Why are you bothering with the “REAL” bullet? They jack up pressure. Don’t shoot as flat at normal hunting ranges. Will be less accurate unless used in a bullet barrel with a fast twist. At that weight any increase in penetration will be marginal (you need at least 350 grain in a 50 and 450 in better. They are not safe since any of these “naked” bullets, from the Minie to present day are known come away from the powder charge. They have no real advantage in killing power at ML hunting ranges and a 250 gr 50 has no longe range capability either. If they were so great people would have abandoned the RB by 1850. But they did not. Even W.W. Greener in “The Gun and Its Development” tells us that the bulleted MLs were not good came guns. But when the TC “Hawken” came along and the people that did not know any better, like the slick paper gun writers, started telling people the RB was useless (TC was buying advertising for the Maxi-Ball after all THATS key). And people, ignorant of or ignoring history, believed them.
Here is another little tid-bit. It was found as early as the Crimean War (the first combat use of the Minie Ball type) that in slow twists elongated projectiles tended to not track straight when striking flesh. If you want to shoot bullets in a ML you need at least a 30-36” twist for good accuracy.
And of course the gun writers wailed about the lack of “energy” in the RB. Here is a fact. Energy is just a number. While it has some meaning in modern HV arms with jacketed bullets that must expand to do anything, its useless in black powder arms. Be it a 45-70 with 400 gr bullet (compare it to a 243 and then ask which will work better on something large and angry) or a muzzle loading rifle. At BP velocities you need a bullet of suitable caliber with sufficient penetration. Since I have only rarely seem less than about 30” of penetration for a RB this is not a factor unless you are into “Texas heart shots” and then only if a very heavy bone is encountered and the ball is pure lead.
In reality there is no upside to these unless you are standing in line shooting as fast as possible at another line of people trying to kill you. Military rifles before about 1865 had no viable use to the civilian. The brass suppository guns changed this.
BTW, I have shot quite a number of various game animals with Rbs, BPCRs, “moderns” of various calibers. And witnessed some more guiding hunters. SHOT PLACEMENT IT KING. AND as a matter of fact the 54 RB at 40 yards with 90-100 gr of powder is better on elk than a 1980s 180 gr 300 Weatherby factory load at 40 yards since it will PENETRATE BETTER. This is just fact based on experience. But few “gun writers” would know this and the people selling conical bullet are not going to tell you this either. I have NEVER seen or shot an animal with a proper hit with a RB that was not a one shot kill. Be it antelope, either species of deer, Elk or Black Bear. People using these things are one of my pet peeves (can you tell?) as a ML shooter since the 1960s. Its just silliness foisted on the unknowing. The downsides from both historical and modern experience is not mentioned. But it was known and published at least as far back as 1860. AND hardened round balls were universally used for heavy game into the 1870s if not later in Africa and India. For good reason. Read Sir Samuel Baker or even John Taylor’s “Pondoro” specifically the chapter “More Elephant Stories”.
