Wolfhound,

You are quite confused. The problem you are having is that you fear where this thread is taking us. Let me tell you where we are going to go with it. I'll give you the "agenda" up front.

We are going to discover that people who encourage others to put 150 grains of pellets in their muzzleloaders, are givingadvice whichcan put the advised party in jeopardy. We are going to discover that giving people the impression that their muzzleloaderis without value or worth for hunting unless they load their MLer to 30,000 psiis misleading at best, a blatant outright lie at the worst.

It wasn't you who said that a Spanish barrel is proofed to only a third of a service load, was it? I don't remember. But if it was, then I forgive you because you couldn't have said that disingenuously, I think to highly of you to say that.

But thats where I am going with all this. I do hope that you approve of that. And for the life of me, I can't figure out why you wouldn't. Anyone who may change their loading practices as a result of this series can not help but to be safer, with a greater margin for mistakes, than what they were previously. You do support me in that, don't you?

Regarding the following:

You didn't specify the charge Wolfhound. You do know that there is no such thing as .50 cal 100 gr. bullet? But a very hollow one could feasibly be made. With 100 grains 2f BP, it would not be possible to exceed 4500 psi with say a ballet style 100 gr bullet. And of course, there is no way the muzzle energy is going to be 2300 ft.lbs.

To get the pressure up to 12750, we are going to have to choose a much heavier bullet, and if we do, we will have a very powerful, very effective, deer slayer in our hands.

This is what doesn't have any real world value.

"Soft extrudedbarrels bulge faster"

"The proofing is 1/3 of a service load"

"With max charges and monster bullets"

Just a few quips from acouple of well meaning and very naive guys who obviously don't are qualified to discuss such things.

Happy Hunting, Phil