Take a look. Reminds me of the old lead Miniball used in the Civil War. Supposed to come out at or after the 2008 shot show in Feb. Think this will be better than same weight Powerbets??

http://www.hornady.com/media/2008catalog/Page_0043.pdf



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Sound good to me all but the terminal ballistic part.....6 1/4" wound channel @100 yds? Don't want to shoot any place you'd want to eat. Is this thing a grenade or a bullet?

Ya think that they would be almost a soft as powerbelts, just to load them. But the pics don't look as expanded as PB's:confused:

just about the time you figure you`ve got the right load for your m/l, somebody comes out with something new that forces you back to the range to experiment:D wonder if hornady will offer bullet in weights other than 350grn.? would be nice.

Still looks so soft that it may blow up like a powerbelt from their comparison diagrams. Lost a doe that way this year, and the other had the powerbelt blow up on it, but a fragment got to the vitals. No penetration whatsoever with a powerbelt.

I've never had a round ball fragment and/or fail to penetrate.

... making it work flawlessly in all 50 cal muzzleloaders. And did he ever deliver. - Upon impact the flexible elastomer tip compresses into the nose of the bullet, causing violent expansion across the widest range of velocities."

It doesn't really shock me that they would make the "all 50 cal" claim but I'd like to know see just how well they'll do in many of the import guns and a few domestic guns that actually have a metric and or odd size bores that are larger or smaller than a true 0.500" Lyman are 0.502" bore with a 0.517 groove dia. Other foreign bbls can vary from 0.4921" to 0.5079" and still be identified as a ".50 cal"

With all that "violent expansion" going on...wonder why they don't show the results of bone impact tests, or did they just selectively omit them?

Once again, the marketing hype is on the temporary cavity - over and over again it's been documented by several militaries, including our own, that the temporary cavity formed by a bullet contributes very little, the terminal effects are caused by penetration. The permanant wound channel is what really makes the kill, the temp channel only causes large blood-shot areas..............

They look better than powerbelts to me. Should be a great bore-sized bullet for inline and sidelock shooters alike, who like or are required by law to use a bore-sized bullet...

A solution in search of a problem, my take....

Having whacked a few critters with flat-nosed cast bullets from handguns, I truly cannot see any reason to use anything but that type of bullet in a muzzleloader, either.

Why would you want to step down, to something potentially less effective? The hard cast stuff just kills like poison.....

The problem is that the marketing hype rules the world. "LIGHTER, FASTER, MAGNUM"!!!!!!!!!!!

The biggest problem is that all the marketing hype focuses on velocity, trajectory and temporary wound cavity - the three things that have no bearing on how well a bullet performs after impact.

The original govt load for the .50-70 used a 450gr bullet but there a few things that must be noted about this. .50 caliber bores at the time varied greatly in size with groove diameters starting at .510" and going up from there. When Sharps Rifle Co. was doing the musket conversions, they were ordered by the govt to NOT install the govt supplied 3 groove liners in bore with a groove diameter of 0.5225" or smaller. Sharps started out using a 1:48 twist then increased it to 1:42 and increased it again to 1:36. Remington started with the 1:42 but then increased it's twist to 1:24 which allowed greatly increased accuracy and power using a 500gr PP bullet and a 515-520gr greased bullet. The same with the .45-70, the original load used a 500gr bullet but the govt didn't adopt that as standard until after the 1879 tests showed that the 405gr bullet was inept when compared to the 500gr that could produce lethal results at 3500 yards (yes, two miles)!

Nonetheless, let's have a look at buffalo hunters...they used both .50 and .45 cal's but the earliest and the one we're talking about is the .50 cal. Hunters sought the fast twist Remingtons because they wanted the 500gr+ bullets. Why did the hunters want the heavier bullets? Answer is simple - BECAUSE THEY WORKED BETTER!

Why did the heavy bullets work better? Because they didn't fragment, change direction or fail to penetrate bone. No offense Mike, I know what you're saying and it's different than what I'm getting at but pistol bullets do not work in rifles. Pistol ranges are short and the velocity is a lot lower that that of a rifle. The big trend however is to use pistol bullets in ML's...problem is, when you start throwing a light bullet 100 yards or more and when that bullet requires X amount of expansion before it can even start producing a terminal wound channel, you're just begging to have wounded game run off and be lost.

Let's look at the example listed in the chart 200yds, 1230 fps 1176 ftlbs. Average forced expansion bullet dumps 50-70% of it's velocity and energy in the process of expanding in order to produce a suitable wound channel. Middle of the road figures tell us that reduces the velocity to 492 fps and the energy to 470 ftlbs - factor in a shoulder bone hit on a whitetail and you'll be lucky if the bullet will even connect with a vital. Just for a little contrast.... a standard .45-70-500 FN hits the 200 yard marker going 1107 fps delivering 1361 ftlbs of energy. Since losses are minimal because it's already producing a terminal wound channel from the time it hits, even punching through the thickest part of both shoulder bones the raw mass of the bullet not only ensures 100% penetration but does so while retaining about 75% more energy than the forced expansion bullet.

No matter how you twist it, mass and not having to rely upon forced expansion to create a suitable wound channel is where it's at.

I think that the key word is "cast" flat-nose bullet. I think that MikeG would agree (although I can't speak for him) with you about the expanding pistol bullets.

MY thoughts are these super dupper bullets are just not going to do you much better than a good old slug and maybe worse because velocity expansion come into play to much. The distance muzzle loaders are hunted with for the most part out to 200 yards I feel just a plain old slug is more reliable on known expansion. I have tried power belts in a inline with a 150 grs of pyrodex got good accuracy but not shot any critters with them.I thought I try a inline didn't like it so I just grab the old powder packing lead throwing great plains hunter 50 cal. 385 gr slug casted at 1-20 alloy mix 90 grs. swiss 1.5 that combo just plows right through them there critters!! MAYBE I'M BIAS? But I tried the magnum end of muzzle loading just think a hunter should work at making correct shot not a I THINK can drop him shot! and dead is dead! JUST MY THOUGHTS DON'T MEAN I'M RIGHT.

Dead is dead either way, but when you can't find the critter, you'll wish you had an exit hole. That's something that the flat nosed cast bullets will just about always give you.

I would speculate that some of the flat-nosed jacketed bullets with hard cores that are very blunt (like the Sierra 300gr. .45 bullet, and their 400gr. .50 cal bullet), will work just as well. We'll find out when I can get some of the Sierras loaded up for my .500 JRH and thump a critter or two.

I'd use a cast bullet in the .500, but Marshall doesn't have a 400gr. in .500" diameter.

mikeG the lyman mold #508656 395 gr is a flat nose my mold throws them out at .504 385gr with a 1-20 alloy mix.The flat nose does cut a nice hole on it's way in and being 1-20 mix better penetration but still expands well and blows though bone much better than pure lead. The bullet still bumps up to seal the bore to hold down leading at 1465 FPS avg. over chrony. The problem Is that unless you cast or custom buy you are going to get pure lead and that little bit of tin in the 1-20 does make a difference.IF I had MORE TIME like to try 50/50 mix of wheel weights and pure lead.I don't know about using jacketed cartridge bullets in a muzzle loader like some people have tried.

These bullets look like power belts and operate similar from what I am reading/ PB are just not what I am looking to shoot based on personal and what I;ve read field experience They smack and kill deer, but you better have snow to track if nescesary. Yes it is my responsibility to practice and shoot but sometimes things don't work as we want. I shoot SW, Parker be and TMZ . You can talk all we want on new stuff but the proof is on the ground........