Max kill distance for PRB

[GBG]

A big RB will kill at long range and the closer you get the better it works. I prefer to hear someone brag "Knocked him flat!"

 

[JJasper]

This seems like a good place for a picture showing how the lowly, 100% lead roundball flattens out and gets really big as it travels through an unlucky animal (or Redcoat). The pictures below are of a 54 cal. ball that I shot into a big stack of telephone books at 40 yards. It turned into an .80 caliber pancake and traveled about 7 inches through that very dense medium. While they may not hold their velocity like a conical, a lead ball does turn into something that looks like a pregnant nickel when it hits flesh, and that makes a very big wound channel. I don't know how much a ball expands after it has traveled 400 yards, but pure lead is so soft that I imagine it still flattens out quite a bit.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Yep! That's what those balls look like if you can recover them from an animal. This expansion in soft tissue is the main advantage of using a Lead BALL for shooting light boned, and soft-tissued game like deer, over using any bullet- even those made of pure lead, too. The soft tissue of a deer does not slow a bullet down fast enough to cause reliable expansion, and bullets tend to pass completely through a deer.(So do lead balls, for that matter, but they still expand more even at slower velocities).

I watched a Civil War archeology show( History Detectives) on the History Channel this past Week, and they showed a " Musket" ball found with metal detectors on one of the battlefields. It was round- obviously a Miss!, but that was not mentioned. In fact, it showed NO marks of rifling on it- altho there may have been some hidden under all the dirt that covered the ball. I am suspecting this was a ball that was Dropped, and not shot at all. A ball that hits dirt, when fired, at almost any range, will flatten out, too.

 

[bdhutier]

Thomas Plunket killed a French general at anywhere between 200-600 yards with a Baker Rifle (granted that is a belted ball). He followed up that shot with another one, showing it wasn't pure luck.

General Colbert... I remember the name because of that clueless moron on TV.

 

[Stumpkiller]

I've only ever recovered one round ball. This is a 0.490" ball that was a 10 yard frontal shot on a deer and I found in beneath the skin on the backside of the hip. About 3 feet of penetration. Expanded all the way up to 0.520". Almost not at all. Load was 85 gr FFg. Note the weave pattern pressed into the lead - cotton is stronger than lead (at least when lubed).

Clipped the arteries off the top of the heart. The buck reared up on his hind legs and then fell in a heap. Absolutely perfect performance without expansion necessary.

 

This seems like a good place for a picture showing how the lowly, 100% lead roundball flattens out and gets really big as it travels through an unlucky animal (or Redcoat). The pictures below are of a 54 cal. ball that I shot into a big stack of telephone books at 40 yards.

It's very hard to imagine that a ball would flatten as much when hitting flesh as it would when hitting a phone book. Doesn't make sense.

 

[hanshi]

The few round balls I've managed to recover from deer (.45 & .50) had all expanded dramatically and were just under the off-side skin, both broadside and angled shots. One was also a frontal shot but I never was able to recover that one.

 

[nkbj]

Use big as needed and enough powder to do the job.

Save some milk jugs and shoot them filled with water. It's worth seeing how your rifle performs.

 

[Ray-Vigo]

They do flatten out... a lot, though it depends on what it hits. I shot a board at about 50 yards and the .50 ball made one hell of a mess out of it, especially the back side of the board. The board is probably more akin to bone than flesh. It's still a rough thing to think of though.

Though I will admit that in 1776-83, the doctor trying to treat you combined with bacteria are probably every bit as lethal as the lead ball that landed you in his care.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Expansion of any bullet, even modern high velocity rifles, depends on the resistance of the material hit and on the velocity at impact. Velocity of roundballs will be greatly reduced at longer range. I've recovered balls from deer and elk which were extremely flattened. But I also took a doe with a frontal shot from my wife's little .50 caliber carbine loaded with only 50 grains of 3f and found the ball in a ham. Aside from rifling marks it could have been used again. Very much like Stumpkiller's example. At the time I attributed the lack of expansion to reduced velocity but stumpkiller was using a stout load at short range. So now I'm thinking that a frontal shot just offers less resistance, no bone and very little muscle.