How low can I go?

[brewer12345]

At some point I plan to fool around with some relatively low charges with PRB in a 45 or 50 cal TC Hawken in the interest of seeing if I can find an accurate light load that might suffice for small game or target. I am wondering if I can safely go as low as 20 or 30 grains without having to worry about getting a ball stuck in the bore.

 

[bang]

Dry ball can be shot out with as little as 8-10 with surprising pressure.

 

[Griz44Mag]

LOL,
MINIMUM - you need to use enough powder to get the ball out of the barrel
MAXIMUM - Try not to fill the barrel up to the point there is no room for the ball. (But it's gonna hurt)

On the serious side - when you get too much your accuracy will go the dogs...
Just start reducing the charge until it's too little to get to the target with,

 

[Carbon 6]

I am wondering if I can safely go as low as 20 or 30 grains without having to worry about getting a ball stuck in the bore.

Yes.

 

[Brokennock]

I found an accurate load at 25 yards with th .45 cal. Blue Ridge rifle I used to have, somewhere down around 20 or 25 grains. Accuracy fell off quickly much past 25 yards, but it was definitely minute of squirrel skull out to that distance.

 

[Britsmoothy]

15g I sometimes got a ball bounce back at me. 20g didn't.

 

[RAEDWALD]

When I was using a .577" Enfield I got to 35 grains for 50 metres and 45 for 100, but with lightweight 315 grains bullets.

 

[Grimord]

A lot of the frontiersmen had a powder measure attached to their pouches that was 1/2 of their long distance hunting load, that is if 100 grains was their long distance hunting load, the measure they had was for 50 grains as a small game, short distance load. They would just drop in two measures of posder for their long distance load. A good many times, 1/2 of your target load will make a fine close in load for small game.

 

[Howard Pippin]

At some point I plan to fool around with some relatively low charges with PRB in a 45 or 50 cal TC Hawken in the interest of seeing if I can find an accurate light load that might suffice for small game or target. I am wondering if I can safely go as low as 20 or 30 grains without having to worry about getting a ball stuck in the bore.

I generally have my hunter safety kids all fire my 50 precussion muzzleloader once, during our live fire part of the program, after they help me run a cleaning rag and then proceed to load it with 10 grains of black powder. Shooting 50 feet at a slanted steel backstop, produces lots of smoke, fire emitting from the barrel and a PRB that turns into a flat about the size of a $.50 piece. They think it's great fun and if we can find the flat ball in the sawdust, I always give it back to them. I generally always use 10 grains, but once my measure had slipped and I was only using seven and that still shot adequately at 50 feet. The downside is that such a small charge makes the bore exceedingly dirty and I have to be sure and run a wet patch and a dry one in between loadings.
Squint

 

[Mark Herman]

Grimord,
In more than 50 years of shooting, researching and collecting antique, and contemporary, ML's I never heard or saw such a statement. Where did you see the "1/2 load measure" information?

 

[user 43911]

Grimord,
In more than 50 years of shooting, researching and collecting antique, and contemporary, ML's I never heard or saw such a statement. Where did you see the "1/2 load measure" information?

On Grimord's computer screen before he posted it,

 

[nhmoose]

Just for giggles, my .40 flinter shoots best at 35 grains Goex 3F. I have won many matches and medals with it. For deer I worked it up over a chronograph to end up with 70 grains of the same. Groups opened up immediately at 75 grains. 70 grains gives 2015 fps avg. Killed a couple deer with it.

 

[Grimord]

Grimord,
In more than 50 years of shooting, researching and collecting antique, and contemporary, ML's I never heard or saw such a statement. Where did you see the "1/2 load measure" information?

This was information that I read from Mike Nesbitt in a Muzzle Blast issue a few years ago. I just repeated his statement. But i guess that is how rumors start. He is supposed to be an authority in the area.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

There was a guy here who used his .54 for squirrel hunting. Said about a 20-25 grain charge (maybe less) would punch a hole through the squirrel like a cookie cutter and damage less meat than a small caliber traveling faster.

Still have to be careful about slinging a .54 lead ball up in the air, though that’s true for ALL round ball. Only take the shot when the squirrel is in front of a solid branch or the trunk. Barking them is also a good technique.

 

[jae]

Back in the 1970`s at a time when I could only afford one muzzleloader , a 50 cal that I used to hunt everything from deer to squirrels .I used 15 grs of 2 f to bark squirrels. I also shoot a couple of cottontails this this load. jae

 

[SDSmlf]

15g I sometimes got a ball bounce back at me. 20g didn't.

Tough squirrels.

 

[SDSmlf]

Barking them is also a good technique.

Never had much success ‘barking’ squirrels. Typically, if I got the squirrel, I hit directly, although I do remember a few that you could called ‘barked’. Wounded or kill many tree limbs and trees while attempting. Fortunately, wounded trees are quite easy to track as they don’t go too far after being hit.

 

[omark]

They don't usually attack you either

 

[SDSmlf]

They don't usually attack you either

A tree frightened or wounded by lightening can flatten your house or car.

 

[DaMitch]

I have a 85 year old friend I shoot BP with. He use to have one measure noted as 1/2 load as in fill twice for hunting load. I noted last year he had 2 measures - one full load other 1/2 load. Asked him why and he said "My memory is shot so I do not remember if I loading twice or not" LOL