Hi all,
A good friend has decided to try muzzleloading (for whitetail) for the first time, and I'm giving him my .50 inline and planning to refinish/upgrade an old sidelock to replace it. In other words, I found a good excuse to jump into a new project.
I've found three used muzzleloaders that interest me: an older Cabela's Sporterized Hawken Carbine with a 21" barrel and synthetic stock in .58 caliber, a .50 caliber marked "Made in USA" on the barrel (CVA Mountain Rifle?), and a .50 Thompson Renegade. They are all in good shape. I can buy the CVA and the Thompson for $100 each, maybe a little less. I don't have as firm a price on the Cabela's Hawken, but it's somewhere around $100-$150.
My initial thought is that if the "Made in USA" rifle holds true to it's reputation, I should be able to find a PRB recipe and aftermarket sight that will let me shoot reliably to around 120 yards. I won't have a lot of knockdown power or blood trail, but my experience is that a deer hit in the vitals with anything over .35 caliber and 500fps is going to die very quickly.
Part of me likes the idea of a handy carbine that packs a mighty wallop, and I've considered buying the Cabela's carbine or buying the Renegade and a GM .58 barrel.
Would the .58 roundball over a managable amount of powder have a real-world distance advantage over the .50 roundball, or does the ball start dropping so quickly that shots over 75-80 yards get difficult to pull off in the field? Are any of the rifles I mentioned notably better or worse than the two others? Most importantly, which sounds like the most fun to shoot?
A good friend has decided to try muzzleloading (for whitetail) for the first time, and I'm giving him my .50 inline and planning to refinish/upgrade an old sidelock to replace it. In other words, I found a good excuse to jump into a new project.
I've found three used muzzleloaders that interest me: an older Cabela's Sporterized Hawken Carbine with a 21" barrel and synthetic stock in .58 caliber, a .50 caliber marked "Made in USA" on the barrel (CVA Mountain Rifle?), and a .50 Thompson Renegade. They are all in good shape. I can buy the CVA and the Thompson for $100 each, maybe a little less. I don't have as firm a price on the Cabela's Hawken, but it's somewhere around $100-$150.
My initial thought is that if the "Made in USA" rifle holds true to it's reputation, I should be able to find a PRB recipe and aftermarket sight that will let me shoot reliably to around 120 yards. I won't have a lot of knockdown power or blood trail, but my experience is that a deer hit in the vitals with anything over .35 caliber and 500fps is going to die very quickly.
Part of me likes the idea of a handy carbine that packs a mighty wallop, and I've considered buying the Cabela's carbine or buying the Renegade and a GM .58 barrel.
Would the .58 roundball over a managable amount of powder have a real-world distance advantage over the .50 roundball, or does the ball start dropping so quickly that shots over 75-80 yards get difficult to pull off in the field? Are any of the rifles I mentioned notably better or worse than the two others? Most importantly, which sounds like the most fun to shoot?