Originally Posted by
nchawkeye
One thing funny about round balls, due to their shape, the faster you push them, the faster they slow down...Add to that the inefficiency of black powder where it reaches a place where more powder simply doesn't give much more velocity and you find that a charge of 70-80 grs of powder is fine for a .45-.54 round ball...
And, let's not even get into burning patches, which more powder will do...
And more powder also leaves more crud in the barrel...
When I finished my .54 I started with 120grs FF, after a few years I went to 100grs FFF and then down to 80grs FFF...I suspect that 70grs would be plenty but with a 9 pound rifle and a 38 inch barrel there just isn't any real felt recoil so I figure I'll leave it alone...
Another thought as well, a pure lead ball sure flattens pretty easily even at slower velocities...I've seen them flatten to about the thickness of a nickel...This retards penetration...So it's really not what you want to see...
nchawkeye,
I came to question the idea of pure lead quite a few years ago. I was casting round balls for use in shotguns, mostly using Lyman recipes. I began to get what looked like pressure problems in the 20 (never used pure lead in the 12s). While checking wound
channels with newspapers, I noticed that the bases of the projectiles were flattened. That had to be happening inside the barrel! So I tried wheelweights, and the pressure indications
disappeared.
Now, throwing a .600 or .720 WW ball through a deer will likely be effective, but maybe not with a .54, So, what about running a different bullet alloy, maybe 25%ww/75% pure lead? Fiddle with the mix until there is no sign of Base deformation. You would have to test this at different velocities, simulating different ranges. It would be more work that I would want to do, so I would take the lazy way out and use a 250 Barnes in one of Del Ramsey's "patches".
OldBob47