.45 cal bullet in .54 cal muzzy.

[Muddydogs]

Since I’m all into casting and using a jacketed bullet in a muzzle loader just seams wrong I have been thinking about trying a .45 caliber hollow point bullet in a sabot for my hunting needs. Bullet needs to weight at least 240 grains without sabot. Currently I’m using a .45 cal 300 grain Hornady XTP in my .54 cal, I know I know the horror of it all.

Anyone else using something like this? Would a solid point bullet perform better on deer and elk over a hollow point?

[Sweetpea]

A Nice large metplat should do just fine.

What part of Utah are you in?

[Muddydogs]

A Nice large metplat should do just fine.

What part of Utah are you in?

Ogden.

[idahoron]

I am going to second a nice large meplat. I am paper patching the Lee 500 S&W bullet. I have been shooting this bullet for years now. I have taken many game animals with it. They are like stopping a freight train. I killed an elk last saturday with them. I hit her in the shoulder and broke it. I found the bullet in the flank. For elk there has never been a better ML bullet made. If I remember right there was a sabot that would allow you to shoot a 50 in a 54. Ron

[Crawdaddy]

Im using a flat point 463 grain .458 boolit in mine and I get a mule deer every year with it. It shoots roughly 1.5 MOA. I use about 100 gr of BH 209 to launch it.

Last year I used the same boolit in a 450 MArlin with the same result.

[Good Cheer]

Muddydogs, what kind of barrel do you have? Just asking out of curiosity, would like to know what has worked for you.
I'm trying to find time to work with a rebore to .54. Actually I want to make it an alarmingly accurate target piece that happens to also be the ridiculously powerful hunting rifle that TC Renegades have always been. Which reminds me that I need a .541 diameter sizer. Well, we'll see.

[OnHoPr]

In the 45 or 50 cal style if the boolit is light and HPed it could lead to shallow penetration, but you should get more speed out of it. Plus the lighter boolits will have less BC. The 45 cal should be 300 gr or above and the 50 should be 350 gr or above. The larger grain hollow point will give you better expansion on just rib or between the slats shots at longer ranges past 125 yards or so. The heavier big meplats will give you hard hitting deeper penetration on the raking shots, though trajectory getting out to 200 yds will really begin to show. That Lee 501 has a good BC and big meplat, but you'll need a GC on it if you shoot it with a MMP sabot probably. One thing to consider is the 54/45 cal sabots are for 451/452 dia. and 45 cal boolits are 452, 454, and 458 so choose the appropriate and think about a non GC boolit. They can be very effective.