At our local Sporting Good Store someone told me roundball wound is a small hole in and a small hole out. Using a good Hornady, Speer, or Buffalo ball I assume you get some expansion. What is your experiance with roundball wound?
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You bet your bippy they expand...At least a .50 cal.Hornady or Speer ball behind 90 grains of pyrodex expands out of my old T/C hawken...I have several recovered balls at home that I dug out of deer..A couple of them are flattened out like coins..
I've shot quite a few deer with round balls, and they kill as well as any other projectile, assuming decent shot placement, of course..
At our local Sporting Good Store someone told me roundball wound is a small hole in and a small hole out. Using a good Hornady, Speer, or Buffalo ball I assume you get some expansion. What is your experiance with roundball wound?
The longest shot I've ever taken on a deer was 70 yards broadside, and the .54cal ballwas a complete pass through...most shots are closer and they all pass through even easier.
I haverecovered one ball,a .45cal Hornady, and it hadhit a rib going in, went throughthe heart and stopped bulging out the hide on the far side...it flattened out on one side so it looked like an igloo. ButI'veshot Hornadys into jugs of water and saw that they expanded pretty well.
Having said all this,we need to remember that even with expansion which helps, there is no huge hydrostatic shock effect transferred to the surrounding area of the animal like a .30-06 would.
So for what it's worth, the way I think of PRBs is that they are like extended range hunting bows...primarily, they kill by hemmoraging like a broadhead does, but they do it a little further away.
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(Claims that 1:48" twists won't shoot PRBs accurately are old wives tales!!)
At our local Sporting Good Store someone told me roundball wound is a small hole in and a small hole out. Using a good Hornady, Speer, or Buffalo ball I assume you get some expansion. What is your experiance with roundball wound?
This is not entirely untrue but it is very misleading. A pure lead roundball will expand quite a bit as it flattens out, as others have pointed out. If it passes completely through, it will leave a larger exit wound than entry wound but also keep in mind that it will make a larger entry wound than a saboted bullet. Yes, the exit wound may be smaller than some conicals and saboted bullets but it really doesn't matter.If the shot is correctly placed, it will do more than enough damage to bring down a deer quickly. A roundball, within it's range limitations, will bring a deer down just as quickly as any conical or saboted bullet, sometimes quicker, IMO. A fist sized exit wound might look impressive but doesn't really contribute to bringing a deer down quicker and just damages more meat.
All bullets work with a combination of caliber and velicity a 54 caliber PRB shot out of my Hawken 1-66 twist 35.5 inch barrel [ 2100 fps]has killed 27 deer it dropped 24 of them on the spot two were running and went 30 to 60 yds one was hit on a bad angle and went about 25 yds. I also use high powered rifles 270 & 30-06 and to me a 54 set up right and hitting where you are supposed to will match the HP out to 125 yds if the shooter has it loaded right and is a good well practiced shot. Lee
If you use a small ball , you get a small holes. My seven ga. leaves an exit hole the size of a golf ball..............and my 73 cal is does a dandy job also................big balls, leave big holes!
Assuming you are using a .50 caliber rifle, even without expansion, a .5" ball will make a half-inch diameter hole all the way through a deer. That lets in a lot of cold air, and lets out a lot of blood. If your ball is bigger, so is the hole.
What am I saying? A .50 ball does not have to expand at all to be very deadly! Yet, a soft-lead ball travelling over 1200 FPS or so when it hits DOES INDEED EXPAND! In my experience, a pure lead round ball makes a relatively largeENTRANCE WOUND, becauseupon impact it splatters out, expanding very rapidly, and the denser center portion of the ball carries on through with a decreasing diameter wound channel as it goes. If the ball exits, the EXIT wound is usually a little bigger thanthe size of the bore of the gun, ie, a .60-.75" hole on the way out. The wound channel looks like a baseball bat, with the big end where the bullet strikes and the handle end where it comes out the other side. A softball sized entry wound, a quarter sized exit hole..... Even if the poor varmint doesn't drop on the spot, a blind man could follow the blood trails (one trail on each side of the critter).....
Because of their relatively low velocity, a round ball does not mess up a lot of meat-"you can eat right up to the hole", as Elmer Keith used to say.....
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Personally I've never been lucky enough to have found either a round ball or a maxi after shooting a deer. All the deer I've shot have been 80 yards or under with te average shot being probably 25-30 yards.
The results have been a hole clean thru. Don't worry about exspansion with a muzzleloader , just put the shot where it belongs. The resulting hole will bleed a animal out in no time. If it doesn't go down in it's tracks I gaurantee if you did your part it won't go more than 100 yards leaving a 4 ft wide blood trail.
I have a 54cal. I just do not see how some people think a pellet gun is more deadly than a roundball. A roundball is like a fly bite to bears and on squirrels... it just makes them mad. LOL
I know that a roundball is deadly if It can kill 2 deer at once... hmmmm who would that be???
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Roundball Wound
