BP handgun for hunting

For game up to whitetail would you use a Lyman GPP in 54 or a walker with triple 7 and a Kaido bullet

Me personally, I would not use a bp handgun for whitetail. I don't know what the muzzle energy is of a Lyman GPP in 54, it might or might not be sufficient (someone else will surely chime in) but a .44 bp revolver with a maximum load is about the same as a modern .38 special, which is not something I'd hunt deer with.

So between the two, I'd go with the Lyman GPP in 54, but I'd like to know more before I'd actually commit to using that.

jmho

For handgun hunting deer I'd rather have something made to suit me and the task. Modern production pistols aren't made for that. Military designs never were for deer hunting so the repros are lacking. But there's no reason a black powder pistol made to do the job wouldn't work great.

PS,
I went the custom route for rabbits in the 1980's.
Fine pistol. 9mm flintlock for round ball and bullets.

I've heard of folks hunting boar with ROAs (Ruger Old Army) revolvers, and while I would want something a bit more potent for any sort of pig (pigs are incredibly tough), I don't see a problem with what you propose ... here's why:

if you're going to kill deer in the woods, the mechanism of their death is usually (but not always) blood loss. If you're shooting a centerfire cartridge, a boatload of tissue is damaged, blood vessels are severed or ruptured, blood pressure drops very suddenly, and the animal looses consciousness and exsanguinates. If you're using a lower velocity (but higher caliber) roundball or conical, you don't get as impressive a wound track, but you get a bigger hole, and pretty much the same thing happens.

To paraphrase the great Elmer Keith, you want to let a lot of air in and a lot of blood out.

Therefore, it is (in my opinion) a mistake to compare the ballistics of muzzle loaders to the ballistics of centerfire weapons. The later relies on creating a boatload of tissue disruption, whereas BP weapons make a bigger hole.

So, is a .54 out of a muzzle loading pistol "enough gun" for a whitetail? I would give this a qualified yes, with the proviso that the shooter does his or her part. [insert tirade about bullet placement here] ... clearly, if you put a 9/16 inch hole through the heart or lungs (or both) of just about any mammal, they're going to shuck off this mortal coil in a pretty big hurry. if you gutshoot the same animal with a 20mm, it will probably take the poor thing hours to die.

mind you, these are the ruminations of one guy ... just my free opinion, and no doubt well worth every penny ...

get close, shoot straight, make little white packages ...

make good smoke!

So your cat hunts rabbits with that pistol? :haha:

That's a nice looking gun, by the way.

That is an absolutely false statement. A .44 cal cap n ball pistol loaded near max can have more velocity than a standard 45 Colt loading, which is well more than a 38 Spl.

I find it funny that so many people have been stating such nonsense as though it were factual. There's plenty of proof to the contrary if you look for it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP_dwo2nThA

There are many guys who use ROA's, the 1860 Army, 1858 Remington, Dragoon, and Walker for hunting hogs, with some weighing as much as 300 lbs.

When I first asked I was told this same thing. But I continued to look, and found there are actually many who have hunted whitetail and hogs with success.

The Walker was designed to take down a horse was it not? Is that not also why the Army continued to use .44 cal pistols then? The Navy not concerned with horses, but men, used the .36 cal?

rodwha said:

That is an absolutely false statement. A .44 cal cap n ball pistol loaded near max can have more velocity than a standard 45 Colt loading, which is well more than a 38 Spl.

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Muzzle velocity isn't the issue, muzzle energy is. Of course as we all know with both center fire and bp guns changing bullet weight and charge changes muzzle energy, but typical comparisons are

.44 Remington with 3F and round ball: muzzle energy about 289 ft-lbs

.38 special: muzzle energy about 235 ft-lbs

.45 Colt: muzzle energy about 523 ft-lbs

.45 ACP: muzzle energy about 616 ft/lbs

so the muzzle energy of a cap and ball .44 is a lot closer to the muzzle energy of a .38 than it is to a .45, either .45 colt or .45 ACP.

Not true at all.

A .44 with a RB and using Goex, Pyrodex, etc. has energy figures like that. But use Swiss, Olde Eynsford, or Triple 7 and those numbers climb quite a bit. In fact Mr. Beliveau's testing with T7 and a RB produced 371 ft/lbs of energy. Much higher than the figures you give, and that's with a reduced load through a ROA, which has similar capacity as an 1858 and 1860.

I'm not aware of a 45 ACP +P round with energy figures over 550 ft/lbs.

From Mr. Beliveau's testing with T7 a Lee conical and Kaido conical both produced nearly 500 ft/lbs of energy.

There's a fellow who researched CW cartridge loads for the pistols who claims to have found that Swiss was on par with the energy of the powders used back then in the revolvers.

He gave authorization to share his work, but they are too long to submit in a post. I would be happy to email them to anyone wanting to read how he went about it all.

The answer to the question then is it depends on what type of powder you would use.

If don't want to use an energetic powder than it's likely to not make a very effective weapon, though I've read of people using their .50 cal rifle, which has slightly higher energy figures at 125 yds, and getting complete passthroughs on deer, though a .490" RB certainly has a little more size and mass for a slightly bigger hole and better penetrating qualities.

By no means would I use a ball and Goex though.

But Goex pushing that 255 grn conical only produced 744 fps with 314 ft/lbs of energy, but it penetrated 10 one gallon jugs whereas the RB only penetrated 5 go them.

Not that one gallon jugs computes to flesh, but it does show that the weight gave it a significant increase in penetrating qualities.

But look at the difference that a reduced load of T7 gave vs a full load of Goex.

Depends on what state you are in for what you can use also. PA has a minimum 50 cal. for ML handguns and big game.

Indeed.

Here it is not loaded from the muzzle, and therefor cannot be used during muzzleloader season. But it can be used during standard season, and for hogs at any time. I can also carry it as a backup during muzzleloader season.

Well, I'm not going to argue with you about it.

Those are the numbers I have, upon which I base my original statement that .44 bp (using actual black powder) is similar to .38. All I can say is that I didn't just invent those numbers. :v

I've said for years that the three things people will get into very hot arguments about are religion, politics, and ballistics. :surrender:

Didn't invent the numbers...Just used weak powder.

I've seen that Swiss and Olde Eynsford (both actual BP) both give similar numbers to Triple 7 in 3F configuration through pistols.

Those numbers are well over what a 38 Spl produces, and very much like a 45 Colt loading (not cowboy action loads).

Squirrel Tail said:

So your cat hunts rabbits with that pistol? :haha:

That's a nice looking gun, by the way.

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And a nice looking cat!

As I said a Walker with triple-7 and a Kaido bullet which generates a lot of power - I would want to stay within close ranges as well

".....the three things people will get into very hot arguments about are religion, politics, and ballistics."

:bow:

Not hardly worth chiming in on this thread except to say that I personally know of people who have killed whitetail deer with single shot percussion .45 cal and .50 cal. pistols. Clean kills at short range. As was mentioned earlier, a hole through the heart/lungs is a kill shot. You don't need to blow an animal all to Hell, only poke a hole in the right spot and it will die.

Last year I shot a small whitetail buck with a Ruger Old Army loaded with 30 gr. of Goex 3FG and a cast 255 gr. swc. It was a followup shot after my .50 cal. rifle's Hornady HP/XTP bullet fragmented on his shoulder bone without penetrating into his vitals. Luckily, he stood there for over a minute and allowed me to draw the pistol and shoot him through the lungs. He went ~ 50 yards and fell over. The pistol bullet did better at low velocities than the rifle shot did at high velocity.



Bullet placement is the key along with an adequately constructed bullet.

Squirrel Tail said:

So your cat hunts rabbits with that pistol? :haha:

That's a nice looking gun, by the way.

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Heh, you'd have to tie a pork chop around that rabbits neck.