Buffalo Ball-ets?

[Dobyns]

I tried a box of the Hornady Pa conicals in a 1-48" twist TC and it did OK.  They were so sticky that I didn't want to mess with them.  In that they are about 1 caliber long, I can't imagine that they won't be stable.

Maxiballs, Buffalo Bullets, and Hornady Great Plains bullets are all much longer.  Back in the mid '70s I was shooting my first BP rifle - a first year CVA Mountain Rifle .50 percussion.  My measure was a 44 magnum case, and I used (2) under a .490 ball patched with denim and lubed with crisco.  I bought some maxi-balls not knowing that they wouldn't work in the 66" twist, lubed them with crisco and loaded over (3) measures of GO fffg, so about 105gr.  They grouped as well at 50 yards as did the roundballs.  I never shot anything bigger than a racoon with that rifle.

[WadePatton]

Numbers (mathematical calculations) and paper targets (accuracy) are completely irrelevant to me with regard to this product.

If I'm hunting animals I want proper performance on game. I find Darryl's recounting of the Game Dept. findings on wounded moose above to be the best evidence against this particular projectile.

Because it's non-traditional according to my understanding of our history, and because my bore is plenty big enough for adequate balls to take my primary game animal, I wasn't much interested to begin with.

Yes, hunters may report great personal records with such products (does this mean a roundball wouldn't have performed as well with the same shots?), but the evidence from the "search and probe" investigations by air-mobile game keepers really tells a tale, and I find it most compelling.

This is only my angle, feel free to have your own. But if I was advising a person who asked me, that's what I'd tell them.

Good Hunting Y'all, Fall is about to "get real". 

[Davemuzz]

If I'm hunting animals I want proper performance on game. I find Darryl's recounting of the Game Dept. findings on wounded moose above to be the best evidence against this particular projectile.

When I go back and read Darryl's recount, he states these anomalies occurred in barrels with 1-48 twist. That may, or may not be. I shoot the Hornady Pa. conical from a 1-70 twist GM barrel. I've shot many, many doe, and a few bucks with the Pa. Conical. I've never lost one using the Pa. Conical or the Buffalo Ballett. I'm not speaking to other heavier conicals from a .50 cal flintlock.

It seems to me that if you shoot a 240gr. weight projectile as opposed to a 180gr. projectile (RB) from a rifle, the energy of the heavier projectile will get the job done much better. After all, if you had a choice between getting hit by a bicycle going 30mph, or a cement truck going 20mph, which would you choose?  Heavy gets it done.

FWIW

Dave

[Daryl]

When I go back and read Darryl's recount, he states these anomalies occurred in barrels with 1-48 twist. That may, or may not be.
FWIW
Dave

What is THAT supposed to mean?

It happened just as I said it - or I would not have taken the time to type it out. "may or may not be"? - go call someone else a liar!

I was also talking about REAL big game, MOOSE - not your little deer.

[Davemuzz]

When I go back and read Darryl's recount, he states these anomalies occurred in barrels with 1-48 twist. That may, or may not be.
FWIW
Dave

What is THAT supposed to mean?

It happened just as I said it - or I would not have taken the time to type it out. "may or may not be"? - go call someone else a liar!

I was also talking about REAL big game, MOOSE - not your little deer.

It appears I've not stated what I meant to say, and I can see where you thought I was calling your statement questionable. Believe me, that's the last thing I was intending to do.

What I meant is that the 1-48 twist in some barrels will give you shotgun patterns, and some will shoot the conical just fine. I long ago sold my 1-48 twist barrel and replaced it with a GM 1-70 twist.

My 1-48 shot large patterns with anything except a PRB. But it only shot a decent group using 60gr. FF. It killed deer.....but not each one I hit.

All I was attempting to say was some 1-48 twist will shoot it well.....some won't.

Peace!!

[Hungry Horse]

This is something that is almost never addressed in regards to conical bullets shot from 1in 48” twist barrels. Some of the kit guns shoot conicals very well, basically because the rifling is quite shallow. But, the same twist in a cut rifled barrel, in the twelve thousandths, and deeper rifleing, often don’t shoot all that well. The issue is no doubt gas leakage around the bullet. A lead conical will only obturate so much, so sealing in a cut rifle barrel is very unlikely.
 The other problem with a conical, verses a patched round ball, is the second shot. Because of the shallow rifling, and the inherent very dirty bore following the shooting of a conical, the second shot is very likely to be hard, and maybe impossible to seat properly. The only option I can see here, if you insist on shooting a conical, is to shoot a thinly patched ball for your second shot.
 I have never found a need for a heavy conical on deer, or even elk. If you are having issues with a round ball killing cleanly, I would look at shot placement, or range, first, before I went to a conical bullet.

 Hungry Horse

[Daryl]

Sorry Dave - the DVA shrink told me last week that I don't have PTSD - I think he is wrong.

 I know I am rather quick to anger. Please accept my apology for thinking you were calling me out.

[Lead ball 54]

Really the reason I asked about Ballets is because I got a really good deal on new old stock 4.99 a box so I baught all 6 and was wondering if any body had experience with them in a TC Hawkin or Renegade

[Davemuzz]

Sorry Dave - the DVA shrink told me last week that I don't have PTSD - I think he is wrong.

 I know I am rather quick to anger. Please accept my apology for thinking you were calling me out.

No need to apologies for my (once I go back and re-read it) poor choice of words. It's all good!!

BTW, I have a chronic disease and for about 15 years I was on this medication that actually changed my whole personality and demeanor. I would have a "hair trigger" with anger for anyone who I thought was challenging me. I also was paranoid about the "dumbest" things. I quit taking that stuff about 4 years ago. It's nice to be me again. Still have the disease, but don't have the medication side effects.

[Berksrifle]

Lead ball 54,
My son bought some to try in his 50 cal. T/C Renegade. They shoot as good as patched round balls on a 50 yard target. I talked him out of using them for hunting (thank goodness!). I told him about a friend mine that had a maxi-ball slide down the barrel of his T/C Hawken while he was hunting. He saw it before he fired the rifle. Seems that the movement and bumping the rifle while walking can cause the "engraved lead" to lose its grip in the barrel.
Since then my son my son uses only patched round balls.

Ken

[Roger B]

Don't try them in an old Douglas barrel. Risk of barrel failure is too great. I've killed two bison with a .58 prb.  They don't drop dead, but the blood trail is impressive. 
Roger B

[Lead ball 54]

Okay so since the rifling on TC Renegades are shallow should I start with a .535 and maybe a .015 patch or should I start tighter and work back

[smylee grouch]

You might want to slug the barrel to get the land to land size.

[Davemuzz]

had a maxi-ball slide down the barrel of his T/C Hawken while he was hunting. He saw it before he fired the rifle. Seems that the movement and bumping the rifle while walking can cause the "engraved lead" to lose its grip in the barrel.

This may have been the experience using a T\C "Maxi-ball." But in shooting the Ball-ets or the Hornady Pa. Conical, that has not been my experience in my 50 cal Green Mountain barrel.

How do I know this?  Because the first load goes "down" very easy. I've had those very same thoughts of the conical sliding away from it's seating position. And each time I reach my place....no matter how much the rifle was juggled\bumped\banged around, I would check the seating before I took my position. Not one time has the conical moved from it's proper seated against the powder position.

Again, 50 cal Ball-ets or Pa. Conical. T\C "Maxi-ball's" cost over $1 per shot. Ain't nothing worth $1 a shot from lead for a muzzle loader.

MHO

Dave

[Daryl]

Lead ball 54,
My son bought some to try in his 50 cal. T/C Renegade. They shoot as good as patched round balls on a 50 yard target. I talked him out of using them for hunting (thank goodness!). I told him about a friend mine that had a maxi-ball slide down the barrel of his T/C Hawken while he was hunting. He saw it before he fired the rifle. Seems that the movement and bumping the rifle while walking can cause the "engraved lead" to lose its grip in the barrel.
Since then my son my son uses only patched round balls.

Ken

THAT happens more often than perhaps one might think. Years ago, in the mid 1970's Taylor, Tom and I were bear hunting up the Nass Valley in BC. We were walking along a wide trail below a slide and I happened to glance at the muzzle of Tommy's rifle. The maxiball was sticking 1/2 bullet length, out the muzzle of his TC Hawkens. After that, Tom paper patched them in cigarette paper so they'd not slide out. The rifling in Tom's rifle was only .0015" deep, Taylor's rifle had .003" and mine was a full .004" which should have been normal.  All three rifles shot well with those slugs on paper.  At that time, we did not know they were such failures on moose due to the 48" twist.
Like many others with little experience, we loaded the slugs because we lacked the knowledge of loading patched round balls.
Within 2 years though, no more slugs - found the secret of well loaded patched round balls.
A local lad (mid 70's now), friend indeed, tried 200gr. R.E.A.L. bullets in his slow twist .45 on deer. He found they shot about as well as round balls on target & killed deer just as well as the round balls. He also found they killed deer no better than patched round balls.

I tried them (R.E.A.L. 200gr.) in my .45 GM barrel, 60" twist and found them to shoot almost as well on paper as patched round balls. This rifle oft times gave me sub 1" groups at 50yards with both round balls and the slugs.
 At that time, I was using 65gr. 2F or 3F with the (wet) patched round balls. With the slugs, I used 80gr. 2F GOEX and they shot into the same group at 50yards as RB.
I lubed them with my BP bullet lube, which is 60:40, Beeswax:Vaseline. I fired 10 shots with them, no wiping, then went back to loading the WWWF/O 10oz (.0225") denim and .445" round ball without having to wipe before loading.

[Berksrifle]

Daryl, that's what happened to my friend. They were bear hunting in PA when his brother saw part of the maxi-ball poking out the end of his barrel.

I bought my first flintlock T/C in 1977 and used maxi-balls in it. Didn't know any better, no info was readily available. I shot a deer in '78 and one in '80 with maxi-balls. I switched to round ball after that. For me the deer I shot dropped faster with patched round ball. At the time I figured the maxi was too solid and didn't expand like a round ball. Who knows.

Ken

[Daryl]

Ken- I hear you all the way.  Taylor has a flint TC .50 Hawkens in the earlier 70's and used round balls on a passel of deer. 

Unlike when he shot them with a little modern carbine rifle, the round ball shot deer dropped at the shot.

Recovered bullets show that the TC bullet's front sloping band would collapse into the grease groove, instead of expanding.  This might have also contributed to then bouncing around inside

the moose just as the pointed Minnie "Balls" did during the Crimean war.  Forsyth quoted the Surgeon General as saying the 'accursED' Minnie made 'too neat a wound', opposite to the

round ball wounds he saw that when hitting bones did not glance as did the minnie, but "smashed the bones asunder, making such grievous wounds".

That, friends, is exactly what we want in the animal, not a 'neat' wound. The hemispherical shape of the round ball delivers this at the highest possible velocity, over normal hunting ranges.

The slower moving, 'bullet' of course, is better for long range target shooting or for war.
 

[GANGGREEN]

I've enjoyed the commentary in this thread and I'm not suggesting that topics can't ever veer off course because that's the nature of the beast.  That said, a lot of people are trying to compare what a maxi-ball in a slow twist barrel will do compared to what a Hornady PA hunter or Buffalo ballet will do and they aren't the same animal, not really even that close.  That said, I've shot all 3 out of curiosity and out of 1 in 48", 1 in 56" and slower twist barrels and find that the PA hunter shoots quite well for me out of my Colerain and Rice .50 barrels and the ballet shoots OK out of a .45 that I built for my son last year.  None of them shoot more accurately or more consistently out of those same rifles, but I have to admit that I do occasionally think about trying them on deer because they simply are heavier and probably wouldn't tumbler like a maxi-ball can. 

I'm currently building a .45 SMR flintlock that I'd like to use in PA's flintlock season this winter and in general I tend to see a .45 as being on the light end for larger northern whitetails, especially with no snow on the ground (for tracking purposes).  I know that plenty of people have killed lots of deer sized game with .45s and less, but I admit to feeling that bigger tends to be much better and a heavier bullet (all other things being the same) is probably also preferable.

As for the original poster's question, I've never shot them in a .54, but for $5 a box, I would have snatched up all 6 boxes as well and done my own experimenting.  Good purchase.

[Daryl]

In the past, I have had .32, .36, .40, .45, .50, .58 & .69.  I have had the .69 since 1986.
Even though I have been in possession of several of these calibres at the same time,
I have always grabbed the .69 when going hunting.
There is just something comforting about 480gr. of lead running 1,550fps, whether the target is a deer or moose.
(or possibly running into a grizzly)  the .54 or .58 would of course handle ANY hunting in NA just fine, just that
after reading Forsythe's book, I HAD to have a 14 bore rifle.  My hunting buddy saw mine and ordered a .75
from Taylor. That one has been used on at least 20 moose hunts and has killed (or finished) over 30 moose.
Keith started at 200gr. as a standard charge with a 585gr. WW ball, and ended up using only 120gr. as it killed
almost as well, but more importantly for him, the light charge left the ball inside the moose. That way, he could
show us the LEAD balls dug out of his moose. At 150gr. to 200gr. they ALWAYS exited.

[Joc7651]

Call Accurate Molds and see if he can make a Ball-et mold for you. His May already have one similar in his online catalogue. 

[Daryl]

A .54 or .58 ball-et will give you no advantage over a properly patched round ball on game, in NA. Indeed, due to sizing and lubrication, it may

present problems over and above properly patching a round ball. Fouling being primary and proper fit being the second most difficult to overcome.  To be

accurate & safe (not sliding foreard off the powder) it must be a very close fit to the bore, even slightly engraving.  If that snug, and not having adequate

grease grooves to hold the requisite amount of lubricant to soften the fouling, a second shot might not be able to be loaded.

[Joc7651]

Round balls are all I shoot. .36, .50, and 2 .54's. Get a ball block from TOW or Gun Works and they load as easy as a conical.

[OldMtnMan]

Round balls are all I shoot. .36, .50, and 2 .54's. Get a ball block from TOW or Gun Works and they load as easy as a conical.

A PRB won't lead the bore either. A big plus.

[Davemuzz]

As far as I'm aware, a Buffalo Ball-ett and the Hornady Pa. Conical are only made in .50 caliber.  The other larger calibers are not of the same design. These are usually are heavier in weight and shoot much differently than a Ball-ett or Pa. Conical.

[Dphariss]

So your saying a 310grn 54 calBaffalo Ball-et won't stabilize in a 48" twist barrel?

What we are saying, at least I am, is that they are
1. Some are too short to have any real advantage over the RB and they have "issues" with moving off the powder if the rifle is carried muzzle down. I strongly suspect this is why the Rifle Muskets of the American Civil War were proofed with 200 gr of Musket Powder and a 500 gr Minie seated 2" off the powder. There never was a minie ball carbine for the cavalry. Almost any ML using a military loading, paper cartridge or minie ball will unload itself in 3-4 miles of riding if slung. This from 19th c reports by cavalry officers. This is why through the Civil War there were BL arms issued to cavalry units.
2. Stabilzation. the 48" twist is marginal for a 2 caliber long bullet. The "Maxi" is a 2 caliber bullet. The Greenhill formula shows it as OK in a 48" IIRC. HOWEVER, the Greenhill has a significant error in small arms, being intended for rifled ML artillery  and will show a twist about 15% slower than is really needed at least in experience with brass suppository guns.  The slow twist conical has been known to be unstable when striking flesh since the Crimean War. Here the Minie type bullet used was found to sometimes turn 90 degrees on striking a man. The shorter "ball-et" things are an attempt to over come this at least for people who believe modern gun writers.
3. Penetration. I have never found a RB in a broad side shot deer shot with a rifle save one time. This was the first deer my son shot with a 45 with 45 grains of FFF. 50 yard shot. It struck the hide on the far side and rebounded back into the chest cavity and was lost. I had one stay in an elk but was a 54 and broke the humerus going in 100 yards +-. Still  made a one shot kill though it did not penetrate the offside chest wall. Elk expired before I started the follow up shot ball.
The round ball penetrates much better than most suspect. In my experience on deer it will run about 24 to 30" on raking shots. Elk, if no major bones are encountered close to the same. Daryl has more experience with larger critters than I.
I used to carry a little 50 caliber pistol 6" barrel. It would shoot through an Antelope at +- 25 yards and kick up a large plume of dirt in the sage brush beyond. It penetrated diagonally through a mule deer from shoulder muscles to diaphragm, stopped at the far side hide. 54 pistol broke the humerus on a MD doe, took out the arteries and lodged at far side hide.  I did some baffle board testing years ago. I used the 50 cal pistol which I have shot a couple of critters with as a baseline. I found that a 54 caliber percussion rifle with 120 gr of FFF (what it liked) would shoot through a deer to 200 yards. I have shot through deer on broad side shots to 150+ with a 50.
I just don't see a valid reason for conicals for hunting with a ML. Some like the Maxi have a very poor rep. Someone posted here or another ML site  that his wife shot a deer through the lungs with one and the deer survived to be killed the next year and the bullet track scar was found in the lungs. I am sure things like this are why the "Maxi-Hunter" came into being. And the faster twist TCs then  appeared to give the slug decent stabilization.

Dan