question about loads for 54cal bp rifle

[midland man]

today I took out the 54cal bp rifle and it has a 1in48 twist I used .530 round balls, and 15 thousandths patch. so I loaded it up with 60gr powder and it shot very well! so my question is I hunt in Oklahoma with brush and wooded area, so would this be enough to penetrate deer at 50-70yrds? or do I need to increase the powder charge more but when I do the groups start to open up, the more I increase powder charge. so how do ya'll do it??

 

[J-Bar]

The Sharps rifle was chambered for a .52 caliber bullet over 50 grains of powder, and it killed more than one buffalo. The .44/40 cartridge has probably killed more deer than any other. I suspect your .54 with 60 grains of powder will completely skewer a deer. There is such a thing as overkill. Use what your gun shoots most accurately.

 

[Stony]

Just shooting round balls, at 50 yds you should be fine. If you have to stretch it out to 100 though, you might find it's running out of gas. I personally would try to work up something in the 90 gr. range if the possibility of a longer shot is there. Round balls kill deer just fine but can do some strange things as compared to modern bullets. I once took a front quartering shot at a whitetail as that was all that was available. I hit it perfectly where I intended between the front leg and the center of the chest, thinking it would take out the vitals just fine. After an extensive search, I finally found the deer still alive and discovered the ball had taken a strange turn inside the deer and exited the ribcage on the same side from which it entered. A modern cartridge would have gone through the deer and exited the ribcage on the other side.
A little more speed with a round ball can be a good thing I think if less than ideal circumstances are presented. I killed a buck once with a .62 round ball and 60 gr. from a smoothbore flinter at about 40 yds, but it was a straight shot through the lungs. It did an amaziing job with even a little piece of lung hanging out the hole on the other side. Not much there to deflect the ball though.

 

[fineredmist]

You need to experiment with 70 and 80 gr charges to see if there is any loss of accuracy. If you loose it at 80 gr then go down to 75 and test again until you get the optimum load for you and the rifle. Round balls are light in comparison to conical bullets so you need to shoot them as fast as possible to get reliable results.

 

[the Black Spot]

today I took out the 54cal bp rifle and it has a 1in48 twist I used .530 round balls, and 15 thousandths patch. so I loaded it up with 60gr powder and it shot very well! so my question is I hunt in Oklahoma with brush and wooded area, so would this be enough to penetrate deer at 50-70yrds? or do I need to increase the powder charge more but when I do the groups start to open up, the more I increase powder charge. so how do ya'll do it??

Yes

 

[AJumbo]

Easily done, and enjoyable to boot- gradually increase your charge until accuracy starts to fall off, then decide how much loss of accuracy you're willing to stand, and there's your load. I've never hit a critter and had it run off because my load was too powerful.

 

[J-Bar]

One trick the old timers used was to put a sheet on the ground in front of the muzzle and gradually increase the powder charge until they saw unburned grains of powder on the sheet. That identified the point at which the rifle was not completely burning the charge, so they backed off a bit from that.

Another trick was to increase the charge until the report had a definite "crack", which indicated the projectile was going supersonic, greater than 1100 fps.

Swabbing between shots has a dramatic effect on accuracy. I found my .54 shoots a round ball over 85 grains of just about any powder very nicely if the bore is clean.

I stand by my original post though...a round ball or conical over 60 grains of powder will kill a deer under normal traditional muzzleloading conditions, and good shot placement. (non-optical sights, 100 yards or less.)

 

[Skinny 1950]

Last week at the range I was shooting my Investarms 54 Cal Hawken with 1:48 twist using a 330 grain R.E.A.L. bullet from a Lee mould. This bullet is rammed down the bore with no patch and cleans the bore as it travels down.
With 70 grains of powder it is very accurate and would no doubt drop a deer.

 

[Mike 56]

My 54cal T/C White Mountain carbine likes 60gr Pyro RS and PRB. It will shoot black powder but it loves Pyrodex.

 

[OrangePwrx9]

In my experience, the faster twist barrels (1:48 to 1:24) like light PRB loads. Slow twist (1:60 to 1:72) barrels shoot PRB best with heavy loads.

My slow twist rifles shoot 90 gr. PRB loads just fine and they will do a number on deer. A 1:48 barrel can often be made to shoot PRB with heavy loads but it takes some experimentation. A .535 ball combined with an .018 pillow ticking patch is worth trying, but it will likely start hard.

The fast twist barrels work best with conicals over heavy loads; but they tend to be finicky even then. Some like Maxi-Balls, some Hornady Great Plains, others like Lee REALS. You have to experiment to find a combo the gun likes.

A couple nice things about heavy conicals; if started below the speed of sound (about 1100fps) they don't lose much velocity over 100 yards and the sonic shockwave doesn't mess with accuracy. Yet, by virtue of the bullet weight, they hit plenty hard. So loading too heavy in search of better ballistics can be self-defeating with conicals.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

so I loaded it up with 60gr powder and it shot very well! ...., so would this be enough to penetrate deer at 50-70yrds?

Short answer... a 60 grain load of 3Fg launching a .530 PRB, I would expect to go through a deer shot broadside through the ribs at 70 yards or less, with a barrel 28" or longer.

I shoot 70 grains of 3Fg and a patched .530 round ball. I started with this load with a rifle that is 1:48 because in my state, 60 grains is the minimum legal load for deer with a muzzleloading rifle. To "play it safe" I started with 70, and it was super accurate with that load.

When I got my current rifle, which is a 1:56 twist. It shot very well with the old load, and did fine with an 80 and 90 grain load, but I went back to the 70 grain as I didn't see any advantage. When on one hunt, I shot a very large doe, and the ball went through and through at 110 yards (I normally shoot closer), I confirmed that 70 grains was plenty for me out to 100+ yards. So 60 grains should be fine for you out to 70 yards.

NEVER sacrifice accuracy for 10 grains of powder. Placing a shot on a deer is not the same as placing it on a paper bullseye at the rifle range. Deer can move slightly as you squeeze the trigger, the weather and the sunlight mess with your sighting. So you can try higher powder loads. Some will tell you 90 grains... which is 50% more than you use now. Will you gain any advantage? Who knows? Some folks increase the load until they see "significant" changes in target grouping. (imho) If the groups on your target open even slightly, I'd go back to what shoots the straightest. If you increase and see tighter groups, then go with that.

Dead is dead. Once the bullet exits, if it exits with just enough velocity to get through the hide on the other side and falls to the ground, or exits with enough velocity to kill a second deer standing behind the first... means nothing to the first deer hit.

LD