who uses patched rb for deer hunting?

[thunderthud]

hello everybody,
how many of you regularly use perc/ flint sidehammer guns with patched rb for whitetail hunting? Long time ago I got tired of hearing slug gun (shotguns) hunters blazing away with 5-6 rounds so I decided for myself I would use one well placed shot and limit distance. I hunt in Ohio and now the slug guns are limited to 3 rds. (Whew) Just curious.

[idahoron]

I only use heavy cast conicals for everything now. Ron

[RU shooter]

My dad used to use a 45 cal ball for deer here in Pa as thats all that was legal for the primitive MZ season at one time. Now conicals are again legal and I have to say they work much better in that small 45 cal hawken he uses. That RB just didnt have enough weight even at close range(50 yds) for a quick kill and a tracking job was always required.

[waksupi]

I've never used anything but a patched round ball. Don't need anything else.

[gnoahhh]

Ditto. Even with my current favorite, a .45 Vincent rifle, the PRBs are efficient killers. I can state unequivocally that the .45 round ball is plenty for deer and can't tell a difference from the .50s. But that's my experience, YMMV.

[tomindy]

The patched round ball is all I have ever used in my .58 CVA Big Bore for deer. It worked fine here in Indiana. Tom

[bart55]

Have taken deer with both patched rb and home cast maxi ball ,both seem to work equally well on pennsylvania deer.Actaully shot my largest buck and heaviest with that 50 cal flintlock .One shot at 68 paces and he just went down and started kicking ,never moved ! I seldom get direct kills from my cast bullets in anything under 45 cal ,not like that anyway .I presently use a 50 70 rolling block with holy black for the rifle season .I would just carryu the flintlock but I love to hunt with all my old bp rifles .

[Hanshi]

I've never used anything but prb and always have one shot kills. My rifle of choice is a .45 and has given me DRT results. The ones that did trot off barely got out of sight before they dropped; in fact I usually heard them when they crashed. There are no degrees of dead!

[roverboy]

I'm happy that the hunters that use prb have had good luck but, in my experience with them its been not so good. Maxi-Hunter and other conicals have worked much better. A .54 or larger is good with a round ball though. If and when I get my .58 H&R fixed it will be used with prb.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

GOEX, PRB, Flint/cap.

BvT

[GabbyM]

I tried PRB with a 45 Hawkins. Over 110 grains fffg it develops over 2,000 fps. Well dugh. I was about 15 years old a the time. Balls must have been blowing up on contact. Shot three deer in one day. Never saw a drop of blood and never recovered a deer. That little .440" ball may have done better over about half that much powder. Next year in about 1971 I discovered the existence of the TC Maxi Ball 220gr bullet. Lost that one but now have a 240 Lyman Maxi a Lee 200gr REAL and an RCBS hollow based Minie.

I’d use round ball on deer if I had a 54 caliber or larger. Have heard of many having good luck with 50 caliber RB but the 50 cal conical aren’t all that heavy so why use a round ball? Suppose If I owned a 1-60 twist fifty I’d use the round ball. I’d never take a .440” round ball deer hunting again. Not saying you can’t make them work. Just that I had enough of that already.

That said I’ve been dreaming of a 54 caliber rock lock round ball gun.

[tacklebury]

I used patched RB when I take out the Hawken. With my modern inline 385 Great Plains Bullets or 180gr. Plinkers w/ Sabots.

[quilbilly]

I quit using conicals for almost all deer hunting years ago and switched to patched round ball in either 45 or 50. The only time I still load a conical for deer is out in the desert for mulies where anything closer than 100 yards is a rarity. My experience over the last 25 years of ML hunting has been that the blacktails and mulies I hunt simply go down faster when hit with roundball. On the other hand, I use conicals exclusively for elk. The conicals have the same effect on elk as round balls have on deer, pick-em-up-and-lay-em-down. I occasionally require a finishing shot but the animals haven't gone far. I hate chasing.
One side benefit of PRB is that the greased patch forms a good seal keeping moisture from the charge so all I have to worry about is sealing around the nipple. This is important during the December monsoons in Western Washington or W. Oregon

[waksupi]

If you are shooting deer with a .440 RB and they aren't going down, you missed.

[NickSS]

I am not a big ML hunter of big game but I have killed three deer with ML rifles. The first was a 58 cal Zouave rifle with a PRB and 80 gr FFG. The second was a nice buck whitetail taken with one of the first TC hawkens out of the factory (ser 99) in 45 cal with a PRB and 80 gr of FFG, The last was a Black tail shot with a 50 cal TC New Englander with a PRB and 80 gr of FFG. I never much worried about max velocity but found a load that shot good and used it. The deer shot with the 58 went furthest after being hit but it only went about 30 yards. The one shot with the 45 was running right at me after being spooked by another hunter. It fell at the shot and skidded a couple feet.

[Ajax]

Wow, how did our forefathers ever survive with the roundball being such a inefficient killer?
Seriously though, the roundball has taken more deer than anyother projectile to date. It is what sustained this country in the early days. I don't think our forefathers would have contimued to use them if they were inefficient. I think th eproblem is we have went from a country of riflemen to a country of fair weather shooters. I didnt say hunter cause it seems to me most people nowadays would just as soon walk out shoot a deer take it to the processor and go pick up their packaged meat. alright i am off my soap box sorry.


Andy

[thunderthud]

Waksupi, amen brother on the .440 rb. All my prb kills have been one shot. One ball i recovered from a buck shot w/90gr 2f goex expanded to .880! I still have the ball. that pure lead ball makes a mess of the "boiler room".

[gnoahhh]

The powder charge I use in my .45 PRB is 60 gr. FFFg. 12 deer, 12 one shot kills over the last 15 years. Before that I killed a pile of deer with several .50s, using 50-60 gr. FFFg. You don't need to "magnumize" a ML, just shoot straight. I can't imagine anybody being so ill-informed as to use way over 100 gr. of black powder behind a PRB to whack a deer or punch holes in paper.

[KCSO]

30 years and NOTHING but round balls, why use anything else? A 50 cal rb and 75 grains of powder will lay a buffalo out with one shot and does the same for deer.

[Bardo]

All I use to hunt Mule deer is a patched round ball in 54 cal. The ball never exits- When I skin it I usually find it on the other side and its usually mushroomed. I usually shoot it with 70gr- 90gr.