Dear selective adventurers,
I have a yearning to try some ballistic testing with my black powder rifle. I intend to, if I am not talked out of it first, to use a smaller diameter hardcast bullet in my .50 cal. blk. pwdr. rifle. I have centered my attention on a .475-.488 cal. rammed home with a lubed patch. Are there any shooters who might have comments or experience with this procedure? I'll wait for replies before advancing my curiosity.

Welcome to the forum Robertobob. Rules are simple, be nice and join in.

I had a nice Remington 700 ML in 54 caliber. Ordered a Lee standard mold in the improved minni for the 54 cal. Cast up some dandy hardcast 425 grainers and went out to shoot it.

Dropped in 100 grains of triple seven to start with and put one of those nice pads under that minni and dropped it into the barrel. next thing I heard was it hitting the bottom of the barrel. I guess that qualifies as smaller diameter hardcast bullets. They were only a few thousands under barrel size, but boy talk about easy loadingl.

Besides having plenty of blowby they shot dandy 12 inch groups at 25 yards.

Ordered the oversize minni mold and these seated easily, but with hardcast wouldn't group worth a dang.

Went to pure lead and this gun with a scope would group between one and 2 inch five shot groups at a hundred yards.

Moral of the story. Lead bullets need to be soft enough to upset to fill the lands and groves to be accurate in a muzzle loader. In a minnie's case the hollow base allows powder to blow the skirt out to fill the lands and grooves, yet the bullet is easy to load. You have to match it to the bore size to work.

For solid conicals they have to have enough resistance and be soft enough to fill out to the bore size to be accurate.

for round balls you have to use a patch that will fill out to the lands and grooves to be accurate.

Can't tell you about sabots, I never could get them to shoot worth a darn out of the 700 ML. Funny thing Remington brand patched balls shot 3 inch and under hundred yard groups out of this fast twist barrel. Go figure.

I'd say go ahead and try, It'ed make me feel good to know I wasn't the only frustrated muzzle loader out there.

My gun would take up to 150 grain loads of triple seven with 425 grain minni balls. Used CCI musket caps and got really good ignition. Accuracy was excellent and I didn't chrono these loads, but they felt plenty hot. Was planning to hunt elk with it til Idaho changed the black powder hunting rules.

To: faucettb
Thanks for the hearty welcome and valuable advice. Gives me the recollection of an "old timer" who once told me: "Son, If you use a soft hunk of lead and can ram it home with the ramrod, the gun will spit it out"!