Roundball Velocity Potential

[KCSO]

Now I will give you the county boy max load data I got many years ago. Go out and fire the gun over snow and when you see unburned grains of powder on the snow THAT is all the powder you can burn. The T/C has a retavily short barrel by M/L standards and IIRR the most powder I could really burn without pushing some out the barrel was about 90 grians of FFG. In actual practice a load of just 70 grains of FFG will push a round ball through both sides of a buffalo and kill him dead. Worry about accuracy and forget about maximum velocity. Long ago I got over the idea that I needed a lot of powder to kill something my hunting load for my rifle is just 85 grains of FFG.

[Hanshi]

Doesn't take much powder/velocity to take large game with a prb; need more power then just go to a bigger gun. The stuff you see on the snow from firing the charge is not unburned powder; just fouling. BP burns with 50% of its weight being particulate fouling. You will have long passed any reasonable burn before anything unburned comes out that muzzle.

[9.3X62AL]

No pun intended here, but the knowledge concerning the existence of the bismuth RBs has re-ignited my enthusiasm for this project with the Hawken 54. It will get bifurcated--into lead PRB and bismuth PRB testing and accuracy trials, to see what (if any) significant trajectory differences exist to 100 yards. As before, the goal will be to install primitive sights and tune them to the most accurate load(s). Ideally, the lead and bismuth balls won't hit very far apart, and if so an "averaged" sight setting for both might answer.