.45 patch and ball for deer

[morb]

Hi
I have a hawkins .45 rifle with a 1:48 twist, I have been shooting conicals from it and shot my first black powder deer with it last year.
I just bought some round balls and patches just for plinking but i have been wondering if this would be suitable for deer. The balls weigh 129 grains.
There is lots of info for the 50 cal rifles but hard to find anything for the 45.

Ron

 

[nobody1369]

With my .45cal. Longrifle, when you shoot a deer with a roundball you don't have to look for a blood trail because they drop in their tracks.

 

[morb]

That's what I want to hear.
How many grains of powder do you use? I've been using 80 grains of triple 7 with the conicals.

 

[nobody1369]

Depending on the range 48 or 72 goex fff. .440 ball and .10 patch

 

[J-Bar]

That's what I want to hear.
How many grains of powder do you use? I've been using 80 grains of triple 7 with the conicals.

I would find what powder charge gave the best consistent accuracy and use that.

 

[mykeal]

Yeah, J-Bar has a very good point. At .45 cal you're running fairly low energy with a round ball, so it's even more important than ever to be accurate. You have to hit that six inch circle - there's less room for error than with the bigger bores.

So, spend some time at the range and work up the most accurate load for that ball. And no, what someone else uses isn't necessarily it for your gun.

 

[morb]

Thanks for the info guys.
I'll take your advice and work it up, just needed somewhere to start. I actually get to shoot quite often so I'm confident that I can hit that 6" circle, just want to sure about the round ball. I'll be shooting before work the rest of the week and will be working up a load.
Thanks again.
I'll post an update to let everyone know how it goes.

 

[nobody1369]

So that's what the big bores are for ... Errors

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Check your state regs as sometimes they have minimum loads, such as in my state you'd need 60 grains of powder to hunt deer with a .40 caliber or larger rifle.

LD