.45 Round Ball

I built a Jukak .45 rifle a buddy gave me a couple years ago. Not knowing anything about .45 round balls, i bought .457 diameter. They run down the barrel good with pre-lubed cabelas patches. Looking at Hornady web-site there are three diameters to choose from. Should i buy .440, .445 instead?

Travis,
If those are going down the barrel okay with a patch, you may shoot them and see how they do. As for what diameter you choose in the future, you may get a few of both and experiment with patching and powder charges and see what your gun likes the most.

Jeff

Travis, If a patched.457 runs down the barrel real good then you don't have a .45, may be closer to a .47. You could slug it or mike it but if the .457 loads easy and shoots well, that's all that counts. I shoot .440 in all my .45s but they are .45s. Deadeye

Wat Deadeye said.
Caliber designations are often just general.
Use wat works. Doesn't matter if it is .457 or sumptin' else. Only problem with some sizes is moulds can be hard to find.

It's pretty accurate. What kind of charge is recommended? What’s too much?

You might consider .440 cal balls and 45 or 50 gr FFFG black powder for a starting load. Try pillow ticking and a good lube. Shoot from a sand bag rest to see what the rifle likes and where it prints. Increase or decrease your powder loads 5 gr at a time. No need to fill the barrel with powder... 70 gr might be the maximum amount with good results, depending on the distance.

Real simple and works for me. :hmm:

I'm shooting that .457 with 100gr of FFFG. At 75yds out of my deer stand im perfect. At 100 im about 10 to 12 inches low. Seems to work ok, but im still a new at black powder shooting.

Travis68 said:

I'm shooting that .457 with 100gr of FFFG. At 75yds out of my deer stand im perfect. At 100 im about 10 to 12 inches low. Seems to work ok, but im still a new at black powder shooting.

Click to expand...

The powder charge you listed seems a tad plus a mite on the hot side :shocked2: for a .45-caliber. In addition, if your point of impact is at your point of aim at 75 yards, you shouldn't be 10" low at 100 yards, especially with the spicy powder charge you are using.

Have you measured the rate of twist of the barrel? What is the barrel length? How thick are the patches you are using? Do you have the capability to measure the bore diameter, or a friend who can do it for you?

With a bit more info, the folks here can help you figure this out. You'll look long and hard before you find more experienced people as those who contribute regularly to this forum. :thumbsup:

All good answers given already. Depending on twist and personal likes of the barrel, 45 gr and up to about 65 will be your all around range. The 100 grains mentioned for deer hunting is heavier than is necessary. When I first went hunting with my .45 flinter I used 96 gr, cut back over time to 65 gr. which is a killer on whitetail deer up to 100 yards. Good luck.

My deer load for .45cal is 65grs 3f behind a .440 ball. Usually shoots clean through.

I can't tell that it makes much difference in my guns when the patch material is matched to the ball diameter to make a good gas seal. As long as the patch is thick enough to minimize ball deformation, not tear or allow blow by, it should shoot well. My .54 seems to shoot .530 just as well as .535's as long as the patch thickness is adjusted to the diameter.
Course it could be I'm just not a good enough shot to tell the difference but I suspect many opinions on accuracy are based on small sample test evaluations rather than multiple comparative test.
In my .45 cal Green Mountain barreled, H&A underhammer gun, a .445 Lee mold ball and .018 felt shirt patches shoot better than I can hold for. I like this because my old work shirts give me an inexhaustible source of patching material. It would be interesting to try some thicker patches and a .440 ball to see if any difference in accuracy manifests. MD

This is a very interesting topic. I was at the range today shooting my .45 Cal Pedersoli Kentucky. I ran out of .451 balls using a thin patch, then moved to a .454 same thin patch, 55 grains of 3F Goex. The group was shocking. I wonder if I should go back to .440 with a thicker patch. I would be interested in peoples experience of smaller ball/ thicker patch vs larger ball/thinner patch.

I originally bumped it up from 70gr to 100gr because I wanted to look at bullet drop somewhat like I would my 22-250 loads. I really didn’t see any significant difference although 100gr will go through my ¼ steel target where 70gr wont. My 100yd pattern is probably do to my shooting ability not my rifle or load. Starting my patch and ball is definitely tight, but rams down easy and pulls easy if I have to retrieve the ball. Close range is no problem but my shooting background wants to stretch it out further. Maybe with practice I can. I’ll shoot some .440 agents the .457 to see what kind of difference I can see. I did like building this particular rifle and hopefully sometime soon ill build one of TOTW kits.

100 grains in a .45 rifle is too much IMHO, in fact the max powder charge that my Investarms manual lists for shooting a .440 RB is 80 grains of 2f and 55 grains of 3f.

To work up an accurate load in your .45 I would start with 45 grains of 2f or 40 grains of 3f and go up in 5 grain increments after shooting 3-5 shot groups, not to exceed the maximum.

I wanted to look at bullet drop somewhat like I would my 22-250 loads.

Click to expand...

:hmm:
Many of us load CF also, so there's alot of knowledge to be shared here.
The differance is a "Sphere" instead of a "bullet" and the twist rates are just a little different.

Are you really getting a 12" drop at 100?
Or are the groups at 100 just that big?

I think it should be a little closer to about 6" drop, but the group can be as tight as 3-4"s with a "good background" in shooting and good eyes.

Beleive it or not, many new to black powder do tend to think with CF experiance and results. And what happens is they suffer from Magnumitis just like alot of new hand loaders do.

No disrespect intended,
:v

Recovered patches will usually tell the story. To thin of a patch will usually show tears or burn through ,so will to loose of a patch. When my barrel was new it cut patches like 60 and I hand lapped it 250 strokes with a 400 grit lead slug before shooting it. It took about a 100 shots or so before it quit tearing patches and showing good accuracy.MD

I shoot 100 grains in a 50 and get good accuracy. I would probably drop back to 80. any deer shot will not complain if placement is on the money! Geo. T.

Thanks guy’s your great. I came to this forum to glean as much information from experienced muzzleloader shooters as I can. I may have some kind of “magnumitus” but that can be remitted by bench time at the farm. As far as I can tell my rifle is a Traditions Kentucky with a 32” barrel made in the 70’s or 80’s. It’s my first build hopefully not my last. Without anyone around here experienced enough to teach or learn my new hobby, it’s all guess work trial error and surfing the internet.

Welcome to the forum.

If I can give some thoughts on heavy powder loads in a .45 caliber rifle?

The Lyman "BLACK POWDER HANDBOOK & LOADING MANUAL" shows a lot of various powder loads with different projectiles.

Under the roundball loads using a .440 diameter patched ball they got the following using GOEX 3Fg powder:
70 grains = 1777 fps mv with 11,900 psi breech pressure.
80 grains = 1856 fps mv with 13,300 psi breech pressure.
90 grains = 1970 fos mv with 15,100 psi breech pressure.
100 grains = 2084 fps mv with 16,900 psi breech pressure.

I must mention that not only are some of these breech pressures very high (for a black powder firearm) but the steel your barrel is made from is just low carbon steel. It has very low tensile and yield strengths and cannot be heat treated to improve it.
The strength is nothing like even a small modern CF cartridge pistol which all use heat treated steels of much higher strengths.

The thing you may also find interesting is the ball velocity at 100 yards.

With the 70 grain load the 1777 mv dropped to 1012 fps @ 100 yards.
The 80 grain loads 1856 fps mv dropped to 1037 fps @ 100 yards.
The 90 grain loads 1970 fps mv dropped to 1076 fps @ 100 yards.
The 100 grain loads 2084 fps mv dropped to 1122 fps.

Clearly, due to the poor ballistics of the roundball, all of that extra velocity at the muzzle rapidly vanishes with the final result at 100 yards being only 110 fps between the 70 grain load and the 100 grain powder load.

While I can understand the desire to have a trajectory similar to a modern high velocity rifle it just isn't possible.

Rather than trying to get modern performances out of a 150 year old design I suggest that you accept the limitations of the old guns and take on the challenge of getting exceptional accuracy instead.
Once you find the most accurate load, learn what it is doing at various ranges. (Many zero their sights at 70 yards because if done, at 50 yards you will be about 1 inch high and at 100 yards you will be 4.5 inches low.)

Using your knowledge of the trajectory you will be prepared for any hunt out to (my recommended) range with this caliber of 90 yards.

The gun with a powder/ball/patch/lube combination it really likes is a very capable arm.
The weakest part of obtaining superior accuracy is the traditional iron sights and many have found that even with these limitations, shooting a 2 inch group at 100 yards can be done.

Most of all, have fun.
This sport can be great fun and conquering its challenges have convinced many shooters and hunters to give up on modern CF firearms and devote all of their shooting to enjoying these "old fashioned guns".

My TC Hawken 45 caliber shoot very well with 70 grains of Triple Seven 2F and a PRB. The guy I got it from was using this load and when I tried it found no need to try anything else, was good enough. this load is about the same as 80 grains of black powder. This fall I shot a nice doe with it and the ball went through both sides. Made a hole about the size of a quarter on both sides. Deer was 52 yards away when I shot her. TC says I can go up to 110 grains of 2F black powder with a PRB, but I see no reason to change from the load I am using. I'll save the Goex for rifle that prefer it.