round ball trajectories?

[Dan]

There was a fellow named Clyde Dixon from Indiana that kept the slug gunners honest back in the '30s with a round ball gun at 40 rods.

[jerrywh]

My gun has a 200 yd. sight blade. and a 100 yd. blade. I'm going to have to weld some on that 200 yd. blade. I suspect that you could shoot under a deer at 150 yds with the 100 yd. blade and over him with the 200 yd. blade. I might need three blades. I think Taylor has a gun with three blades on it.

[northmn]

Some itches have to be scratched.  One thing about doing this is that you will have to shoot at those ranges to know if it is sighted in.  Folding sights make a lot of sense, but I could see their use for up to say 75 yards and up to 125 -150 yards.  One of the things we may do different today than what was said to be done in the past is that great grand dad went for shoulder shots as the lower velocity loads did not destroy so much meat and it likely meant less tracking.  A 54 should break a deers shoulder up to 200 yards?

DP

[jerrywh]

The other day I was shooting at 200 yds in a 20 mph wind. The ball drifted off to the right about 3' or more. Today the wind was blowing about 5 mph and blew the ball of about 3" at 100 yds.
  Even the sharps blows off a lot in a 20 mph wind.

[Dphariss]

So----- It looks like trying to get any kind of decent group at 200 yds. is a futile effort.  Right?? 
 So I should go ahead and change churches right???

With a tang sight and a silver blade front I have shot decent groups at 200 if the wind is *very* light breeze springs up forget it.
Should have took picture of the last one I shot but did not shot 7 shots total IIRC and they were all on the paper including the sighter (I had shot the morning before) the first three after the sighter were all in a 6" bull the breeze came up than the next 3 dropped below the bull. Breeze increased more than a puff now and then and I quit. From the previous days shooting I figure this is repeatable.
I did find that loading as I generally do did not work at 200. Groups were better with greased patch,  brushing then damp patch wiping between shots and cutting the patch at the muzzle.
I am pretty sure the 16 bore will do well at 150 and 200 but paper testing so far has just been for curiosity and getting a wind free day is very difficult here. May end up putting the tang sight over on it what with my aging eyes. My 82 year old dad had cataracts removed, last one yesterday. First eye came back to better than 20-20. When I was 16 he could read the  COPYRIGHT on and eye chart, no s**t. He did it one day while I was getting an eye exam.  This was back in the days when eye tests were a chart on the wall.

Dan

[Dphariss]

Some itches have to be scratched.  One thing about doing this is that you will have to shoot at those ranges to know if it is sighted in.  Folding sights make a lot of sense, but I could see their use for up to say 75 yards and up to 125 -150 yards.  One of the things we may do different today than what was said to be done in the past is that great grand dad went for shoulder shots as the lower velocity loads did not destroy so much meat and it likely meant less tracking.  A 54 should break a deers shoulder up to 200 yards?

DP

Shooting at game past 120 yards with a PRB is pretty flaky. Might stretch this to 150 with a 62-69. Part of the reason is trajectory. it is easy to make a 50 or larger bore shoot point blank for deer to about 120 thus no hold over needed. Hold center and the critter will be struck in the kill zone from 0 to 120+-.
I have killed deer to 140-150 with a 50 and 54 RB but one must be VERY well versed in the rifle, range estimation and wind. Its risky.
I never shoot for large bones on critters I shoot. It makes the cutting up more difficult. I would certainly not try for heavy bone at 200. Nor do I believe that RB shooters ever did unless using something larger than the typical American rifle shooting PRB of 60-32 balls to the pound. Now with elongated projectiles this changes somewhat. Even a percussion Sharps of the 1850s, Spencer repeater or the flat point cloth patched picket bullets Roberts used as a kid, will change the penetration and bone breaking when such shots are used.
Rifles under 50 caliber were pretty common perhaps even typical by the 1770s. Now I have faith that the 16 bore will break even an elks shoulder but this is lot more rifle than was typically used in America at any time when MLs were the average mans rifle.
At 200 the 54 RB just gets too flightly to trust unless you have zero wind (and a way to assure this at 100 150 etc). Just a puff of  breeze will move it 6-10" at this distance.

Dan

[Daryl]

Shooting at long range is rather iffy with a round ball if one's rifle does not possess the appropriate sights. Flip-up, or multi-leaf Express sights meet these requirements as long as they are properly filed in. Although the use of a range finder does not meet the 'period' correctness of shooting a black powder firearm, they are essencial if one wishes to do good work at long range on a regular basis.
: Reasonably accurate shooting can be ackomplished at fairly long range if one practises enough at those ranges when using standard blade or bead and V or U notch sights , by holding the bead or blade above the notch, and placing tit inthe middle of the intended victim. Again, this can only be done with much practise, but works. Taylor and I have used this method to 325 yards achieving good results with a viarety of rifles from our(at that time) .62 RB's down to .36 cal. The smaller the ball, the harder it is to see strikes and therefore to learn the appropriate 'hold'. Holding the sights over the target on an aiming point as suggested in an above post is not even remotely close to a good method of this type of shooting. Learn to hold the blade or bead high, placing the intended target under the middle of the front sight is the only way to consistantly shoot at long range. Elmer proved this with his handguns and out to 300 yards, his methods have worked well for me - repeatedly.  The English-type Express sights make long range shooting much easier. Intermediate ranges require holding a bit of bead proud of the next shorter range's V.

[jerrywh]

Just found out some more info. A 54 round ball has a ballistic coefficient of .75. that is slightly better than a marshmallow.  Never the less, a 10 mph. cross wind will blow it off target more then 24" at 200 yds.  So a 5 mph wind is enough to make you miss a deer or elk. 5 mph is hardly noticeable.

[northmn]

One of the reasons, personal only, that I would have one blade set at 75 is that sometimes in the brush I live in you may need some fine shot placement through brush or at whatever part of the deer you want to shoot at sticking out of the brush.  The other "long range" would work for open field shots.  One of the troubles with the RB trajectory is that it does not permit both sight ins for close shots in the brush where hold unders is iffy and the longer shots.  Usually better to sight in for a closer shot and hold over or better yet have a flip up for a longer range.  When you talk Elk you are likely talking about a solid animal.  Deer and animals in their class are not quite so heavy boned.  Whether heavy enough against RB I do not know. It does not take much of a cast bullet load to break shoulders.  I do not think g grand-dad cared about messing up the shoulder as keeping meat was a challenge in those times anyway.  Mountain men shot a buffalo and ate the fresh meat while it kept and left the rest.  Technology of the times. I use shoulder meat for hamburger.

DP

[Daryl]

You're right, Jerry - round balls are ballistic failures - especially on paper.  It is amazing how well they do on game, though, even at what would be considered long range. Although Kipp killed his moose at too long a range for his rifle, the fact that it happened is in the books.  I'd not take such a shot on a moose or elk with less than a 16 bore, and then, not without proper sighting. Single rear sights don't fit that category.  For the .54, I'd make sure the large game animal was within 110 yards - closer is better.  The more powder, the flatter the trajectory.  Since we can't get Swiss Powder here, it's GOEX and around 120gr. 2F would be my hunting load. With that load, no elevation allowance would be needed from 25 yards to 110yards.  The ball would be within 2 1/2" or less.

[jerrywh]

Daryl.
   When shooting a 120grn. FFG load in a .54 cal. , Are you using a buffered load? I can't get a patch to hold with that heavy of a load.  By buffered load I mean a over powder wad or card of some type and then a prb.

[Daryl]

Jerry, to answer your questions, when hunting, I got into the habit of putting a card wad (or surplus patch when no cards were in the bag) between the powder and the patched ball to protect the powder from lube.  Normal range shooting (without wads) with the heavy loads don't seem to be a problem when using the denim patches I use. I use a mic. or measuring the patches, not a set of calipers.  I get erronious readings with calipers, but even and equal measurements with the michrometer.  I spin the ratchet a few times and read the thickness. Different ratchets have different tighnesses, so will give slightly thicker or thinner readings. Suffice to say I use 10# and 12# denim for most of my shooting. I use GOEX 2F for heavy charges in both .50 and .54 through .69.  I am currectly experimenting with 3F in the .50cal. Flint Canoe gun, with it's short 21" barrel.  I feel a re-barrel is in that gun's near future. It took 110gr. of 3F to breach 1,700fps in the .50 while 100gr. made 1,640 average.  Even at 110gr., the patches with either LHV or spit held up just fine and appeared to be reusable for all intents and purposes. I was using 12 pound denim.  120gr.2F in a .54 is even easier on the patches.

[jerrywh]

How thick is 12 lb. denim? 

[Dphariss]

Just found out some more info. A 54 round ball has a ballistic coefficient of .75. that is slightly better than a marshmallow.  Never the less, a 10 mph. cross wind will blow it off target more then 24" at 200 yds.  So a 5 mph wind is enough to make you miss a deer or elk. 5 mph is hardly noticeable.

If you can feel the breeze shooting groups at 200 with a 54 gets difficult.

Larger balls do much better my 69 seems to anyway. I have not done a lot of shooting on paper past 100 with it. But with x sticks and barrel sights I think its good for deer to 150. But after hunting season I intend to do some more changing to the sights. I have a laser range finder.

Dan

[Daryl]

Jerry, the method I use to measure clock thickness puts 12 pound at .0215".  The same method puts OxYoke .018" ticking at .015".  There is no difficulty loading with 12 pound.  It gets a bit tighter loading .400" balls in the .40 with it, but is what I used at Hefley last August- without any wiping, and sometimes without cleaning between days of shooting. When that happened, a quick wipe with a damp patch down and up was all that was needed before resuming shooting the next day (shame on me but got busy or something). I used spit for lube, although LHV is easier loading with continual shooting.

[Dphariss]

One of the reasons, personal only, that I would have one blade set at 75 is that sometimes in the brush I live in you may need some fine shot placement through brush or at whatever part of the deer you want to shoot at sticking out of the brush.  The other "long range" would work for open field shots.  One of the troubles with the RB trajectory is that it does not permit both sight ins for close shots in the brush where hold unders is iffy and the longer shots.  Usually better to sight in for a closer shot and hold over or better yet have a flip up for a longer range.  When you talk Elk you are likely talking about a solid animal.  Deer and animals in their class are not quite so heavy boned.  Whether heavy enough against RB I do not know. It does not take much of a cast bullet load to break shoulders.  I do not think g grand-dad cared about messing up the shoulder as keeping meat was a challenge in those times anyway.  Mountain men shot a buffalo and ate the fresh meat while it kept and left the rest.  Technology of the times. I use shoulder meat for hamburger.

DP

With a 50-54 cal or larger it should be possible to keep the ball within 2" or slightly more of LOS with 100 yard zero unless shooting low velocity loads. takes 1800 fps plus but this is doable. Either will break a shoulder on a deer to 100 yards plus. But 100 is not 200.
I use shoulders for hamburger too and after cutting up a considerable number over the years I prefer to not hit the shoulder blade. I makes for more work, cut fingers on bone fragments etc etc. Lost hamburgers.
They did not try to break the shoulders on Bison with MLs. Lung shots were the preferred mark from my reading. But shot placement is not a common topic. Parkman notes it however when his guide killed two buffalo in 2 shots at 175 yards.

Dan