Muzzleloading

[MSHunter]

Does or has anyone on the forum fire patched round balls (.50 cal) from their "modern" in-line muzzleloader? If so, how is the accuracy?

[berudd]

Yeah, I have done it with a 50gr Pyrodex pellet. I did it becuase I wanted a low recoil load for my 8 yr old son. I can't make any firm accuracy comments on accuracy because he was doing most of the shooting with iron sights. I want to say he had no trouble putting them in a 2 or 3 inch circle at 50 yards. It was good enough that I felt comfortable letting him carry that load in the field for deer. Mine has a 1 in 33 twist which might be a little slower than what some of the new guns use. I have heard a patched ball will skip the rifling if the twist is too fast. I would suspect that the low powder charge we used may have minimized that affect if it does infact happen. I will say that it it is more accurate with 385gr lead bullet with two 50gr pellets.

I used to get these bullets, think they called them ballettes, from the Buffalo Bullet Company that is now defunct. They were full bore so you did not use a patch but they were barely longer than a round ball. Really more the dimensions of a .50 cal pistol bullet. I started using them back with my old sidelock and they shot great. Did well in my inline as well. The were prelubed so loading was much quicker and easier.

[shaman]

I used to hunt with patched round ball, and one of my long term  goals in life is to get back to it. I have a .54 TC Hawken, and I have the original barrel that was meant for round ball as well as a Green Mountain IBC barrel for shooting conicals.  I've tried the reverse-- shooting round ball out of the 1-in-28 Green Mountain barrel, and it's not pretty.

The problem with modern inlines is they generally have too tight of a twist for patched round ball. I don't know if it's too much spin or that the patch gets ripped out of the rifling or what, but I never got good accuracy out of that combination. 40 yard accuracy was iffy at best, but then that was about how bad Maxi-balls were out of the round ball barrel.

[berudd]

When we did it, the patches showed no signs of being ripped by skipping the rifling. But again, it was a lighter powder load.

[mgemmill]

i think the rifling twist is a little to agressive for patched balls. 1 in 26 is the norm, I think. The older Hawken's and CVA long rifles were 1in 48 twist.