Hunting Forum

I have been elk hunting the past couple of years with a TC Renegade and a TC New Englander with the original barrels.  I shoot 350 gr TC maxi hunters over 80 grains of 2F powder.  I have tried heavier powder charges but accuracy suffers and it is not great with any heavy conical I have tried.  Will a faster twist barrel such as the Green Mountain Long Range Hunter improve my accuracy with the conicals and allow for a heavier charge of powder?  I am not looking to hunt long range just want more energy and a flatter shooting bullet out to around 125 yards.  

If you want to know anything about rate of twist and which bullets to use...call Cecil Epps.
All I can say is that I LOVE their bullets and have gotten a lot of good advice just from reading their information on their site.
If you read the info they provide I would bet that you will find what you want to know.

HERE IS A LINK TO THE SITE
http://www.prbullet.com/

I have the same barrel twist (1 in 48) as your TC with my flint lock and did better lowering the charge to 70 with maxi hunters . Try 75 to just to see also . My Green Mountain barrel is on my in-line ML and they do shoot tight , 1 in 28 likes sabots though with mine , but if ordering I think you have a choice there and remember a length change will change the balance of the gun  .

The faster a rifle/twist the slower the projectile will exit with equal charges. In other words, taking your 1:48" rifle with 70 grs of powder and the same projectile will give you a slightly faster velocity than putting the same bullet/charge into a 1:28" rifle. This is just simple physics resulting from expended energy to turn the bullet more times in the given space and resulting friction. Also, be aware that lead has a greater chance to strip away in faster rifles/twists just because it is being forced forward and to rotate faster than its soft sides can handle.

Now, in all honesty, speed with muzzleloaders is not needed to reliably kill. If you are using a good lead slug with solid nose. like a Maxi-Ball and get reliable accuracy with it you will do just fine as that freigt-train slug plows unceremoniously deep through the elk, putting .5" diameter holes on both sides of both lungs and probably still popping out the off side to leave a hole all the way through it the diameter of a standard garden hose. I'd personally suggest stepping away from the Maxi-Hunter's expanding nose design since these are meant to expand and slow down upon impact. It should still crater a deep wide hole in the elk but the problem with expanders is they not only slow down limiting penetrating depth they also tend to deflect as they do. You may have a great angle to slip a slug into the vitals only to have the mushrooming slug divert and miss the vital organ and lodge under the shoulder blade or even exit right back at you. I had a Maxi-Hunter .50" do this on a small doe at about 20 yds once. It entered nearly straight in the riht side, blew through a rib clean, entered the nearest lung, did a U-turn and exited 4" behind the entry hole right back in my direction. She went a pretty fair way blowing blood out nose and hole but when I found her several minutes later she was struggling to get up still coughing and gagging on blood! I had been so sure of the kill I'd not reloaded so I frantically reloaded to put her down alternatingly grabbing a knife thinking of cutting her throat really just shocked she was not already in deer-heaven. She expired just as I got capped. It was then I discovered what an expanding slug can do - ruin a lot of meat by doing a U-turn fully expanded through stomach and intestine and generally satuarting her with her own bile and poop. Went to non-expanders after that and have not had a single bullet stop inside a deer.

I have shot the Green Mountain Barrels with fast twist and a large 460 grain conical bullet.  I found that 80 grains of powder was about all I could get and still keep accuracy.  The best conical shooting rifles I own are my White Rifles.  They have a 1-24 twist.  But its not only the rate of twist but the cut of the rifling as well.  Right now I have been testing a 450 grain conical bullet I cast out of a 1-48 twist.  So far it is looking pretty good.

Shiloh, you should have given that doe the bayonet.

Thanks for the replies. Now I have more information to ponder. Interesting ideas on the expanding bullets. I was actually thinking the maxi hunters were not expanding much. But I only have a couple of examples to go by.
Range

My CVA Mountain Rifle (Kit built, sidelock) has a 1-66 twist rate. Everyone says my gun should shoot ball just fine. This thing punches 370 gr, conicals so nice, I sold the ball lead to my neighbor. All I shoot is the conicals. Can't argue with what works.

I'm sitting here this morning doing a little prep-work for this weekend's talks that always include small-arms talks and this topic popped back up. The modern "knowledgables" proclaim all the time in the gun rags that to get long range reliable accuracy you have to have 150 grs of black powder substitutes and a rifle rate of 1:28" throwing a special jacketed conical of some unique cool-sounding name. Every time I read this I roll my eyes and half chuckle and go on looking for some article that might be written by someone with more real world knowledge than my socks to read. The 1860 U.S. Ordanance Dept.'s Small-Arms tests are sitting here in front of me. The Model 1855 or prototype Model 1861 U.S. models (Springfields) were tested with 10 shooters for reliability, speed, accuracy and penetration using the then new "Minie" ball conical which was an under-sized conical of soft lead. It was a weight-forward design meaning most of the weight was in the front half because the rear half was concave to allow a simple expanding-skirt base to expand under gas pressure to seal the bore and grip the rifling. The rates of twist on these guns was 1:78" typically, often described back then as 1 in 6 feet which was close-enough for them. The rifles had progressive-depth grooves, meaning at the breech the grooves were deeper than at the muzzle. Using the standard service charge of 60 grs of FFg black powder, and the 500 grs Minie bullet fired by the standard musket-cap in an "antiquated" side-lock rifled musket the results were remarkale for their day and really should be studied by the "knowing ones" today to grasp what the muzzleloader can do.
Firing 10 consecutive shots: At 100 yds, the guns reliably hit a 4" circle. At 200 yds, a 9" circle, at 500 yds a 27" circle and reliably hit a man-sized target at 600 yds. The sights were not very fine and this obviously reduced their accuracy but essentially we see that this standard old load was plenty able to hit the "kill zone" of a deer at 200 yds. But, what about the legendary lack of penetration slow-moving muzzleloader bullets had, according to these "wise ones?" Well, the same tests prooved that at 100 yds, these guns penetrated 11 one-inch pine boards spaced one inch apart. At 300 yds, the soft-lead Minie slugs penetrated 6 boards and still penetrated 5 boards at 500 yds. In fact, it was "expected" (no record I can find that this was proved in tests likley due to lack of hits) that the slugs would penetrate 4 boards at 1,000 yds. Now, any soft-lead weight-forward .58" conical pushed by a mere 60 grs FFg charge rifling at the muzzle rate of 1:78" with an inital velocity around 950-1,000 fps that can penetrate 11 one-inch pine boards at 100 yds can certainly obtain pass-through on a mere deer, and the same slug should easily get deep enough penetration to reliably kill the same deer at 200 or 300 yds seeing as how it could penetrate 6 boards at 300 yds. These guns were not relying on speed but rather inertia to do the damage. Once you get a freight train slug moving at any speed it is likely to rumble right on through whatever it hits and does not need any expanding nose to help do its damage. Afterall, when the slug impacts the target at the diameter lesser bullets are trying to achieve through expanssion the slug simply does not need to waste energy making a pretty mushroom.

Shiloh, I say Amen to everything you said above. There is one "fact" (at least in my case) that I believe draws all those "experts" you reference above (those that say you need a 150 grs of black powder substitute and a rifle rate of 1:28" throwing a special jacketed conical of some unique cool-sounding name) that "validates" their point. With those fancy rifles you have almost instantaneous ignition of the powder when the hammer falls making them feel and shoot more like a modern smokeless powder rifle than the older muskets with standard caps and especially a flint lock. The side locks shooting standard musket caps include a "significant" delay when you are not used to holding the rifle still for the whole delay. For someone like me who does most of his/her practice shooting with modern rifles where that delay does not exist. Therefore, for myself I own one of those unique cool-sounding name MLs in recognition that the target shooting I really enjoy doing between hunting seasons does not involve a musket, it involves modern rifles like a 22-250 or .222. If I wanted to hunt with a side lock with miniballs, I would have to devote a whole lot of my shooting time to learning to shoot accurately with that delay. No offence but for me I would rather shoot the 22-250 and. 222 for fun.

jack

Oops, my apologies to Claude-Étienne Minié for my phonetic spelling of the projectile named after him.

jack

Yeah, that French dude. The last cool thing the French ever did militarily. I think though that the main reason the gun-rag "experts" feel validated in their beliefs that they need that cool super-ultra magnumized muzzleloader is found the next page over after their article about the gun - you know, the full-page paid advertizement for said gun complete with cool graphics that we all know are what really makes a gun work better. When Shokkley is pictured with his Dall ram smiling in his black cowboy hat showing his T/C rifle complete with huge color T/C/ logo taped to it so he gets paid extra by T/C it shows the novice that to get your Dall ram and wear a black cowboy hat you really have to also have the same T/C nuclearized muzzleloader shooting the same depleated uranium slugs as Jimbo. I am humored at the guys on opening day of muzzleloader season pulling out thier brand new -$500 in-line topped by a $300 scope and loading their 3 pellets, $4 projectile and magnum 209 primer. Thanks fellas, but my $150 CVA Hawken with patched ball, #11 cap and 60 grs of 3F will kill just as well and I'll have more fun with it to boot.

Well I am lucky in that I must use loose powder, an all lead projectile, not jacketed, that is within .01 inch of the bore diameter, with a flint, percussion cap or musket cap that is exposed or visible when the weapon is cocked and ready to fire.  So I save some money not getting to try all of the fancy bullets and sabots.  I did try pyrodex once when I had trouble finding black powder.  I like the black powder better and have now found a source for it. A 100 gr charge kicks plenty I don't want to try to add 50% more to that.  I did buy a Lee minie ball mold and tried it out but found I had better accuracy with the Maxi hunters.  I have not recovered a bullet so I dont know what the bullet looked like in the end.  The wound channels have not shown huge expansion.  I may pick up some regular maxis and see how they shoot.  I am shooting inside an eight inch circle at 100 yards with the factory sights.  I would like to tighten that up a bit as  I feel that is my max range right now.   I usually wear a white hat .