Until elongated bullets came along folks had one choice of projectile, patched round ball and, in some cases, unpatched round ball. Few rifles of that era were of .50 caliber and larger. Lots of folks killed deer and bear using .45 and smaller round balls. Those folks were superb hunters who knew the limitations of their guns.

Hunters then were also very good trackers. The man who got me into muzzleloading in the early 1960s was 80 years old when i met him. "Uncle" Joe had always hunted with a muzzleloader. His favorite patched ball gun began life as a .40 caliber. It was "freshed out" to .45 sometime in the 1930s. Never met a man who could track like he could. Uncle" Joe hunted with a muzzleloader well into his 90s and died peacefully at age 97.

Put a patched round ball in the right place and it will do the job, so will all the other muzzleloader projectiles. Put any muzzleloader bullet in the wrong place and you have a problem.

i use what works well for me. Every hunter should use what works for them. It's just flat wonderful that folks have all these choices of bullets to shoot and argue over; it ain't always been that way.