Lyman Great Plains .50 or .54?

[Walks with fire]

I have played around with conical bullets and others out of fast twist barrels and I have a few round ball twist .50 calibers that I shoot a bit and like very much but the .54 ball ended the conical and the like projectile shooting.

The .54 does very well and I need no more. It's not too much and not too little for the deer hunting I do. The dang balls have little recoil; accurate as can be and hit pretty hard. The whitetails have gone down hard with them so far; better than the .50 ball from what I see.

 

[Tom Compton]

U can (but will not want to) shoot a conical fast enough in a 1/60 or 1/66 twist barrel to stabilize the bullet. -- IF -- and that's a big if, the grooves are shallow enough to seal.

Seems everyone is hung up on the TC 1/48 twist being for conicals and PRB BUT FORGETTING TC barrels were button rifled w shallow (.004" ?) grooves. A .45 or larger barrel rifled 1/48 twist w .010" - .012" grooves probably won't be very accurate or efficient (relatively low velocity for weight and charge) w a conical.

 

[Cowboy]

My GPR is a .50

It is good enough for me as the only shooting I do these days are at the range. Also cast my own balls so I use less lead.

If I was still hunting I'd opt for a .54 over a .50 any day! If you want a GPR for punching paper and hunting I'd again go with the .54.

Respectfully, Cowboy

 

[SDSmlf]

GPR 54 caliber shooting a round ball. Little debate in my opinion. In a 54 GPR conicals are a waste of time, lead and the cartilage in in your shoulder....unless you like rainbow trajectories, battered shoulders and large groups.

Find a load and distance you consistently hit a paper plate at, then limit yourself to 25 yards less for hunting anything in North America that doesn't bite back or have claws.

Personally I prefer carrot cake with cream cheese icing. Guys at work like it also. Eating it is primary concern.

 

[Onojutta]

If you think you might also shoot conicals, consider the Lyman Trade Rifle. It has a 1:48 twist which is supposed to handle conicals better. I have one and have only ever shot PRB with it, and it does that very well.

 

[nkbj]

As a muzzleloading barrel maker once told me, deep grooves will shoot bullets accurately as shallow grooves.

But the follow on to that is you got to figger out what it takes and whether or not you're really interested in going there.
In case it makes you happy to roller skate in a buffalo herd...
to shoot a long bullet in the .54 GPR you need a hollow base with a thick skirt (like the Lyman 542622) and a lot of powder to expand the base. The twist is plenty fast.


And the butt plate is gonna be moving pretty fast too.
:haha:

 

[nkbj]

By the way, does anybody have a flinter GPR dressed up with a smaller bore like for small game?
My .40 percussion GPR is just about all the iron I'd care to be carrying. Thought about maybe having a smaller bore barrel for the flinter, maybe a .38 as was apparently pretty popular long years ago. How our forefathers packed around some of those rifles makes me :bow:

 

[JRL1164]

In case it makes you happy to roller skate in a buffalo herd...

Ha ha I ain't heard that song in a hot minute! I think I'll go the GPR and experiment with different loads. After all I won't know till I try. And if worse comes to worse and PRB will be sufficient for my needs.

 

[John V.]

I have to vote for the GPR in .50 cal. The one I used to have was a very accurate rifle and took many deer. Wish I still had it, got stupid and traded it for?? do not remember now, but I remember the GPR though. The .50 round ball did all I ever asked it to do for deer. In my humble opinion for the money you cannot go wrong with a Lyman GPR.

 

[Ohio Joe]

.50 or .54, it does not matter. What does matter is shot placement. I prefer the patched round ball backed by a good charge that is zeroed and will do the job on the game I'm hunting.

Conical bullets I have no use for as they can travel forward off the main charge (even a tad) when covering rough terrain on a hunt and "if" this happens there's goes your accuracy. This doesn't happen with a tight patched round ball.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[robinsroost]

I chose the Lyman GPR, in .54 caliber, as my first flintlock and It was a good choice. Like you, I like the looks of the iron furniture. So far, I have not had a failure to fire or a flash in the pan. It is accurate with 60 grains of FFFg and a .530 prb.......robin :idunno: