olgeorge
Member
Did Wild Bill Hickock prefer a ball or bullet for his Navy Colts?
Top of my head, ball.
The ball tends to blow through the animal whereas the conical doesn't.
Hey Rodwha, my experiences with shooting both round ball and a 220 grain semi wad cutter in my Ruger Old Army and a Walker show the ball going completely through the rabbit and the conical very rarely exits the animal. It depends on range of course but even fairly close the conical stays in the animal. I shoot 35 grains of Pyrodex p or lately Black MZ in the Ruger and 45 grains in the Walker. 777 gives me accuracy problems, so I don't use it much. Both bullets generally give 1 hit kills consistently, they go down hard and stay down.
Hey Rodwha, my experiences with shooting both round ball and a 220 grain semi wad cutter in my Ruger Old Army and a Walker show the ball going completely through the rabbit and the conical very rarely exits the animal. It depends on range of course but even fairly close the conical stays in the animal. I shoot 35 grains of Pyrodex p or lately Black MZ in the Ruger and 45 grains in the Walker. 777 gives me accuracy problems, so I don't use it much. Both bullets generally give 1 hit kills consistently, they go down hard and stay down.
Don't think a semi wad cutter is classified as a conical. Its design is to cut a circle from a paper target, rater than punching through.
I'd like to be able to load that bullet in a 45C case for the 1860 Army conversion cylinder. What the mold number if its hand cast.
lol but yep the navy colt 36 caliber won't kill hogs!
Many of us have read how these guns were effective with a ball against men during the Civil War, but then men also behave much differently when shot than animals
Actually, if you read The Sporting Rifle and It's Projectiles by Lt. Robert Forsyth (British Army, India), he had access to all sorts of bullets when he published his book in 1867, round ball, belted ball, Whitworth, Minie, & etc.... YET he used patched, round ball on everything from deer to bear to tiger to rhino to elephant. He expressly did not like the Minie bullet for hunting game, especially dangerous game. So apparently the round ball does do more than what mass-upon-impact (in an equation) show it to do.
LD
If you ever do, please start a thread on it. I have found that my Lyman Trade flintlock with that 1 in 48 twist is a difficult beast to tame. I scratch my head wondering why they didn't make it 1 in 60.I fully intend to find an accurate load in my 1:48” twist Lyman .50 cal using a patched ball.
The round balls are definitely expanding.Are they expanding in the animals?
I don't believe my semi wadcutters are expanding much, they are a hard cast bullet. I would like to try a hollow point to eventually see what they do.
The round balls are definitely expanding.
Yes, but people like Ed McGivern and Jerry Miculek aren't human.Fellow name of Ed McGivern was said to be able to hit a man sized target at 300 yards with a .357 mag. Just takes practice, you might be surprised what you can do with a handgun.