist so I can shoot 550 gr bullets, which I consider more or less the norm for this caliber. I don't know what I'd do for temper/hardness, as I haven't investigated it. But I think some of the more experienced oldsters probably used a 20:1 or 15:1 mix. Heat-treating and so forth are probably only necessary in the relm of smokeless velocities and I would have no interest in going that route.

I realize that these mixes may seem quite soft to you, but velocities are slow on your scale and thus, the bullets do not have the tendency to expand that you might otherwise imagine, so they don't have to be "hard cast" by conventional definitions. Velocities in the range of 1400-1500 will suffice as far as I'm concerned, and I would expect pass throughs more often than not. It's a whole 'nother world compared to what most folks are familiar with, but it does carve nice holes through and through.

Brent

Samuel Baker, in "Wild Beasts and their Ways," (1890), had this to say:
"For all animals above the size of a fallow deer, I prefer the .577 solid Express -- 648 grains solid bullet, 6 drams powder. ..."
"The .577 is the most fatal weapon I have ever used, and with 6 or 6 1/2 drams of powder it is quite equal to any animal in creation, provided the shot is behind the shoulder. This provision explains my reason for insisting that all animals from a buffalo upwards should be placed in a separate category, as it is frequently impossible to obtain a shoulder shot. ..."
He then goes on to say that he prefers 8, 10 and 12-bore double rifles for Cape buff and larger animals, with at least 10 drams in the 12 and up to 14 in the 8.
As to bullet hardness, Baker has this to say about the .577 Express, with 648-grain bullet at 1,650 fps:
"I prefer pure lead for tigers, lions, sambur deer, wapiti and such animals which are not thick-skinned, as the bullet alters its form and nevertheless remains intact, the striking energy being concentrated within the body."

"If you wish for greater penetration,l use hard solid metal (no hollowpoints), either 1/10 tin or 1/13 quicksilver. Even this will alter its form against the bones of a buffalo, but either of the above will go clean through a wapiti stag and would kill another beyond if the rifle be .577 fired with 6 drams of powder"

So Baker's advice on a BP buffalo hunt would be to start with a .577 Express, with 160 grains of sporting black under a 648-grain bullet of 1:10 tin or 1:13 mercury at 1,650 feet per second. And he would use this load ONLY on a good shoulder shot.

Compare this with one of the most powerful BP loads developed in America: the .50-140 Sharps, with 140 grain Fg and a 537 grain bullet giving 1,479 fps, according to Garbe and Venturino.

I personally would not want to open affairs with a Cape buff without at least a .50-140, based on Baker's considerable experience.

As suggested above, I would get in contact with Jim Shockey at http://www.jimshockey.com He has taken both cape and water buffalo, hippo, crocodile as well as all the big bears in North America. He would have some good information concerning what works, rather then just guessing.

I met Jim last year at the Sacramento Expo and watched his "in production" footage which is out now and yes he did kill a Buff with a BP on his African Adventures DVD. I don't remember what the caliber is.
I also have a friend Bill Boak who killed a cape Buffalo several years ago with a BP revolving Barrell rifle and iron sights. I will try to get a scan of the photo tomarrow.
Could not get the scan of the photo but it was a conical he was shooting.
Frank

I shot a 525 gr solid lead conical into an American bison bull weighing 2000# (+ -) from a 50 cal TC Omega using 3 Triple 7 50 gr pellets.
I hit him in the throat and the conical exited his left ham, that's about 6 ft of muscle an bone. Bull dropped in his tracks.
It will work on capes buffalo as well.
The question is how to get the 777 into Africa.

I have a 58 cal Pedersoli double rifle, and it will do fine here in north America, on Moose, and the like! I'd be a little leery of going up against a Cape Buffalo with it, however. This same rifle bored for 54 cal was used on Cape buffalo a few years ago, with some problems. It seems the hunter had a runing, loading, runing, loading, gun battle before he put the Buff down. That hunter said he wouldn't try it again! Of course there are better designed bullet aloys today.

This is an exercise, that many times, depends on the PH with a big bore rifle to finish what the smoke pole started. Jim Shockey shoots everything with a so-called muzzleloader,(read in-line scoped, synthetic stocked, stainless steel, rifle) but I haven't generated enough interest in it to follow his progress as to his inlisting help from the PH in such cases, so I don't know if he did or not. I believe the big 70 cal (12 bore) Pedersoli might be a far better choice than anything smaller! In any event, it will be interesting to see how this plays out!

Not to in any slight your choice of equipment, but there is quite a bit of difference in a modern inline and a 58 cal Pedersoli double rifle. A fifty caliber inline can take larger charges with a much more effecient projectile.

If modern inline BP can't do the job in .50 caliber then why were so many .45 caliber dbl guns made for the African trophy hunters in bygone days?

quote:

Originally posted by cats:
If modern inline BP can't do the job in .50 caliber then why were so many .45 caliber dbl guns made for the African trophy hunters in bygone days?

OK.... there's a H U G E difference between BP and The .45 cal Nitro rounds. As for the capability of BP .450 rounds, these would have been considered "small bores" in the day with .577 being a reasonable buffalo round. Eight bore would have been a better choice I think allowing you to cross over to elephant as well.

JMHO,

John

Yes, John The Greek is right. A 450 BPE is a deer (red stag size, ie near elk size) rifle. A 577 BPE is more of the same and was a lion and tiger rifle too.

Absolutely no comparison to any of the 45 cal NE rounds. Period.

JPK