I was pleasantly surprised!
(Back story)
The last informal match I shot in I was ashamed of how I was shooting. I didn't come in last but I was way down from where I usually shoot. I told myself I would practice more and to this end decided to shoot at least once a month.
So,
I called a buddy up and we headed to the range. Most of our matches are at about 25 yards at targets from one inch to three inches in diameter. I decided to shoot at 50 yards at 5 inch shoot & see targets. All shooting is offhand. We had some steel tombstone targets at about 25 yards. They are 6 x 18 and about 1/2 inch thick.
We first shot at the steel targets and were consistantly hitting them so we moved on to the shoot & see targets.
I was doing all right but nothing to write home about.
I load from my horn via a powder measure suspended from my bag. (60 gr) for my .48 rifle. I have a 100 gr measure suspended from my horn.(For my smoothbore)
I grabbed the wrong measure and loaded 100 grs into my rifle and rammed home a patched ball. I shot the steel target and crack/boom! It went spinning. Usually it just moves it a little. I went down range and checked and it divoted the steel almost all the way through! I loaded it up again and let my buddy shoot it. Same results.
I think the next time I go to the range I'm going to bench it and try that load at 100yds but 60 works fine at 25-50.
ETA: I was just amazed at the penetration of a patched round ball into steel! (It was similar to the penetration exhibited by my modern firearms)
I did not expect a pure lead ball to do that much damage to steel. I assume it was a measure of the velocity that caused it.
Hessian
