ORIGINAL: statjunk
I was thinking the other day why are the most common bullets used in muzzle loaders so heavy. In my .300 WM I shoot 180gr and in my muzzle loader I shoot 250gr. Why the difference in bullet weight?
Also why the large diameter bores? Can't they make a 30 cal muzzle loader with lighter bullets capable of 400+ yard shots?Tom
Nope. In order to increase the power of a ML, you must increase the size/weight of the bullet it shoots.
Why? Because the MV of muzzleloaders is limited by the breech design, which cannot stand up to the pressures needed to give a small caliber bullet the kind of velocities you need for thatlevel of performance. If you were to use a breech simialr to that on the smokeless powder Savage, which might indeed be strong enough, you'd still need a powder chamber twice or three times the diameter of the bore in order to be able to load the amount of slow-burning powder that you'd need to get the required muzzle velocity. Have you noticed the MV ratings of straight cartridges?
Rounds like the .32/40, .38/55, .375 Win., .45/70, etc., are all relatively low-velocity, short-range rounds. Even the bigger, bottle-necked .30/30, .32 Win. Special, etc., are pretty puny because they don't hold enough powder!
However, just because you can't get .270 Win. velocities from a muzzleloader doesn't mean you can't kill game with one at 400 yards! But to do so, you have to shoot so much that trajectory knowledge becomes second nature, and you have to develop accurate range estimation skills-or have time to use a good rangefider!