To all you black powder guys, what type of bullet would work best on deer from a .50cal muzzelloader? I'm planing on taking my smoke stick hunting with me this season and would like to be fully prepared.

It depends on how far you intend to shoot. For me, that distance is 100 yards or less and any accurate saboted bullet will do fine. I have used jacketed flat points, Hornady XTP (my current favorite) and cast lead. All worked equally well. None of mine have taken more than a couple steps.

In my black powder guns - .54 and .62 caliber flintlocks - I use patched round balls. In my inline Encore 209x50 I use 295 grain Powerbelt hollowpoints over two Pyrodex or 777 pellets. Recently I've seen a couple guys at our club doing nice work with 300 grain .429 XTPs and sabots so I plan to give them a try too. Good hunting!

mb - those are exactly the XTPs I currently use. They shoot to the same point of aim as the 240s do in my ml.

I would try the hornady sst or T/C shockwave in 250 gr or 300 gr.Or if you want a lighter bullet one of those in 200 gr.
These are susposedly made for a muzzle loader and they work great for me.
Have taken deer with the xtp's and others over many years of hunting and I like the sst better than any of them.
But again all of them work on deer and are accurate to certain yardages.

Mr. Wathen, it would depend a wee bit on what twist you have in your ML. Tell us about your gun, then you can get some proper advice. A round ball twist of 1:48 - 1:60 won't stabilze conicals. 1:20 - 1:36 handles lead to sabots in that order. What you got?

Dan,

First off, I'm not Mr. Wathen, thats my dad, you might feel really stupid when you hear this but i'm only 16... no Mr please.

Second, I have a CVA, inline, .50cal, magnum, don't know the rate of twist off the top of my head.

Again, that is what I have, a CVA Staghorn Mag, and the Kodiak mag and either works quite well with 110 grains of Pyrodex pellets and the bullets above. I use the green TC sabots and .429" bullets.

Impressive a 16 year old that is saving up for a 500 nitro. Gives me great hope for our youth.

I have had best luck with the power belt bullets.

I cast a 320 gr REAL bullet made by Lee, the mould will cost less than $20 and your good to go. Just remember to use pure lead and not wheelweights as they are lots harder to load.

Originally posted by pachyderm:
Impressive a 16 year old that is saving up for a 500 nitro. Gives me great hope for our youth.



I figure if I start saving now, I might have enough money by the time i'm 80 LOL. I hope I get one far befor im 80, a .500NE would break the shoulder of most 80 year old people I know.

240 grain Hornady XTP with a sabot. I have tried other bullets including swaged bullets that I make. I have found out that it is very important not to deform the bullet nose while ramming it down the barrel. This is why I went to using the XTP bullets they don’t easily deform and shoot very well out of my rifles.

Good luck young man and post some pics of your groups.

Did a little shoping today. I went with Hornady 240gr. XTP/MAG .50. I'll be sure to let all of y'all know how I did with them if I get anything. Might get lucky this year, been deer hunting sence I was 7-8 and still haven't got one of them yet. But I'm still trying and feeling lucky this year.

You might try Barnes 300 gr. expander - mz.
very accurate in my 50 cal Omega with 100 grains triple 7 pellets.
Did a bang up job on a big doe last week- shot at appx. 85 yards, through the right side of the chest and out through the left shoulder. She dropped after taking one large leap.

Good accuracy and fine terminal performance- what's not to like?

I use 295 grain Powerbelt bullets, thay are easier to load and very accurate. I load these over two 777 pellets, I can shoot a 1 inch group at 100 yards with a Cva kodiak

In my Encore 209-50 I use a 240 grain "Keith type" semi-wadcutter, sized to .430, in a TC Mag Sabot!

This is pushed by two 50 grain Pyrodex pellets and a 209-4 primer!

I use a peep sight with a Fiber-Optic front sight! I get about 3-inch groups at 75 yards off of a good rest! Probably about 5-inch groups without the rest!

quote:

Originally posted by gab:
You might try Barnes 300 gr. expander - mz.
very accurate in my 50 cal Omega with 100 grains triple 7 pellets.
Did a bang up job on a big doe last week- shot at appx. 85 yards, through the right side of the chest and out through the left shoulder. She dropped after taking one large leap.

Good accuracy and fine terminal performance- what's not to like?

The high price is what I don't like about Barnes. I shoot Hornady XTP .45 cal 300 gn bullets and they do a very good job on the many deer I've taken with them.
I started out using 240 gn .43 cal (I think) with the green Hornady sabots,but switched to the .45 cal with the black Hornady sabots. The 240 gn worked really well but I usually don't need to take really long shots at deer so I went with the 300 gn/black sabot load as I think that the 777 pellets are hotter than the pyrodex pellets.
I will probably switch to Hornady SST muzzleloader bullets when they become available in bulk,but for now my two 777 pellet,300 gn Hornady HP/XTP .452 cal with the black sabots work really well in my stainless Encore.

RBs and "real" BP

Hog Killer

Arrrgh!

Cory,
To be FULLY prepared you're going to need to put in a little range time to get your combo dialed in.Most guns seem to favor some bullet/powder charge combos over otrhers.Some ar very picky,and others will throw just about anything well.Most of the guns I've tested shot the Hornadys very well,with usually around 90gr of 2f giving me the best combination of OOMPH and accuracy.Take the time to work up an acurate load,and to familiarize yourself with your rifle and it's workings.Good luck,Dave

quote:

In my Encore 209-50 I use a 240 grain "Keith type" semi-wadcutter, sized to .430, in a TC Mag Sabot!

This is pushed by two 50 grain Pyrodex pellets and a 209-4 primer!

Chuck, I hope these bullets are cast of pure lead, or at least have very little in the metal to harden them. Here is why...

Last December I knocked down and lost the largest 10-point whitetail I have ever shot at. I was shooting my White, and was using a 45-caliber hard cast SWC and a Hornady sabot.
I hit the buck too far back, in the liver, and "spined" him, without any expansion from the bullet. He fell, and kept trying to get up, but couldn't. His back legs wouldn't work. I could see the entrance hole in the deer's right side. Finally thrashed his way over behind a juniper bush, and I lost sight of him. I decided to let him lie there and bleed out.
20 minutes later he was walking away from me, and all I could see through the sagebrush was head and antlers! Omce he got up, the skin moved over the holes and the blood trail absolutely disappeared. Buckets of blood for the first 30 yards, then nothing. It was like he sprouted wings and flew off! I was sick...
I would recommend you either use a hollow point or an extremely soft bullet, so you get some expansion. The deer deserve better than what I did to this one last year...

My recipe for my ML bullets is 1/4 wheel weights and 3/4 plumbers lead!

I get pretty good expansion!
Recovered bullets (only 2, the rest were pass-throughs) measured .55 and .70! These were out of 2 different deer, both hit near the center of the ribs!

I may try that recipe. I am never going to get too old to learn...
Thanks for the reply.

I have been using 295-grain Powerbelt Aerotips over 2, 50-grain Pyroden pellets in my Remington Model 700 MLS .50 cal for the past three years, and they are very accurate. But expansion is not all that I would like. I just bought a box of the 300-grain T/C Shockwaves and I am anxious to try them out at the range and on stand.

But, I will say that I love the ease of loading of the Powerbelts, and none of the 11 deer I've killed in the past three years have gotten away. Some of the sabotted loads I've tried (especially the Barnes 300-grain Expander MZ's) are REAL hard to push down the bore, even a unfouled one. Powerbelts are easy even after five shots.

The Hornady 250 XTP HP and 100 grains of 777 2F is good proven load.

The xtps are pretty hard to beat for price and performance. I used the 240 to harvest numerous deer and 2 black bear from ranges of 30 - 150 yards, no problems to report. However I have switched for hunting to the Hornady 250 gr SST, this bullet has been used to harvest 8 deer in the past few seasons of ranges from 20 - 200 yards. I am very pleased with this bullets performance on game(all pass thrus) and especially on the range. I can push the SST faster yet yield an improved grouping..so a no brainer from my perspective. BTW, I am shooting a 700 MLS with 26" barrel 110 gr of loose 777 behind the 250 sst. I still shoot a ton of the xtps as they are so reasonable, just switch as season draws near.

Cory,
You could try different weight Power Belt bullets. CVA and Power Belt are from the same parent company (BPI). These bullets are very easy to load. You might also want to use loose powder rather than pellets. I say this because you can fine tune your load to your bullet. Your probably going to get only one shot so the use of pellets for a quick second shot isn't all that practical. If you do need a second shot you can always use quick loaders with the loose powder.

I'd go with casting your own boolits, because; you're 16 so funds are limited, $20 will get you the mould lead is free if you are good at scrounging, or $25 will get you a bucket of wheelweights (not ideal but they'll work) so for a max investment of $45 you'll have enough boolits to shoot a whole bunch. money you would have spent buying ready made bullets can be spent on powder and primers. this equates to a whole lot more trigger time. Which equates to precise shot placement. And with precise shot placement it doesn't matter much what your projectile is.
Bob

I agree with cjp not only is loose powder better to tailor your load but also much cheaper and if using 777 is more potent gr for gr by 15% over the pelletized form of 777 and Pyrodex loose or pellets.

With loose if you want to take it one step further interms of accuracy, weigh you charge on reloading scale and then match this in your vials or speed loaders. Let me put up a disclaimer with this method though just so your informed. For ie: you find 100gr of x powder (by volume) is the best for your y bullet/sabot combo. Simply weigh this load on the scale effectively convert it to an actual weight in grains of the load - ie 70gr's. Now pre-measure out the same for each load on your reloading scale and you've got load to load charge consistency. Most who have used the Volumetric Powder devices knows that they can be off slightly due to user error, therefor the flier they get out of an otherwise great load is explainable. This method is more precise and reduces the flier greatly. I still use my volume powder measurer to determine potential loads, it is safe and range friendly. After that I will run them over my reloading scales coming up with the best average weight and test further till I find the exact load I am searching for.

Just thought of something in regards to saboted loads. I have found in shooting partners rifles a sabot change can often uncover a great load combo. I have noticed TC and CVA's in general benefit for harvest brand sabots opposed to the MMP sabots. Mileage may vary but don't over look this possibility either. I have found some rifles laoding is the pay off, while others loading and accuracy both improve. BTW if you own either brand or have found problems with Hornady brand SST may I suggest trying the TC Shockwave (same bullet as the SST - difference is yellow tip and harvester sabot - which measures smaller than the MMP included with the SST). If you have a stock pile of SST's look for at running them with a harvester sabot.

Unless you are casting boolits to put into loose sabots, use pure lead. Not only does every manufacturer of M/Lers recommend it, but you will find that boolits or balls cast from pure lead load easier, obturate (deform upon firing to fit the bore and grip the rifling) better, expand better in game (though with .50cal boolits, expansion isn't a big issue), and in general give better accuracy. If you aren't ready to start casting your own, you can buy rb's, MaxiBalls, MaxiHunters, etc. Patches and boolits can be gotten prelubed, too.

Try some patched round balls, several different sabot combos, and MaxiBalls or REALs. Every rifle is different and you need to find which one yours shoots best. The more choices over the range of available weights that you can check out (within reason) the better.

From the bench, start with a 70gr charge of loose bp or Pyrodex and work up in 10gr increments until the groups get to their smallest point and begin to open up again. You may opt to use a little heavier charge if the groups don't open up too much. Pelleted charges may be a workable compromise for hunting IF you can get a combination of them that is acceptably accurate - they are certainly more convenient for a quick reload in the field.

When you have worked up the best load you can find, get up off the bench and practice with it some more until you can keep five shots offhand on a paper plate at 100yds. Then you know you're where you need to be. (A nice tight group on that plate would be even better.) In any event, trying and working up the loads will get you plenty of practice so you are confident with it when deer season rolls around.

Proper shot placement is the most critical issue here - when you drill a half inch hole through a deer's boiler room, it is going to die. If you rush the shot and paunch it, it doesn't matter what you are shooting, you have a mess on your hands and might even lose a wounded deer. Take that extra second if you have it to find a field rest or a more solid stance. It's nice too if you get complete penetration so you get a blood trail that is easier to follow.

I second on the SST's and shockwave... they are a real deer killer.

I have taken two deer with my ML. Both with 250 gr Hornady SST's. One at 75 yds, the other at 162 yds. I really like the bullet and it is MOA with 2 777 pellets in my Omega.

quote:

I shoot Hornady XTP .45 cal 300 gn bullets and they do a very good job on the many deer I've taken with them.

Smallfish,

Where are you hitting these deer? Through the slats? I had a very bad experience W/a 300 grn .452 XTP MAG, 88 grns (weight) 2f T7. Deer took the shot on the point of the shoulder, quartering to me. Required some tracking and a finisher.