Round ball for deer hunting
 

I have a Cabelas Hawkens, have come to realize that it wants to shoot round balls instead of conicals.

I have found that my most accurate load is a 50cal round ball with 80 grains pyrodex. Does anyone on the board shoot a similar load, or can anyone tell me if this load has enough energy to be effective for whitetail deer hunting? I would also like any recommendations on where to aim in order to put the deer down quickly.

Thanks,
Rick C.

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

Sure it does. Just keep it in the boiler room. and keep your shots under 70 yards. Some will say more, but my eyes are horrible.

Let me put it this way, I have shot traditional with roundball, and then jumped to inlines about 6 years ago, andseveral inlines later and 2100fps 250gr loads and great performance, my load this year with be with a TC hawken and 90gr of Goex and roundball and I don't feel undergunned. Just want to do something different thisyear.

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

80 grains of Pyrodex RS and a patched roundball will blow right through a deer most of the time. In fact I had the experience of shooting one deer at 80 yards, blowing through that deer and killing a second deer behind the first deer. I had plenty of tags to cover the incident, but it gives you an indication of the power of a roundball.

I like to get them quartering away broadside, and tuck that behind the front leg, through the lungs and into the other shoulder. The deer usually drop right where they stood or make about 15 yards, but seldom go further then that. Also you get a good blood trail.

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

Thanks for the info. I tried for a long time to try to find the right load to push a heavier conical out of this gun with no luck. This gun will only shoot round balls accurately, and so it shall!

I am still a little new to hunting. When you say to place the shot in the "boiler room", you are talking about lung/heart area? Would ashoulder shot be a good choice with the round ball?

-Rick C.

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

At close range the shoulder shot should go all the way thru. I have had them not penetrate all the way thru however but did down the deer. This was a quartering to me shot. Kinda a bad shot, but it was starring right me. Yep, boiler room heart lung area.

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

ditto to all of the above.
the way i see it.........100 years ago they where doing it:Dlike stated above keep your shots within the limits of the gun and shooter.... the rest will take care of itself;)

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

Before my brother-in-law converted to blackpowder he used Pyrodex. He had an old rifle that liked 50grs. of powder with patched ball. Dropped deer with that load.

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

Actually if I am hunting in thick cover and know the shots will be close, I think a roundball is one of the most effective projectiles a person can use on deer. At the closer ranges, they have great speed on them and then to really flatten out when they hit. Most impressive is some of the entrance wounds I have seen roundballs make. You would swear someone threw a golf ball through the deer until you turn them over and see the exit wound. Also the internal damage a simple roundball will do is massive.

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

Can a inline shoot roundballs good. And can a powerbell do that much damage.

RE: Round ball for deer hunting
 

An inline can shoot roundball. The thing I find is that if you use large charges of powder, the roundball will skip the fast twist rifling and accuracy will suffer. I have a Knight Wolverine that with 70 grains of powder or less, and a roundball it is a very accurate rifle. Friends were over one afternoon and I was loading the rifle with 50 grains of Goex and a patched roundball for their kids to shoot. They thought it was wonderful and very accurate. Actually the little devils did some impressive target shooting with that 50 grain load. It would make an excellent small game load or even a moderate range deer hunting load. But I would not expect pass through of the roundball with this kind of charge, but I do think you would get some impressive expansion out of the roundball.



This is the roundball with another to compare size to that was recovered against the skin on the other side of the spine from the second deer. After the ball passed through the first deer the roundball hit the second deer in the spine, broke the animals back causing the animal to be paralyzed and unable to flee. I then dispatched the animal with a knife.

I felt the roundball never hit solid bone on the first deer. When I opened the first animal to clean it, both lungs and the top of the heart were damaged severely, but I did not note any broken ribs onany side of the rib cage, so I am guessing it actually never hit solid bone. After it dropped this animal and continued its path into the second deer's spine it would have still retained some impressive energy if it still was able to obtain that kind of expansion on the solid spine.

The reason I like to tuck the ball behind the front leg through the vitals into the other shoulder is I find it knocks them off their feet many times and they they do not have to power to get back up. If they do, or are not knocked down, they are so mortally wounded that I always call them walking dead.

Whether a Powerbelt can do the same thing would depend on the powerbelt design. I think the pure lead hollow point Powerbelts would never get this kind of pass through. I have read many posts by shooters who's opinion I value greatly. They tell of using the hollow point powerbelts and finding them fragmented. They report that the powerbelt hits and basically explodes into pieces. I believe this is what the hollow point design was intended to do. The upsetting reports I read are of shooters hitting deer with hollow point Powerbelts and not knocking the animal down, even worse, not being able to recover the animal.

The Aero Tip Powerbelt might stand a better chance of passing through an animal because of the design again, but even those Powerbelts are intended to hit and then expand. I think if the Aero Tip was lucky enough to not hit a bone passing through the first animal, then it might stand a chance of having enough power to take and kill a second animal behind it.

I just want to add this note. It was never my intention of shooting through one animal and hitting a second. The whole incident was a case where I made the mistake of not looking past my intended target to note a second deer standing in the bushes behind the first deer. This is not something I would every intentionally try to do. Still, it does show or indicate the power of a roundball. Too many people feel the roundball is not a game taking projectile. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The rifle was a .54 caliber Thompson Center Renegade with a 1-48 twist. It was loaded with 80 grains of Pyrodex RS and a patched homecasted roundball.