1/48" twist and conicals

I am looking to buy a 1/48" twist 50 caliber barrel that is 24" long with .005-.006 goove depth with the intent to shoot pure lead conicals and ball-ets from 240-385 grains. Does the 1/48" twist do well with this weight range of conical. I would expect at least 4" or less at 100 yards bench groups. Intended charge weights would be 80-90 grains of Goex black and used for whitetails only.

1/48" 50 cal. conical shooters; how does yours do?

I played with conicals in my t/c flinter 50 cal. 1 in 48 twist seem to shoot the 320 grain maxi-ball with 80 grains of goex 3F excellent,on a good day can put 3 shots at the 100 yard target clover leaf group also using a wad under the bullet.I do have peep sight on the flinter :hatsoff:

Walks with fire said:

1/48" 50 cal. conical shooters;

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Sorry, no .50cal conical experience.

For what it's worth I do keep one conical around...TC's .45cal 255grn Maxi-Hunters...a tack driver in TC's .45cal x 1:48" barrels and devastating on deer.

Given that track record, I'd assume TC has it figured out for the .50cal as well

1 turn in 48" is "suposed" to be a happy medium and shoot both conicals and round ball equally well. The Russians have a saying for that sort of thing. "A skinney cow is not a gazelle." I have Cabelas version of the Hawkin (made by Investarms, I think) with a very similar barrel to what you have and I shoot only patched round ball. But that's mostly because I'm too lazy to cast my own conicals and too cheap to buy them.

1 turn in 48" is "suposed" to be a happy medium and shoot both conicals and round ball equally well. The Russians have a saying for that sort of thing. "A skinney cow is not a gazelle." I have Cabelas version of the Hawkin (made by Investarms, I think) with a very similar barrel to what you have and I shoot only patched round ball. But that's mostly because I'm too lazy to cast my own conicals and too cheap to buy them.

I shoot a 370 grain maxi. out of my T/C .50 caliber flintlock. It like 85 grains of Goex 2F. 2" group at 50 yards off the bench.

I have a Traditions 1in48 Deerhunter rifle that has deep rifling probably .006 or more and it shoots 385 Great plains bullets like a dream with anything up to 100gr. of 2F. Not bad for $99 dollar special. My T/C rifles don't shoot the conicals as well after 70gr. of 2F.

"Given that track record, I'd assume TC has it figured out for the .50cal as well"

during their developement of the Hawken TC designed the Maxi and found the twist /rifling 1/48 combo that did the best with their design of projectile and also gave suitable results with the RB.

I use both conicals and PRB out of my Investarm .54 Hawken. Heavier bullets work better than the light ones. a friend has a Investarm Hawken hunter in .50. Uses also conicals 320 grs works also pretty well. 1 '' at 50 meters.

As the twist gets slower, the bullet has to get shorter. The faster twists do well with long bullets, It should shoot maxis good, but it will not like sabots.

You know I hear that about sabots from time to time and maybe is juat the degree of accuracy that's being referred to, but back in the early 90's when I was transitioning from a modern ML to TC Hawken caplocks, I had a lot of left over modern supplies.

In using them up I found sabots to have very acceptable accuray in TC's 1:48"...both Traditions green sabots with .429/240grn JHPs and MML black sabots with Hornady .452/300grn XTPs...took a few deer with them before going 100% RBs

I have used Buffalo conicals in my .54 Renegade with one in 48 twist and it shot consistent cloverleaf groups at 50 yards! I feel it's 100 yard performance was limited by the sights that came with the rifle. I have no doubt that had it been scoped to determine its accuracy potential, it would have been wonderful. As it was, I had to settle for 4" groups...but keep in mind, the projectiles were already over half an inch thick!

Dan

I've had good luck with Buffalo's 245 grain Ballets. There is only a slight degradation of accuracy as compared to PRBs. I bought a mold for 250 grain R. E. A. L.s but have yet to acquire sufficient unalloyed lead. The rifle is the ultimate cheapy, a CVA Bobcat. :v

DanChamberlain said:

I feel it's 100 yard performance was limited by the sights that came with the rifle. I have no doubt that had it been scoped to determine its accuracy potential, it would have been wonderful. As it was, I had to settle for 4" groups.

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BirdDog6 gave me a tip once that helps significantly when seeing what a load will do at distance but just using open sights...I've personally tried it and it does indeed help fine tune the aimpoint.

Take a sheet of bright, gaudy fluorescent notebook paper (pink, etc), cut or fold it over once so you end up with a large triangle...staple it to a piece of cardboard with the "main point" pointed down.

That gives a very bright, very sharply defined pin-point to rest right on top of the front bead every time...makes shooting with iron sights more precise...gives a better idea of true group size capability from a load.

the 6 great plains bullets of 385 grains i shot out of my T/C hawken .50 1/48" over 80 grains 3f were 2" at 50 yards fer 3 and 4" at 100 yards fer the other 3 :v ...........bob

Thanks White Buffalo, that's what I am looking for. I don't want to shoot the exotic stuff; Just regular Great Plains, Buffalo Ball-ets, and TC Maxi and Maxi-Hunters from 240-385 grains for a 50 caliber. My 1/28" twist won't shoot them and don't intend to lob a bus at whitetails under 100 yards. I guess to get exceptable accuracy in the 1/28 twist I need to go 450 grains or more--no thanks! I think I may just get the barrel and try them out for myself.

I had very good luck in my T/C Greyhawk (.50,1:48,24") using a load similar to White Buffalo's: 350gr. Maxi Hunter over 80gr. of Pyro P. Was getting around 2.5" groups at 100yds as I recall.

T/C tech said using 'P' behind Maxis was a no-no so shifted to 90gr. RS...which does almost as good if I use a Bore Button under the Maxi. Now that I have some Goex fffg, I'll try White Buffalo's load and see if it matches what 'P' was delivering.

I shot sabots in the Greyhawk a few years ago to see what they'd do. No luck with 300gr./.44, a little better with 240gr./.44, and very good to excellent with 210/.44 and 180/.44. Pretty much agreed with what the Greenhill Formula predicted; the 240s and 300s were too long to stabilize in 1:48, not so the lighter bullets. I was using T/C Max Express sabots and they are very stiff. A sabot with softer petals may have done better. The saboted 180/.44 was a fun plinker.
Bob

Walks with fire said:

I am looking to buy a 1/48" twist 50 caliber barrel that is 24" long with .005-.006 goove depth with the intent to shoot pure lead conicals and ball-ets from 240-385 grains. Does the 1/48" twist do well with this weight range of conical. I would expect at least 4" or less at 100 yards bench groups. Intended charge weights would be 80-90 grains of Goex black and used for whitetails only.

1/48" 50 cal. conical shooters; how does yours do?

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The American public has been inundated with anti-round ball propaganda for decades now. All of which is complete BS. But the makers of the various bullets, sabots etc need to sell their wares thus the RB is no good.
The longer bullets designed for MLs don't do all that great from most reports and will not increase killing power no matter what the hype might be. On deer there is no need for extra penetration and on larger animals where the extra penetration is supposed to help, when fired out of 48" twists the bullets do not track straight through the animal, thus the intended internal target is missed by a deflected bullet.
If you want to shoot conicals you need a faster twist 30-36.
For deer sized game the RB will work just as well and probably better. The velocity is much lower with the conical and this reduces its effectiveness. The bullet designs are also generally bad for hunting.
You get worse accuracy, higher trajectory, higher recoil and no discernible increase in killing power.
I would also point out that these things will move off the powder charge easily if the rifle is carried muzzle down. There was a reason why bullets of this type were not popular with hunters of the 1850-1890 era. They create more problems than they solve.
Even the British who hunted really large game in Africa and India relied on the RB, or belted ball, for the most part.
This is reported in Sir Samuel Baker's writings and in Forsythe's book "The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles" from the 1850s. One must then ask himself why these men who did extensive shooting or large and dangerous game didn't use conicals except for a bursting shell which Forsythe experimented with. Forsythe stated that a 15 gauge ball (about 466 grains, 68 caliber) would shoot through an Indian Elephants head from side to side if properly hardened and propelled by 5 drams (137 gr.) of powder.
If you need to increase the killing power of a ML arm you increase the ball diameter. A .62 rifle using a RB of 320 gr +- pushed by 90-130 gr of powder will be a better game killer than any 50 cal ML conical bullet and it will operate at far lower pressures and won't move off the powder no matter how the gun is bumped of jiggled.
The 54 RB is a near perfect WT caliber, BTW, when driven by 80-120 gr of powder.

Dan

Well I'm not so sure that Sir Samuel Baker did shoot round balls. Baby was supposed to be a 4 bore and the projectile weighed 8 ox. That doesn't sound very round to me. :shake:

My very first hunting experience shooting a ML was a 58 with conicals (ouch!). To say they don't track true through an animal is BS. Using a Hornaday GP (525 gr)I shot a buck at ca. 35 yds; it ran like not being hit and the tree behind it colapsed (4" maple). How could I have missed? Upon inspection I found hair/blood/parts and realized it was a pass through. Tracking the deer showed double lung shot and deer ca. 25 yds away dead as a stone.

Overkill, yes. Did the bullet veer when it hit, no. I'm sure this slug would have done nicely on a moose, elk, bear, etc. As many have pointed out here the conical was much more than needed for a deer as I killed the maple too :grin: But back then I didn't know better having only used "modern" weapons....