54 vs 58 chart

[KW]

I have been asked and read alot lately about which is a better cal. 54 or 58? So I decided to look at some reference material (beartooth bullet ballistic site and the Sam Fadala new 2nd edition blackpowder manuel) and this is what I came up with. I am no way bias as to the outcome because I am looking at a 20g/62 cal smoothbore :grin: Hope this helps.


foxridge hawken rifle 8.25 lbs.
1-48" twist
24" barrel
GOEX FFg

54 cal 58 cal.
.535 roundball .570 roundball
weight: 231 grns (pure lead)-----------------270 grns (pure lead)
permenant wound channel: 1.388"--------- 1.425"
relative penetraton: 11.53-------------------- 12.27
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1,000fps at 100 yds ballistic data)
90 (1,006fps) powder charge 110 (1,004fps)
9,400 p.s.i. 7,600
71 thornily power 90
18 taylor k.o. 23
513 ft. lbs. energy 620
14ft. lbs. @ 11fps recoil 19ft. lbs. @ 12fps
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(reversal of the charges at 1,000fps at 100yds for comparison)
110 (1,049fps) powder charge 90 (958fps)
10,700 p.s.i. 6,300
75 thornily power 86
19 taylor k.o. 22
565 ft. lbs. energy 550
20ft. lbs. @ 12fps recoil 14ft. lbs. @ 10fps
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(side by side comparison of the same charges)

90 grns(1,006fps) powder charge 90 (958fps)
9,400 p.s.i. 6,300
71 thornily power 86
18 taylor k.o. 22
513 ft. lbs. energy 550
14ft. lbs. @ 11fps recoil 14ft. lbs. @ 10fps


110 (1,049fps) powder charge 110 (1,004)
10,700 p.s.i. 7,600
75 thornily power 90
19 taylor k.o. 23
565 ft. lbs. energy 620
20ft. lbs. @ 12fps recoil 19ft. lbs. @ 12fps

 

[Shifty]

KW , what do you think? Shifty

 

[roundball]

Shifty...I'm not KW but have an opinion...I don't believe conventional formulas apply well at all to the performance characteristics of lead round balls.

I've got both the .54 and .58cal round ball rifles and have been fortunate to have taken a number of deer with each.

And while the .54cal is an excellent deer rifle caliber, the .58cal is simply in a higher league alltogether...has a noticeably higher "whompability" factor...is noticeably more powerful and I've seen its effects on every deer I've taken with it.

I'm not scientist and am not aware of a formula that captures this "whompability factor" and expresses it correctly. But I know this...if you shoot .50 & .54cal balls into a wet clay bank for example, then run a .58cal ball into the same wet bank at the same velocity, the meaning of "whompability factor" will become immediately obvious.
:thumbsup:

 

[Shifty]

Roundball, I agree I have a 58cal. also and have done just about what you said about the clay bank,no comparison to a fifty the 58 is head and shoulder above the 50 in visible affect am currently building a 54 just because I had the parts.Would really like to buy Kit Carson Hawken kit in 58 lotta money tho. Shifty

 

[nj1639]

A 58. PRB with 70 grains aimed where the neck meets the body of a whitetail will drop them like a rock ( 30/35 yards).Ball ends up under the skin on the opposite side.
Field dressing on a hit like that is so much nicer than pulling out a bunch of mangled organs. Whompability.

 

[JiminTexas]

I'm not a rocket scientist and don't really understand all of that data in the original post, but I do understand "the wompability factor". I shoot a .530 PRB in front of 90 grains of FFFg and it blows these Texas hogs all to.....to.....to where they should have been in the first place.

 

[Jumpshot]

I'm not scientist and am not aware of a formula that captures this "whompability factor" and expresses it correctly.

Not to worry, roundball. Your name for this factor takes the science out of it and expresses it with all the eloquence necessary to get the point across. :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I agree with Roundball. The closest thing I have seen to some kind of formulation for Whompability factors, was done by a retired police officer from Michigan who looked at pistol bullets, and came up with his own system to determine how effective each round was at stopping an armed agressive assailant. I believe it was Evan Marshall. He found that large, heavy slugs, particularly those that are hollow points, had a much higher actual performance ability to stop an assailant with just one hit to the torso.

If I remember correctly, part of the study he did was a look at the relative spacing of pain nerves in the skin. On humans, he found that pain sensors were spaced about .40 " apart, pretty much in a grid, with more nerve endings appearing near areas where the nerve ganglia are located. ( Think solar plexus) He found that .45 cal. bullets were more likely to stop an agressive assailant faster than their diameter should allow, simply because that caliber is almost surely going to hit 2 or more pain sensors as it enters the body, assuring that a pain signal will be sent to the brain for reaction, even in drunks, and drug addicts.

I think the same thing explains the great success that the .58 has for killing power, even using the PRB in it, rather than conicals. The ball just is that much bigger, and disturbs that much more nerves when it hits, compared to the .50 or .54 RB. The primary wound channel drops the blood pressure much faster in the .58 than in the lesser calibers, even though the blood pressure drops fairly quickly using both calibers. Its shock to the brain, and a quick drop in blood pressure that causes the quick death, or least a state of unconscioness in deer when they are shot.

I suspect that if you also were to look at the .62 caliber in either a rifle or smoothie, you will find that it also whomps a deer pretty good, using only a PRB.

 

[Sharp Shooter]

I do not like numbers that much anymore. I know that when I go elk hunting this year I am going to take my 58cal over the 54cal. Simple as that.

 

[skeet]

Whompability factor!! Excellent description for the 58 caliber.

 

[paulvallandigham]

All numbers are used to attempt to quantify an observed result. We have several " systems" to " Measure " killing power, all of them lacking the ability to explain everything that is seen. Because of this, most people lose their fascination with numbers, as you have, but understand that anaylsis does require some resort to numbers just to compare one thing to another.

I once read an account of a German Soldier in WWl being killed by a .45 pistol bullet that knocked him off his feet. The bullet hit is achilles heel, at the back of the foot, about as far from his heart and head as you can get. In almost no case would this be considered a mortal or lethal wound, but the man died. There is no way to explain how he was knocked off his feet, either. The .45 bullet is much larger than the 9mm pistol bullet used by the German Army in that war. No mathematically formula could explain his death.

There are people who have convinced themselve that if they are shot, they will die, and therefore will themselves to do so, even when hit in non-lethal areas with wounds that would be survivable with minimal medical care. There are similar accounts of deaths in about every war fought by mankind. But that will not stop men from looking to math to attempt to find out why one ball or bullet seems to much more effective than another. And, even failing to account for every observed reaction, we learn from these attempts. I don't think its a waste of time.

Recently, my brother and I have been looking at a number of " formulae " concerning how much powder, estimating velocity, etc. relating to Black Powder loads. Most are taken from literature written back in the early 20th century, befure chronographs could be available to give exact readings. Some of the formula work well if you are using .40-.50 cal. guns, but not in small bores, or large bores. Using computers, today, its easy to run a range of calibers, ball weights, powder charges, etc. to see how close a given " formula " is. For instance, you can obtain optimum Rate of Twist for the PRB in any caliber by multiplying the caliber times 120. For Conicals, you need to use the Greenhill formula instead. Why? Becuase the one does not work well with the other. It just is. But that does not keep shooters from looking for loading data so they can shoot conicals in PRB ball ROT guns.

Whenever a shooter asks me about this topic, I ask him if he has ever hunted and shot anything with that PRB. Almost always the answer is " NO. " It becomes obvious that he just does not understand how effective the PRB is on game, and has grown up in the modern cartridge era believing that he has to use a conical that expands on impact to kill a deer. We know better.
:hmm: :thumbsup:

 

[wire]

I use a 120 grain charge of 2ff swiss with a 560 grain maxi hunter and it gives me over 3000 pounds of muzzle energy more than enough for any critter that walks in north America. This is out of a TC hawken with a 28 inch barrel only one draw back it kicks something awful it will bruise you pretty good but recoil never bothered me much anyway.

 

[Bill Hall]

That's quite a load boomer. Is that a 1" barrel? The reason I ask is because I am building a .58 rifle with a 1" GM barrel and was wondering how beefy I could load it. Bill

 

[paulvallandigham]

With All Due Respect, that same bullet, pushed with half that charge of powder will kill anything you are likely to hunt in North America. It will also save your shoulder, and the gun from the damage being done with such a load. Warren Center would be rolling in his grave to hear someone is using that kind of load in one of his guns. He built them to withstand such pressures, only to protect himself and the company he built from the lawsuits that surely would follow when the gun finally comes apart.

Years ago, I was introduced to a HUGE man, 6'5" tall, and every bit of 300 lbs. of muscles. He looked like a Linebacker for the Chicgo Bears. He was wanting to find a Custom ML rifle builder to build him a LH " Hawken" in .50 caliber. He had been shooting a .50 Cal. T/C Hawken rifle that weekend with his brother, and didn't like the bruises he sustained after only five shots! I asked him what he was shooting. He told me Maxiballs( I don't know the weight he was using) and 150 grains of 3Fg powder. I asked to shake his hand, and he asked why. I told him if he had fired that load in any gun but a T/C, his arm might not now be attached to his body.

I don't know the chamber pressures generated by using Swiss Powder( which burns faster than Goex, and at a higher pressure, for sure) behind that heavy a conical, in .54 caliber, but it has to be substantial. 120 grains of any powder is going to get your attention. The narrow buttplate on a T/C is going to cut into your shoulder with every shot, and in short order, your body will rebel. You are going to have a flinch, if you don't already have one.

It is to the credit of the company that their guns take this kind of abuse from people like you. And, Warren Center is sitting up in Heaven telling anyone who will listen how wise he was to build his guns strong enough to anticipate that kind of abuse.

I would ask you to do some simple penetration testing with that gun, and your load. Use a stack, or several stacks of wet newspaper, tied up, and shoot that load into the bundles. Then cut the load in half and fire a round into the bundles. See what the difference in penetration is. Then check the Hunting forum here to see what loads men have been using to kill deer with .54 cal. rifles. Inside 100 yds, a PRB in .54 cal. which weighs 230 grain, will pass through both sides of the chest of a deer.using 70 -80 grains of Goex FFFg powder. With a conical that weighs 560 grains, TWICE what a round ball weighs, I would expect a powder charge as light as 40 grains to be able to drive that bullet through both sides of a deer.

If nothing else, Please give your shoulder a break. I have shot heavy recoiling guns all my life. I even have written an article on how to hold your rifle to lessen the recoil effects on your body. I have been hammered by some of the best, including a .50-140-550 Sharps. A couple of years ago, a writer for Rifle Magazine went to Africa to hunt Cape Buffalo, with his Marlin .45-70. He handloaded some CorBon .420 grain jacketed soft points, to about 2100 fps, and when he shot his buffalo, his first shot went into the rear left leg and travel through the buffalo to stop in the front shoulder. His second shot entered the Left Side penetrated both lungs, and some aortas, and exited the buffalo. Unfortunately, there was a second buffalo on the other side of the first, which neither the writer nor the Professional Hunter who was guiding him, and telling him which animal to shoot, and when to shoot it. His bullet killed the second Cape Buffalo also. He had done some target workup with a heavier CorBon bullet, but took only the 320 grain ones( 437.5 grains to the ounce) with him.

When I read that account, all my desire to own and shoot even larger guns ended. I am a big guy. But shooting heavy recoiling guns rattles my nerves, even after years of practice. My .45-70 will be my big game gun for anything I ever have a chance to hunt. And I don't load it anywhere near what that writer did, usually shooting 330-350 grain bullets at about 1400 fps. That load will kill any whitetail, and I had better have a good backstop behind the deer to stop the bullet. Even better, the load is no strain on my gun.

 

[Swampman]

The .54 is more efficent, and shoots flatter. The .58 is of course more powerful if you put enough powder behind it. The .50 is barely enough for large game IMO if you are careful with your shot placement. The ball is just too light. My personal preference is the .54 because I can carry more shots on long treks, and it seems more accurate than the others.

 

[roundball]

For that matter, a Hornady .570/279grn lead ball with velocity will take most anything on the NA continent...has a significant "whompability factor" but is far easier on the shoulder (and the wallet).
You might try them...suggest an Oxyoke wonderwad over powder and .018" pillow ticking...
:thumbsup:

 

[Sharp Shooter]

If you dont shoot past 150yds trajectory doese not matter. I stay within 100yds so it really doese not matter all that much. If I was on some kind of trek or something and found something like a moose or Grizzly charging me I would want to have my 58cal.

 

[PreglerD]

I prefer also the .54. Because it has a better relation of powder you burn to energy you earn. The flight is much straighter and even at bigger distances up to 150 meters you can get good hits.

 

[Swampman]

You just can't beat a .54 for accuracy and efficency!

 

[bnb]

The local hdwe store has a used TC big bore for sale. Looks alright but I haven't checked the bore. Asking 350.00. What do you think? Been using a TC 54 since 1983. Had a old navy arms 58 before that. Got a hankering for a 58 again. No reason, just want one. Anything special to look for in checking this one out? Good deal? Thanks. BnB