smoke pole hunting with cast.

[nagantguy]

what CB are folks here using to deer/pigs and such with from a smoke pole, i.e. muzzle loader? I don't cast for my .50 cal yet but the urge to is coming on strong. was thinking of a heavy flat point .45 boolit saboted to .50. Anyone here have an idea? Thanks in advance.

[GeezerinNH]

A .50 round ball with patch will work as well keep it under 125 yards and enjoy the hunt!!

[deep creek]

Coupla things you can try .Icast with the .500S.W. by LEE soft lead and P.P. them ala Idaho Ron .Mine weigh 450grns and shoot very well with 80-90grns of pyrodex p seems like nothing stops this round! The other is theLEE .458 405grn mould it casts at 410 grns a nice looking boolit.I use ammp orange sabot and 90 grns of pyrodex p havnt killed but paper with this load but its very accurate.If i had to choose it would be the paper patch 450.Its like shooting soft trash cans!

[RoyEllis]

Just my personal feelings, but I have a strong aversion to plastic sabots in mine plus they've never shot as accurately for me as a full caliber boolit. With speed limitations BP frontstuffers face, I want the biggest chunk flying out I can accurately shoot.

[nagantguy]

thanks all for the thoughts and sound advice. I really have never had luck with sabouts either but am sick of the price of powerbelts. been hunting with a 209x.50 t/c encore almost exclusively for the last couple of years. deer, pigs and coyote mostly and would like to cast for that as well.

[richhodg66]

Lyman makes one called the Plains bullet, about 410 grains with a big, flat nose. I've killedseveral deer including the three biggest bucks I've taken with this bullet and 100 grains of Pyrodex RS. Good bullet, probably more than you need. I used saboted .44s in an inline last time I got to hunt muzzle loader and killed two, niether of which was really as impressive as that plains bullet, though both died pretty fast.

This thread is has the last deer I killed with that combination in my Hawken;

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?119900-Muzzle-loader-buck&highlight=Lyman+Plains+Bullet

[MT Gianni]

I get good groups with the TC Maxi balls and the Lee REAL bullets. I have not tried them on moose and as round balls work so well on Elk, I see no reason not to use them for deer.

[jhalcott]

SOME of the modern IN LINES have the wrong twist for plain lead. They do work ok with paper patched in MY experience. Practice with THE load before you hunt with it.

[Bullet Caster]

Just my personal opinion, but I never shoot anything but .490 rb in my Pedersoli .50 flintlock. Finally got used to the buckhorn sights and now I can hit anything I shoot at. I use 90 grains of Goex 2Fg. BC

[DIRT Farmer]

Another round ball shooter when not shooting a lot of little round balls (shot) it's hard to reinvent the wheel.

[725]

Find what your gun shoots accurately. Lots of ways to skin a cat, as they say. Hard to beat round balls if they shoot to POA. Lee's R.E.A.L. carry a wallop as do the maxi-balls. All good choices when practiced with and you are confident with. There is just something about soft lead in all it's forms.

[waksupi]

I don't know how long it will take, but eventually people will find out we aren't BSing them that the patched round ball is the projectile for traditional muzzle loaders. They work best, but the aficionados of the other types refuse to learn. Must be democrats.

[nagantguy]

I don't know how long it will take, but eventually people will find out we aren't BSing them that the patched round ball is the projectile for traditional muzzle loaders. They work best, but the aficionados of the other types refuse to learn. Must be democrats.
ouch man, for sure not a democrat and not a republican either its like picking between the plague and typhoid no thanks. When I started hunting with this encore it did not shoot patched balls real well, nor sabots to the level of accuracy I wanted, very inconsistent so im looking to try new loads with cast cause like I said power belts that my smoker shoots really well are just so damn pricey any more. $25 U.S.D or so for 15 is just nuts. The LEE real bullets sound interesting.

[MT Gianni]

I am not sure what your twist is but the REAL's do OK in a 1 in 48 or as fast as a 1 in 32 from what I have been told.

[nagantguy]

the 209x50 encore has a 1 in 28 twist. so i'll most likely have to cast .458 or some where in that range and sabot up. have heard good things about the newer rib crusher sabots. Anyone try em?

[357maximum]

I cast the lee .452-230 Gr Trunacated cone tumble lube boolits out of mostly purish "scrap" lead for my Dad. He puts them into a bulk ordered black plastic sabot and shoots them in his encore over that fake 777 stuff....he loves them and they shoot well...they even kill deer when they run into one. He is a very anal retentive man so it must work pretty darn good if he is happy and keeps asking for 500 or so every year. Personally I like R.E.A.L boolits and PRB, but to each their own I spose.

[deep creek]

the mmp orange for .458 is really accurate in my whites .sabotloader shoots them alot to and seems to do real well with them.

[Shooter]

The Lyman 457122 works well in my Encore with the T/C cheapshot sabots.

[telebasher]

I don't know how long it will take, but eventually people will find out we aren't BSing them that the patched round ball is the projectile for traditional muzzle loaders. They work best, but the aficionados of the other types refuse to learn. Must be democrats.
Round balls killed anything and everything years ago, they haven't invented any new animals that I know of since. Slugs, Maxis, sabots etc. are an answer to a question that doesn't exist.

[nagantguy]

I get the round ball, know it works, 100 years ago and today and they kill all manner of critter. but after extensive testing with my smoke pole It does not shoot patched round balls with any sort of consistency. with a few different patches and balls and powder charges from 80-95 grains. So I shoot power belts, 1.5 inch groups at a 100 yards. and have dropped deer in their tracks at 200. they are getting price prohibitive so i'm looking for a cast solution other than the mighty patched round ball that patterns at 4 inches at 50 yards in my gun. when I hunt with my old CVA Hawkins I use patched .490 balls and they shoot well and the things they hit die.

[TXGunNut]

I don't know how long it will take, but eventually people will find out we aren't BSing them that the patched round ball is the projectile for traditional muzzle loaders...


Let's hold off on the part about using good ol' holy black, they won't believe that either. I upgraded my .45 Hawken to a Green Mountain .54 with a 1-66 twist. May have something to do with it. I have a Lee six-banger mould that will make a year's supply of RB's in no time.
All kidding aside the in-line rifles are probably a bit too fast in twist for RB's.

[quilbilly]

I have always used my own cast boolits for my muzzleloaders. For deer I prefer patched round ball and for elk I prefer a 265 gr .429 boolit with sabot in my 50 cal. believe it or not, I prefer PRB for deer unless I am expecting shots over 150 yards because the sabotted semi wadcutters had too much penetration (little hole in, little hole out) so the deer didn't go down so quickly as with PRB unless I hit a major bone.

[Brad Phillips]

1/28 is fast for good round ball accuracy. I would try a Maxi ball or maxi hunter. Maybe even a good old buffalo bullet.

As has been mentioned a sabot bullet out of a muzzy tends to make two small holes way to often for me.

[quilbilly]

I will never forget one particular huge elk cow I got with the 50 cal and a 429-265 gr cast boolit in a sabot. The last image I had of that 500# old lead cow elk before BP smoke filled the view was of the elk lifted completely off the ground with the feet pointed skyward. There is such a thing as too much gun for deer but just the right amount of gun for elk. That wasn't a heavy load of Goex fff either. That image is why I now load my 444 Marlin cartridges with the Lee 310 gr gc boolit to the same velocity for Rooseveldt elk

[white eagle]

I shoot full cal real boolits in my 54 cal
ala Tom @ Accurate http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=55-360A-D.png,
it is without a doubt the most accurate boolit of its type that I have ever shot out of my muzzleloaders

[RugerFan]

the 209x50 encore has a 1 in 28 twist. so i'll most likely have to cast .458 or some where in that range and sabot up. have heard good things about the newer rib crusher sabots. Anyone try em?

There are two types of sabots you can use in .50 cal inlines; 1) Those that accept .429 cal bullets, and 2) Those that accept .45 cal bullets. I have shot Harvetser plain and Crush Rib .429 sabots in my CVA inline to great effect with my cast Lyman 429244 (WW and softer work fine). Puts deer and hogs down with authority.

[Screwbolts]

I have 2 molds that were cut to cast smooth sided projectiles for sabot use. One is a double by LBT that drops a pair of 320 gr. LFN , the other is a 4 cacity from BRP that I had him shortan to drop 290 gr FN boolitz. Both work great in in 1x24 to 1x48 with Harvestor SB sabots, using everything from the original substitute in approved guns to black. In my custom smokeless guns I prefer Re7.

[TheGrimReaper]

Had been using a patched RB, but I am switching/switced over the the 50cal LEE R.E.A.L. now.

[Gray Fox]

I cast .490 and .530 RB and the appropriate Maxi Ball for each caliber. All shoot well with medium velocity (for the caliber and projective) loads. Of course, I've played with close to max recommended loads for all of them, but with metal crescent buttplates they're way to much of a good thing. How far into the dirt out the other side of the animal do we need to bury the boolit anyway? My brother has a .50 inline with a 1:28 twist and he gets fine groups with the same .50 Maxi-Ball. It also shoots well with a sabot and the Lee 255 RNFP sized to .452. We both shoot Pyrodex RS due to local availability in all rifles except my Lyman .50 flintlock hunter in which I shoot KIK fffg primed with ffffg. GF