Elk hunting max range.

[Patched]

Shooting & Loading Opinions Galore !!!
I knew nothing when I started shooting & collecting antique firearms as a young history buff.
Six plus decades of active study & collecting, competing & hunting with a wide variety of primarily original English & European flint & percussion firearms developed by the worlds master gunmakers who set world records for long range accuracy,, they taught the world about any successes in accuracy we achieve today.
Early master English & European gunmakers who immigrated to America's colonies taught most of our early gunakers how to build.

*The vast majority of the large bore rifled long guns i've owned & competed that were developed to shoot patched round balls usually feature rifling with one turn in length of the barrel & the rifling depth has varied from .012 to .018 deep.
The above large bore rifles generally had 2-3 leaf rear sights & required powder charges of approximately 80 gr of 2F to provide exceptional long range accuracy.
Everyone has their favorite style & period firearm. I tended to gravitate mostly to big bore Jaegers & English & French sporting rifle & pistols because of their quality workmanship, light weight & unbeatable accuracy if I loaded properly & did my part.

Rifling depth is usually deeper in all earlier vintage PRB firearms, I suspect to utilize the thicker fabrics mfg of that era or use of buckskin as patching material.
I have recovered original flint & percussion era round ball firearms that were still loaded with buckskin used as patching.

* Early firearms that were designed to primarily shoot projectiles generally featured much shallower depth rifling with a faster twist.
The rifling depth & rate of twist on Whitworth & belted ball rifles I've owned & shot are exceptions.
** Powder charges:
Almost without exception all of the above 'original' rifles including the Whitworth were designed to require much less of a powder charge to obtain suburb long range accuracy.
Most of the original larger bore Hawken rifles I've observed & fired have had rifling around .012 deep & featured one in 48" twist rifling.
CHALLENGE;
During the 60s-80s while having a muzzleloading storefront I taught muzzleloading to improve accuracy & hopefully increase sales in my area..
Many newer shooters during these years were using huge powder charges with their .45 & .50 cal. rifles in the area of 120 grains & getting poor accuracy. Maybe due to watching the big bang overloads used in frontier movies ?
At the range I would have them fire their overcharged rifles over approximately 40 feet of white butcher paper. the unburned powder, poor hits on the target & shredded patches demonstrated how much powder they were wasting.

At that point most were open to learning how to determine proper powder charges & the right patched round ball combo to insure better accuracy.
None of the above info is new to those who have also learned from the history of the worlds master gun builders.
Relic shooter,, at 81 I'm now a relic

Good advice for sure…
Also during those same 60s-80s, Lt James Forsyth’s 1867 book “The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles“ magically reappeared and circulated amongst us muzzleloader fanatics.
The highlights of his book ( written from his extensive African/Indian dangerous big game hunting experiences) emphatically endorsed the use of:
1) Round balls instead of conical bullets
2) Very slow twist pitched deepcut rifling 1:75 twist
3) Larger caliber bores
4) Large charges of powder with durable patching and over powder wads or patches.

Sam Fadala in the 80s wrote about how well this worked…I too can vouch for James Forsyth’s ballistic ideas…
My serious hunting guns are .54 cal 1:75“or 72” Getz deep round bottom rifling barrels….pretty much take all the powder you can endure while maintaining accuracy…
Around 130 grains (volume) unburned powder is flying and recoil picks up…but the accuracy remains, trajectory is flat and substantial authority is delivered out to about 130 yds…
None of my Thomson/Cabela/CVA “Hawken “ fakes were ever able to take more than 60 grs of powder with out losing all semblance of accuracy….just some more information for the OP to digest.

 

[Gollywomper]

Looking at the ballistics from Hornady. The PA conical could assist a bit if I can get them to shoot accurately.

 

[longcruise]

I had good accuracy with them from a TC 1:48 but I only shot 70 gr 3f Scheutzen. Faster may improve accuracy.

 

[Gollywomper]

I had good accuracy with them from a TC 1:48 but I only shot 70 gr 3f Scheutzen. Faster may improve accuracy.

If I can get them to shoot I will be happy. If not I may look into a fast twist barrel for a 275-300gr conical.

 

[Relic shooter]

READING FIRED PATCHES WILL DIAGNOSES THE MAJORITY OF POOR ACCURACY ISSUES;

If recovered patches are shredded around the contact area with the bore & outward your getting blowby past the PRB & it's probably also skidding over the rifling & destroying any hopes of accuracy.
Same effect you would obtain by shooting a .bare 44 cal. diameter slug in a .45 cal barrel.

*On the subject of shooting lead slugs, in past years I have obtained excellent long range accuracy shooting slugs in muzzleloaders where I've tightly patched them with lubed high density pillow ticking material. I often place a card wad over the powder charge to reduce chance of blowby or deforming the slugs base. Sometimes need to experiment with different length & weight slugs to get the best results.

The vast majority of all factory produced muzzleloaders have much shallower depth rifling than original flint & percussion era muzzleloaders.
Barrels with shallow depth rifling require a much tighter PRB fit to maintain excellent grouping with heavy powder charges especially with faster twist rifling.
When using heavier loads in modern factory produced barrels that have shallow depth rifling & faster twist such as 1-in 48", much improved accuracy & groups can often be obtained if you just increase the ball diameter slightly &/or use thicker, high density cotton lubed patches.
Relic shooter

 

[Gollywomper]

READING FIRED PATCHES WILL DIAGNOSES THE MAJORITY OF POOR ACCURACY ISSUES;

If recovered patches are shredded around the contact area with the bore & outward your getting blowby past the PRB & it's probably also skidding over the rifling & destroying any hopes of accuracy.
Same effect you would obtain by shooting a .bare 44 cal. diameter slug in a .45 cal barrel.

*On the subject of shooting lead slugs, in past years I have obtained excellent long range accuracy shooting slugs in muzzleloaders where I've tightly patched them with lubed high density pillow ticking material. I often place a card wad over the powder charge to reduce chance of blowby or deforming the slugs base. Sometimes need to experiment with different length & weight slugs to get the best results.

The vast majority of all factory produced muzzleloaders have much shallower depth rifling than original flint & percussion era muzzleloaders.
Barrels with shallow depth rifling require a much tighter PRB fit to maintain excellent grouping with heavy powder charges especially with faster twist rifling.
When using heavier loads in modern factory produced barrels that have shallow depth rifling & faster twist such as 1-in 48", much improved accuracy & groups can often be obtained if you just increase the ball diameter slightly &/or use thicker, high density cotton lubed patches.
Relic shooter

Any books on muzzleloader accuracy that you would recommend?

 

[Nuthatch]

The only one I’ve shot with a round ball was a .490 at 50 yards. The ball lodged under the hide on the opposite side. It went through a rib and a lot of shoulder meat but no big bone.

I have a feeling that the rb will penetrate less the further out you get. They don’t expand a whole lot so higher velocity will probably mean more penetration. I still feel confident you could kill an elk at 100 yards if you don’t hit any major bones. What concerns me more than anything is the lack of blood on the ground with only an entrance hole.

This is the whole thought process that has me looking into conicals or something bigger than a .50 rb.

It’s counterintuitive and depends on velocity, but slower speeds can increase penetration. Pure lead often expands on impact but how much it expands depends on the speed, just like pistol bullets. The more expansion you get, the less penetration. The slower the ball, the less expansion you get and you can end up getting more penetration. That’s all within certain limits, of course. A ball at 600 fps isn’t going to out penetrate a ball at 1600 fps. But I’ve had conicals (and centerfire bullets) zip through at distance and fail to do so at closer ranges. Not on elk, I’ll grant. But deer, pigs & bear. My round ball hunts have been with hardcast and Bi alloy so those don’t expand anyway.

 

[Hatchet Jack]

I took a bull elk at 208 yards this past September in Colorado. I used a .50 cal Renegade with a 1-28'' twist Green Mountain Barrel, 460 grain Bullshop conical on top of a wool wad pushed by 85 weighed grains of Swiss 2F powder.

 

[ETipp]

The never ending argument of PRB or Conical will be just that, never ending.

However, there are always more to story than what some may claim and/or anecdotal. If anyone really wants to see how it works in the real world, just do a YouTube search on deer hunting with a Round ball (or something to that effect). Do an overall average viewing and it will become clear that average distances critters run after being hit by a RB is an eye opener (mostly .50 caliber). If that's not enough to get the point across, then it would behoove anyone that desires to elk hunt to consider other aspects that's rarely mentioned, but can be extremely important.

Elk hunting is not deer hunting. Shots are often taken at longer distances, not always, but more times than not. So anyone "should" understand that the RB is not the best candidate for such. Don't believe it, just pull up some actual ballistic charts and compare.

Terrain. This is something seldom discussed and I sometimes wonder if it even crosses some folks minds. As a well seasoned elk hunter that lived out west for many years, I can promise you right here and now that terrain can be a real challenge, in terms of a hit elk that bolts on its death run. Many times those elk will run downhill. That means you must go down there to retrieve it. Ain't nothing light about an elk and you ain't going to be getting all the meat out in one trip IF you are alone. Even with one other person, its a real job. And depending on what type of terrain the elk chooses to expire in, it can and does add much more to the equation.

Now then, to further prove my point, lets examine the time of day the elk was shot. I have killed my fair share of elk late in the evening. In the big mountains it gets dark real fast like. The last thing I wanted to do was to have to walk down a North slope with all the downfall to even try to find the elk. Then it takes a while to get it cut up and ready to pack out. Not fun to do in the dark especially if camp is a quite a ways away. Been there, done that one. More times than I care to remember I have made it back to my camper, exhausted, only to have a sleepless night worrying if bears or wolves are enjoying feasting on my year supply of elk meat. In fact, I had made up my mind that the next time I was confronted with such a situation, I was going to spend the night up there to ascertain nothing got the elk meat. I packed about as light as one dared to do so that meant using a small space blanket and hopefully being able to keep some sort of small fire going. Might as well, I was going to have a sleepless night anyway in my camper while worrying about losing the meat.

Shot placement. We don't always hit where we are aiming for. The last thing I want to do is to be trying to track a blood trail in steeper, rockier terrain in the dark. This is not to say that a big ole solid chunk of conical is the magic wand. However, it does provide an increase in ones chances, especially at longer distances. Again, don't believe me, then pull up some side by side ballistic charts.

Indeed, the PRB has its unique following. I happen to be amongst them. I would elk hunt with them but only on closer up shots and under more ideal situations. In short, I would accept what it is before I went out and adjust my procedures/tactics accordingly.

Unfortunately, elk hunting is now a thing of my past. However, I hunted way too hard, packed way too many miles in steep terrain, and put way too much into all my elk hunts to limit myself in some capacities. If it were a true traditional hunt, then so be it. The decision is already made.

Its you all's elk hunts. So its up to you to choose the tools to get it done.

 

[Old Oak]

Amen! Good powder, good aim and a freight train of lead help insure an ethical and effective hunt.