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What caliber is the flattest shooting?

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stelonbeene

32 Cal
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I am new to black powder and i’ve been curious about what caliber is the flattest shooting between .45-.58. I’m looking for something for hunting that can shoot reliably out to at least 200 yards. Thank you.
 
I was about to write' There aint no such animile' but then thought of 451 & 461s . but to shoot at a creature its likley to miss or wound. Suggest you stalk close as you can then get ten yards closer . And if long range is your interest these late percussion calibers will still give good target accuracy out to one thousand yards . But do not expect to hit game if you can see them anyway .
Rudyard
 
While you can shoot out to 200 yards and further with some black powder guns, none of them are as "flat shooting "as modern. Black powder guns tend to shoot "slow and heavy" compared to modern. When my eyes were younger I shot consistantly out to 150 yards with a 45 using hollow based mini's and a woodpile as a bench rest.But it was not "flat shooting" just consistant. It took practice and range estimating to get good results.
 
At a club I once belonged to we had a 500 yard full size buffalo gong target. Yes we could hit it occasionally with 50 and 54 caliber traditional guns using patched round ball, but if the wind was blowing forget it. With my .50 caliber gun shooting 90 grains of 3f with a patched round ball I estimate I had to hold about 16-20 FEET above the target in order to hit it, and then if it were live game it would have been a wounding shot. As said earlier, stalking closer to within reasonable range is more likely to give a killing shot without wounding the game.
 
I am new to black powder and i’ve been curious about what caliber is the flattest shooting between .45-.58. I’m looking for something for hunting that can shoot reliably out to at least 200 yards. Thank you.

None

At least none of what we call "traditional" muzzleloaders, that are "hunting" rifles will meet this criteria. Of course some folks will differ from me on what they define is a "hunting rifle", but I think because you're new to this tech, we are talking factory produced or semi-custom built rifles that fall into this forum's definition of "traditional".

It's old tech. You have entered a world where "long range" shooting of large game starts when you try a shot past 100 yards. Now for something like pronghorn sheep, that will likely pose a problem as they are mostly harvested at what black powder folks consider very long range. So lets exclude pronghorns right now, and consider deer.

In the past there were some fellows who attempted to have custom made rifles, that would shoot a round ball with a very flat trajectory to 200 yards, and ended up with very large bore, on the order of .84 caliber to 1.00 caliber rifles, using custom rifling with a custom twist rate, and massive powder loads.

The funny thing was..., although these rifles were built and used..., the fellows using them were taking game at 100 yards or less, even when hunting dangerous game.

“200 yards may be taken as the very outside limit at which it is ever advisable to fire at ordinary game ; not because the rifle may not be accurate enough to ensure frequent hitting at much greater distances, but because the probability of killing at such ranges is very small indeed ; and humanity, not to say sportsmanlike feeling, demand that we shall not knowingly run so strong a chance of wounding, and consigning to a miserable and lingering death, the animals over which we have dominion, …., it is only on the open plain that such long shots even as this will be likely to present themselves. In the jungle, at least one-half are under 50 yards, three-fourths under 75, and all, with scarcely an exception are under 100 ; that is to say, these are the distances at which animals are usually killed in jungle shooting, and I imagine that the case is very much the same in other forest countries." James Forsyth, credited with the creation of Forsyth Rifling and author of The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles 1867

I have found the same distances to be true in North America, as they were for Forsyth in India.

So what you are looking for is accuracy out to 100 yards, which many people define as putting all the shots from a steady position with a rest into an area smaller than a 6" circle at that distance.... with enough velocity upon impact to take the animal. Some folks want it under a 4" circle, and often get that very thing. Once you have this rifle, then you work on getting the animal in closer than that 100 yards.

LD
 
I am new to black powder and i’ve been curious about what caliber is the flattest shooting between .45-.58. I’m looking for something for hunting that can shoot reliably out to at least 200 yards. Thank you.
You will need to get a modern in-line & shoot saboted bullets with 150 grain pellet powder charges to attain "at least" 200 yard performance. Even that will be a shaky proposition. We don't talk about those kind of rifles here but our sister forum Modern Muzzleloading does, so that may be a more appropriate place for your question.
 
@stelonbeene,

Any of the calibers can be accurate at any of the ranges up to 200 yards. It takes a lot of practice to learn the aim point to bring the rifle on target. For most calibers, such as a 45 getting the impact to be on target at 75 yards, the impact at 50 will be an inch or so high and an inch or so low at 100 and 4 to 6 inches or more low at 200 yards. These rifles can hardly be considered to be flat shooting.

For a long time and a long time ago, I shot the NMLRA Silhouette targets from crow shaped steel targets at 50 yards to bear targets at 200 yards. The rifles used were from my 45 caliber rifle to 54 caliber rifles. None of these calibers could be said to have a flat trajectory. My 45 perhaps was flatter because of the lighter ball, but my point of aim changed considerably as the distance changed. None the less, I held at the base of the crow at 50, center of the groundhog at 100, the hump of the buffalo at 150, just over the head of the turkey at 150 and just over one of the ears of the bear at 200 yards ( the impact was about 2 feet below the ear when winds didn't blow the ball off).

Lighter balls will shoot flatter, but then consideration will be required to find a rate of twist and depth of groove that can stabilize the ball with the relatively heavy powder charge needed to shoot a flatter trajectory at those distances.
 
The furthest trail walk gong we have is 150 yards. It seems easier for me to hit it and the 100 than the 25. Eye sight :-(

Flattest shooter? Though all my research it was the 40 cal. I went with a 45 cal for hunting reasons.

MY 45 cal ball travels at 1633fps with a standard charge, and 74-5gr for a full charge (2040fps). via the Davenport formula.
The lesser charge is a flatter, close group load. the max load is the distance load.
At 150 yards the target is a 6 inch hole and the gong is behind it. The 25 yard target is a 1 inch vertical square piece of steel a foot long. Either one is not an easy target to hit.
 
None

At least none of what we call "traditional" muzzleloaders, that are "hunting" rifles will meet this criteria. Of course some folks will differ from me on what they define is a "hunting rifle", but I think because you're new to this tech, we are talking factory produced or semi-custom built rifles that fall into this forum's definition of "traditional".

It's old tech. You have entered a world where "long range" shooting of large game starts when you try a shot past 100 yards. Now for something like pronghorn sheep, that will likely pose a problem as they are mostly harvested at what black powder folks consider very long range. So lets exclude pronghorns right now, and consider deer.

In the past there were some fellows who attempted to have custom made rifles, that would shoot a round ball with a very flat trajectory to 200 yards, and ended up with very large bore, on the order of .84 caliber to 1.00 caliber rifles, using custom rifling with a custom twist rate, and massive powder loads.

The funny thing was..., although these rifles were built and used..., the fellows using them were taking game at 100 yards or less, even when hunting dangerous game.

“200 yards may be taken as the very outside limit at which it is ever advisable to fire at ordinary game ; not because the rifle may not be accurate enough to ensure frequent hitting at much greater distances, but because the probability of killing at such ranges is very small indeed ; and humanity, not to say sportsmanlike feeling, demand that we shall not knowingly run so strong a chance of wounding, and consigning to a miserable and lingering death, the animals over which we have dominion, …., it is only on the open plain that such long shots even as this will be likely to present themselves. In the jungle, at least one-half are under 50 yards, three-fourths under 75, and all, with scarcely an exception are under 100 ; that is to say, these are the distances at which animals are usually killed in jungle shooting, and I imagine that the case is very much the same in other forest countries." James Forsyth, credited with the creation of Forsyth Rifling and author of The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles 1867

I have found the same distances to be true in North America, as they were for Forsyth in India.

So what you are looking for is accuracy out to 100 yards, which many people define as putting all the shots from a steady position with a rest into an area smaller than a 6" circle at that distance.... with enough velocity upon impact to take the animal. Some folks want it under a 4" circle, and often get that very thing. Once you have this rifle, then you work on getting the animal in closer than that 100 yards.

LD
I always question those 18th C. writers who claimed "snipers" could hit a man at 274 yards, etc. I just simply believe they didn't have or use the correct measurement. No one should be shooting at a living animal at 200 yards, anyway!
 
Many years ago the top round ball shooter in the country told me that the .40 cal is the most “ballisticaly accurate” ball you can shoot. I have shot a lot of .50 and .40 cal rb’s and believe the .40 to group better for me.
I don't agree with that statement? I have shot a few different Caliber rifles and once dialed in they all shot close to the same. I also know if you shoot at long range and/or there is a wind blowing you need to leave the little caliber rifle at home.
 
flat shooting isn't what you will find with a muzzleloader (traditional).
at 200 yards any projectile from a muzzleloader has lost so much energy it has iffy killing power. i know i will be flamed for that statement but i standby it.
I have always hunted muzzleloaders the same way i did a Bow and arrow. get as close as you can. the thrill is more than sniping at long range.
 
A .45 shooting conicals out of a fast twist barrel becomes essentially a 45-70, not traditional in 1700's, but that is not what the OP asked for.

Not something I am interested in but can it be done, yes. That is what the Irish shooters did at Creedmoor in 1874, muzzleloaders at 1000 yards.
 
Flat shooting and black powder are a contradiction in terms. It's simply not happening with a muzzleloader, and even with BP cartridge's (which are not the subject of this board) we are talking about rainbow like trajectories. A 45-70 will have over 20 inches of drop at 200 yards.

If you are hunting with a muzzleloader, get closer to the game.
 
The OP asked for flattest shooting, I tried to help, If the Irish team shot accurately with muzzleloaders at 1000 yards using BP do you not think it could be done at 200?

In fact they would have won against the American cartridge shooters if not for a shooter getting on the wrong target.

Shooting BPCRS at 500 yards with a 45-70 is pretty easy with a vernier sight and while the drop is an interesting bit of trivia, it is adjusted for and no big deal.

Read more.
 
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LD beat me to it but I agree that no BP rifle can be considered as shooting "flat". This is especially true when shooting round ball. The .40 can be as seriously accurate as mine was but that also goes for my .45 and .50. I have killed deer around the 100 yard mark (+ or -) but only because I was hunting a large hay field, plus I had a rifle rest. I'd put my average distance to game at well under 30 yards. I do not judge the ethics of other hunters, but much beyond 90 to 100 yards is not really sporting for ME. I believe closer and closer is the only way to go.
 

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