Caliber poll

[Daryl]

DP - CandleSnuffer- both good points on RB vs. conical.  Doug - you're correct concerning the 'need' for soft conicals VS hardened (usually with murcury) round balls.  BTW- Forget used a Rodda 6 bore, not a 4 and he used pure lead balls- totally insufficient for elephant!  Too bad he didn't read Forsyth's excellent little book before getting ready for Africa.  He'd have known he actually needed to harden the balls for Elephant. In this regard, a 14 bore would have given better results as Baker found - ie:  hardened ball of 'that' size, 4 to 4 1/2 drams of good powder giving "through and through penetration" on an elephant's head. THAT's why I loaded 165 for moose? - HA!

[Dphariss]

Turner Kirkland used a 4 bore on elephant with pure lead and had penetration problems after 2 shots the PH put it down. John Taylor by contrast killed a number of African elephant 13-14 "good bulls" and about that many Rhino (IIRC) using a 10 bore smooth bore ML with hardened balls and 6 drams of powder. He infers they were all one shot kills and states that he never lost an animal he shot.  This is in "Pondoro" by John Taylor.

We need to differentiate when speaking of conicals. Modern vs historic. Buy the 1830s "Picket" bullets were gaining in popularity. Those pictured in "The Improved American Rifle" 1844 by Chapman are pointed.
But for game one needed a flat point picket as described by Roberts.
These were CLOTH patched and staid on the powder.
The problem was loading them. A flat point picket apparently loads fairly easily, the pointed version apparently does not both are more susceptible to wild fliers due to loading errors than the RB is. Most picket guns were fitted with a guide starter or even a false muzzle.  A bother for a hunting rifle if needed.
A FP picket will also expand since it has no massive lube grooves. They apparently worked rather well. But for best results really need a relatively fast twist 30-36".
But when we go to larger bores then recoil starts to be a factor since the bullets get pretty heavy.
Velocity is also a factor. Heavy conicals or those with high sectional density like the Whitworth bullet take a lot of powder to make 1300 fps. This makes for a less hunter friendly recoil and trajectory at hunting ranges.
So we get back the Forsythe and the round ball. The conical, given proper twist of rifling, will out penetrate the RB. However, the RB if sized properly for the game gives *adequate* penetration. No more is needed.
The RB also has a nice blunt shape and I am pretty confident that a 350 gr RB will do just as well or better killing game as a 350 gr picket in 44-50 caliber. Do it with less breech pressure too.
The picket was used to increase range for 220 yard rifle  matches and to increase killing power of smaller bore guns that could also be used for small game.  The REAL Bullet design should perform well on game but its still has no way to keep it from moving off the powder.
I would rather shoot a RB of equal weight than a conical from a smaller bore I believe that the RB is better hunting projectile for the traditional ML gun.
The reason conicals have become so popular is advertising, either paid ads or articles in magazines and TV shows on the hunting channels.
Moderns think a 50 cal is huge and shoot a lot of 50 cals with saboted pistol bullets. But from our frame of reference it is a small bore. Really useful big game rifles for stuff like elk start at 20 bore and go up to 14 (about 69 caliber) or bigger. Once to 12 bore the rifles starts to get into the realm of really big and dangerous game. Forsythe, who hunted in India, stated that a 16 bore was about as small as anyone would use on dangerous game. A .662" ball is 16 to the pound.
But when you take a rifle that shoots a RB (or belted ball) and kills well then have a conical mould made for it problems seem to occur. Samuel Baker did this and got into several "scrapes" with African Elephant and reverted to the ball. This rifle was his "devil stopper" but it failed to "stop" with the heavier conical.

The RB really is slandered by those who claim it fails to penetrate I have never seen it fail to penetrate deep enough to kill the target animal. Even a .445 ball with 45 grains of powder will go to the offside hide of a Mule Deer buck at 40-50 yards. But I would not try a "raking shot" from the rear with a pure lead RB though the 16 bore with WW ball would likely work. Would probably work OK with pure lead on deer.
So the RB requires more careful attention to the animals stance than if shooting a 458 with steel jacketed solids.

Dan

[Jeff Peters]

50 - 54 should cover what ever your hunting in North America as long as you can shoot it and be sure of where the ball will hit, knowing both your and your guns limitations
Practice, Practice, Practice!
Aim small hit small
Jeff

[Daryl]

Hmm - thought it was forget with a 6 bore Rodda.- Oh well - memory of events 30 years ago is a fragile thing today.

  My best buddy Keith, with his .75 Sporting Rifle - Purdey design by Taylor, started off with 220gr. of powder with 735" balls in his Getz barrel. Each year, he dropped his charge 20 gr. At 120gr. he was finally able to keep a ball inside a moose.  After hunting season, he's show us his 'recoveries' at work. For  several years, we ribbed him about getting skunked. Keith never gets skunked & he takes ribbing well - from his friends.  On moose, the .75 is the devil stopper, by the way. Like the .69, it staggers moose, only on a slightly elevated scale.  Keith even tried almost end to end shots and still got exits with heavy charges. The WW balls surely do penetrate.  He would have used pure lead, except he didn't have any and WW shot well.

[Roger Fisher]

My wife's Grandfather's deer rifle was a single shot , in .32 long rim fire !    80 grain lead bullet.
He always got deer with it.  Not my choice, but he used what he had. This was in the early 1900's
in the Ottawa valley.  My friend claims to have seen a deer shot last week that weighed 270 Lbs.
That is a big deer for around here.
To answer your question, I have used everything from a .45 up to a .75
If I could only have one, I'd probably opt for a .54 rifle or a .62 smoothbore. That being said, I've shot more deer with a .50 cal flintlock than anything else. I love those B weight swamped barrels!

Ol Pap must have held well over the deer at anything over 35 yds.  I 'had' one and as I recall that old thing dropped abt a ft and a half at approx that distance.  I gave up trying to hit water snakes with it and went to the ol Sears 22!  Been a long time ago!

[northmn]

My father grew up in the depression and talked about the Stevens rimfires.  Basically he stated they cost too much and would not do anything a 22 could do.  Look at how many cartridges (32-20's etc) have gone by the wayside because they are too big for small game and not big enough for bigger game.  I have  always held to how ridiculous the "modern" ML's are by standardizing on the 50 cal.  They have have been trying to reinvent the wheel, and have done a poor job of it, that rather smart people in the mid 1800's had already invented.  I admit I probably should have voted for the 45-50 category instead, but still feel the 50 is a good minimum choice with roundball.  While their may be a challenge in hunting with a smaller gun to wait for the "better" shots, I hate to pass up angling shots that should be valid with a decent gun.  Penetration on a braodside deer is very minimal but on one standing slightly angled it increases.  I ordered a 58 barrel for my next deer gun, but it was a toss up betwen it and a 50.  I think I would have been happy with either.  A hole in a fat deer can seal up very quickly from a non expanding bullet.  Also from my experiences on the shooting ranges, most folks can shoot a 50 about as well as a 45 (offhand a lot can't shoot either).

DP   

[Dphariss]

Hmm - thought it was forget with a 6 bore Rodda.- Oh well - memory of events 30 years ago is a fragile thing today.

  My best buddy Keith, with his .75 Sporting Rifle - Purdey design by Taylor, started off with 220gr. of powder with 735" balls in his Getz barrel. Each year, he dropped his charge 20 gr. At 120gr. he was finally able to keep a ball inside a moose.  After hunting season, he's show us his 'recoveries' at work. For  several years, we ribbed him about getting skunked. Keith never gets skunked & he takes ribbing well - from his friends.  On moose, the .75 is the devil stopper, by the way. Like the .69, it staggers moose, only on a slightly elevated scale.  Keith even tried almost end to end shots and still got exits with heavy charges. The WW balls surely do penetrate.  He would have used pure lead, except he didn't have any and WW shot well.

Could have been Forget and Kirkland. I forget where I read the think on Kirkland. Its been a while.
I think Kirkland was using one of those awful Begium double barrel things as I recall.

The Lyman book has pics of Forgett and his Elephant. He got 18" of penetration on head shot with a 610 gr Minie. States "...more than enough for a kill." Except it didn't kill the elephant.
Another caption states that the PH stopped the charge. Not too surprised. Shooting an elephant in the head with a pure lead minie ball is pretty stupid based on my readings. Minie is completely flattened. Unless I win the lottery the chances of my shooting an elephant are about as good as my setting up the first colony on the moon so I am not speaking from experience.
Dan

[northmn]

As to effectiveness, a pure lead or even a harder cast roundball is at best OK or poor depending on the application.  If a lot of penetration is needed it is at its worst, period.  By the time the mass is increased enough one has a shoulder cannon, such as the 10 gauge Taylor mentioned.  Examples: The 303 British with the old 215 Kynoch was an excellent African cartridge and killed elephant, one hunter liked it for lions. (it got a bad name when they tried the 174 gr military load)  If you have ever used the 6.5 Swede on deer with the 156 Norma load you would see a combination that kills beter than it should.  The old 7mm Mauser with the 175 grain killed elephants used by some market hunters.  The 9.3 X 64 mauser was almost legendary (may be wrong on the 64)  I have found a 190 grain cast bullet in my 30-30 to be very good and no 50 roundball will match it beyond 75 yards.  My point is that the roundball is probably the most inefficient practical missle used in a firearm.  Historically the grand old firearms favored for hunting used very long bullets at modest velocities.  Taylor was aprofessional elephant hunter and ambushed them up close and shot behind the shoulder.  Looking in Cartridges of the World one sees that many of the early gauge bullets were still rather blunt.  We use roundball in our longrifles because that is what they were designed for.  Kind of like shooting traditional broadheads in a self bow.  Its the self imposed limitations and adherence to historical precedent that keeps the sport interesting.  Otherwise we would develop BP guns using plastic stocks, stainless steel barrels and shooting plastic wrapped jacketed bullets with phony powder and shotgun primers.

DP   

[Candle Snuffer]

Well I don't know about hunting elephants, but I do know about hunting deer size game using the soft lead round ball, and I see nothing that leads me to believe there is anything better then the soft lead round ball in taking deer size game while using a muzzle loader, at least for my given purposes.

In fact, I've yet to see the conical stay up with the round ball in accuracy within 100 yards, which is plenty far for hunting, even hunting Antelope on the open plain.

I hardly think the only reason for use of round ball in our longrifles is because that's what they were designed for, and yes they were designed for round ball.  However, I don't feel the use of them is self imposed limitations or just an adherence to historical precedent that keeps the sport interesting.  I feel their use is because they work and they always have.  At least for my hunting purposes. 

[Daryl]

DP - I admit Keith's .75 is a big 'over-board', but it's a tremendous rifle to shoot and kill game with - any size. Groove diameter would have it at aorund .79" on the grooves - bit more maybe if they are actually .024" deep as they look, bit less if they're only .016". They're deep and that's the main reason it fouls badly - too deep for such a large bore - not needed.  Kill- it does in spades and does it rather dramatically. It's really something to see a big Bull's hind quarters drop to the ground with no more than a lung hunt - whunnnnk! sag, stagger and fall.  The .69 does a similar job- nothing better for hunting in these parts for deer through big bears, moose and elk.  When one hunts the 'spotted Stag, one must be prepared to meet a Tiger" rings true in these parts.  Reminds me of the time I was hunting dear with my daughter. She with her little .260 and me with a .218Bee single shot loaded with an X bullet. Came across a grizzly's bedroom - fresh $#@* all around, ground cover flattened - I felt a mite spooked as I looked down at my little rifley gun.

[arcticap]

I mentioned the 128 grain .36 Maxiball in comparison to the weight of the .40 round ball. Maybe the Maxiball isn't too great of a conical design but hypothetically, another similar .36 conical that was even more cylindrical (barrel shaped) would add even more weight and offer more penetration without some of the claimed expansion drawbacks of the Maxiball's big grease grooves.
I still can't see how another relatively heavier .36 conical would be effectively worse than a 92 grain .40 round ball within modest range like from a treestand.
Not every caplock muzzle loader has a long barrel with a slow twist. And the .36 bore delivers plenty of velocity from a shorter barrel.
The additional penetrating ability of a fully barrel shaped .36 conical over the lighter .40 round ball shouldn't be totally negated.
The OP asked about caliber, not about a particular round ball size or specific conical projectile.
It's only a hypothetical question. After all, who has shot actually a deer with a .36 Maxiball or other .36 conical, and how big was it?
Some deer are only the size of a very large dog while other deer species can grow so large!  Whether a deer averages 100 or 200 lbs., are all of us even discussing similar size deer? 

[northmn]

Roundballs do work very well in their place and I use them in my rifles.  Tried the Ballets or Pennsylvania bullets or whatever and could see no advantage to a conical about as long as the ball.  Daryl made my point in that for them to work well one may use a larger caliber to increase the mass so that penetration and  energy gets transferred to the target.  Deer are really not particularly tough and round ball in "normal" calibers work.  I really cannot personally speak on maxiballs as I have never used them.  I have used the 45-70 Gould bullet on deer and many modern calibers.  ML roundballs perform the most like hunting with bigbore handguns if one wants to compare to modern.  Large caliber, heavier bullets and modest velocities.  The 54 often gets compared to the 44 mag.  Until recently the 44 mag was king and worked very well on a large variety of game if utilized within handgun hunting parameters.  Getting close and placing the shot.  Modern rifles give the advantage of range.  I shot a very nice doe with my 30-30 and a 190 cast bullet at 150 yards with impressive results.  A 50 RB at that range driven at the same muzzle velocity would have a retained velocity of about 900 fps.  The 30-30 had one of between 1450 and 1550. Trust me when I say the round ball would not have been as dramatic.  As to bigger game like moose, I am sure the energy transfer of a 10 gauge round ball at 600 grains more or less  would be impressive.  I was merely mentioning that the use of very long bullets at reasonable velocities have an excellent track record.  The 9.3X64 with its 286 grain bullet is also claimed effective on moose.  The biggest advantage of the long bullet is that of penetration.  They will do so far beyond roundball levels.  A 58 using a round ball, even WW, will not come close to the penetration of a 9.3X64.   As Dan pointed out adequate penetration is all that needed.  On game like elk or deer it will do so quite nicely on reasonable shots.  My 30-30 load will take a whitetail stem to stern which is only an advantage on a Texas heart shot and a dubious one at that.  The 303 215 grain,when used in Africa had excellent penetration to permit its use on larger game and also for breaking shoulders.  I repeat, that when we hunt with a ML we are placing restrictions on ourselves.  I do so because shooting deer with a scoped 270 got to be a yearly meat butchering ritual and no real fun anymore.  I was cussing out my flintlock and it being jinxed but am having fun in a frustrated sort of way. With the 270 or even the 30-30 I would have had at least one more deer and likely 2 more.  Tommorrow is the start of MN ML season and I am going out to get frustrated again. (I have moved a few stands to make a change of tactics for closer shooting)  I do not think that the 75, 69 or Dan's 16 is really overdoing it with a roundball, I just bought a 58 barrel for a deer hunting rifle.  I just think the Germans with their Jaegers and the English with their sporting rifles were on to something with their bigger bores.  Especially if one gets tempted to take a longer shot.

DP

[Daryl]

Only a solid in the 9.3 will penetrate as well as a hardened .73 cal ball, DP. There is no soft point what will do what the large round ball will do.  Of course if we consider most people hung on a mere 2 3/4 drams (75gr.) of powder, about any modern gun will give as good penetration.

 As to the l36 maxiball - I finished a deer with one. Hunting with my wife - shot a buck in the throat (facing me at only 50 yards or so) and my .45 cal. ball struck about 1" to the right of my point of aim. The deer dropped as if polaxed, but thrashed about.  I ran up to the deer to administer the cou-de-gras with the quickly re-loaded .45, stopped about 10 yards away and missed his head as he thrashed. I was going to jump on him (Hey- I was young, strong and full of gumby-ness) and finish him with my knife, but instead asked Tracy for her little .36 - loaded at that time with a 128gr. maxiball.  I shot the buck in the neck, about 1/2 way down almost perfectly broadside. The maxi hit the spine, turned about 75 degrees and skidded down the spine to stop right between the shoulder blades, resting against the spine. A number of bony projections were clipped off the spine. This shot stunned him so I slashed his throat open with my rather large bowie, then proceeded to gut him outa nd find what the ball and bullet had done.  The ballmissed the spine by about 1/2", travelled front to back of the necka nd exited. The maxi, I've already explained.  There was about 24" of penetration from the maxi which showed the collapsed nature of this projectile on the 'meat' side, while the bone side was scrubbed. It had stopped spinning upon impact with the spine, whence it turned instead of going through the spine. Lousey bullet!
  I should have learned from this experience about maxi's, but wasn't until years later, found them to do the same thing on moose - rarely ever going in a straight line- tunrning this way and that whenever they hit something hard- bone, cartilege, clenched muscle - all turn maxiballs.

[northmn]

When you talk about the .73 ball you are talking about a ball weighing about 590 grains, about an ounce and 3/8ths,  sent on its way by a half ounce of powder.  That kind of pales the old 50-140, more like something the navy mounted on the bow of a small ship.  But I will bet a 50 cal rifle like the 50 Gibbs loaded to the same velocity with the same weight bullet of the same hardness would out penetrate your .73 considerably.  I am not saying the round ball is worthless or should not be used, but just keep them in perspective. One perspective is that you have to have a heavier ball than you might want to use in a rifle.   Maxi balls are glorified wadcutters.  38 wadcutters loaded slow were death on small game but I believe they were not recommended to be loaded with any steam and used on bigger game.  About the closest thing is a semiwadcutter which is effective if hardened.   Nothing has been stated about the performance of the "modern" ML bullets that make me think they are not a joke as compared to what a group of bright people developed in the mid 1800's.

DP

[arcticap]

What an nerve wracking experience to re-live slitting a deer's throat like that!
When a similar downed deer situation happened to me, I was too afraid that I would get gored by it's spike horns. I missed the finishing shot at its head with my last slug so I put a load or 2 of #6's into it's throat from inches away and it took several minutes for it to expire.
I was trying to think about a center fire comparison to a better .36 BP conical and what came to mind was the .30 U.S. Carbine.
While it's not a round recommended for deer, it has been known to work due to its tremendous penetration, and a soft point bullet should work even better at modest range than 115 grain FMJ military ball.  

[Brian]

I'd not have any problem or concern using a .40 on deer - but my favorite is the .50 so that's what I'd likely use.  Moose and Elk a different story.  Probably .62

[northmn]

About the closest modern comparison to a 36 maxie or a 40 RB is the old 32-20 loaded a little warmer than factory say at 1500.  While not as powerful up close the bullets catch up quick down range.  For years Minnesota made the carbine load illegal.  There have been some intersting stories about people that have stradled deer to cut their throat.  Midwestern deer are a little bigger than in some other areas as I think Alaskan deer may be.  To have an animal weighing over 150 pounds  (my daughters doe wieghed at least 180 on the hoof) decide to take off while you are trying to hold it can be an experience.  There was a story of an individual running in one of these iron man contests or marathons or whatever in southern MN that collided with a paniced 8 point buck on the course and got entangled with it.  He did not finish the race but was hospitalized for a while. Never got to tag the buck either from what I gathered.

DP

[roundball]

I've had two occasions where I pushed shots too high above the heart...both deer dropped where they stood with some degree of paralysis, and I slit their throats to finish them off.

I quietly stepped up behind them, stood my 220 pounds on the ground side antler, bent down and in one mption plunged my belt knife down in behind the jugular with the blade away from me, and made one quick slash out and away...gets the jugular & windpipe at the same time

[Daryl]

Try as I might, I've not been able to get Taylor to do that to a moose while it's still kicking.  If a moose stands up while you're straddling it, your head will be in the tree branches - but only momentarily.

[Brian]

Taylor wouldn't bother with a knife Daryl.  Just tear it's throat out with his teeth - same as any good Northern boy would do!