I've been thinking. And the more I think about the more I get and understand sabotloader's soapbox in his thread "Another powderbelt question"

There seems to be alot of people using powerbelts who want the flat trajectory they get by propelling lighter bullets at higher velocity. They seem to be using powerbelts instead of saboted projectiles because of difficulties loading sabots.

THIS IS A VERY BAD THING TO DO.

We have two choices in Muzzeloading as I see it.

1. Heavy, powerful, looping full bore conicals

2. Lighter, smaller thanbore, flatter shooting saboted projectiles.

There is NO place for light hollowpoint full-bore conicals in our sport. We are in a sport where the sport is harvesting game, not wounding it. Putting a gas check on the back of a underweighted full bore conical does not make the sabot obsolete, no matter what we've been told. It actually makes me angry when I think too much about it.

If anyone is having trouble with loading sabots and a fast flat shooting bullet is what you are after, do confer with sabotloader and exhaust all resources with sabots. If you fail, PLEASE, bite the bullet and learn to shoot heavy conicals.

Happy Hunting, Phil

Hmmm, you seemto have forgottenthe choiceupon whichmuzzleloading is based, patched roundballs!

I don't shoot Powerbelts for hunting but I agree with you. I've got a buddy who shoots the 245 HP Powerbelt and 100 gr Pyro pellets. He's killed several deer with this load with only 1 bullet recovery. None penetrated through the animal but usually on the opposite side of the hit there was usually a 3" circle tore up with what looked like shrapnel from the bullet. The one bullet that was recovered lost half it's weight. If I was required to shoot conicals (50 cal) the lightest Powerbelt I'd use is the 348 Aerotip. I'd prefer the 444 flatpoint. I don't like lubed bullets so I'd stay with the PB's.

Sabinajiles wrote:

"Hmmm, you seemto have forgottenthe choiceupon whichmuzzleloading is based, patched roundballs"

I don't want to offend anyone. I shoot roundballs for practice. But I am sorry, I won't hunt deer with them. Traditionalists might hate me for it but I really don't think it took people of the era very long to figure out that the miniball was a much better projectile. I am being traditional in the sense that like the men of the past, I can recognize an important improvement when I see it and use it.

Eventraditionalists don't have any problems slipping saran wrap over their #11 nipples.

Happy Hunting, Phil

How hard are these exploded Powerbelts being pushed? Iload conservative charges, say...75 gr of 777 on a 295 gr HP Powerbelt.
I would think that if you push it too hard, the velocity at impact is
great enough to shred the bullet. Am I offbase to assume this has anything to do with it? Some guys see 150 gr. capability and load
right to that.

Check out the post on Recovered Bullets - Two Shockwaves and a PowerBelt. That particular bullet was pushed by 75 gr of T7. Broadside at 50 yards - and said it went BETWEEN the ribs!
This is what I have been hearing a lot of for the past year.
I just read on PB's website that the AeroTips are supposed to "penetrate further before beginning expansion." Does anyone have any real-life data on this?

To pglasgow: - It's pretty obvious that you are sold on heavy conicals. We've seen the charts and thank you for the info. Please just don't get too militant with your posts

Click here for Powerbelt Ballistic Data.

livbucks

I believe that the theory that you can drive the PB's to hard is correct - actually you can drive all bullets to hard. Thatwas the real knock on using pistol bullets in the first place - they are not meant to go ML velocity and they blow up and they did... Today the manufactures have realized that and have made the neccesary corrections.

Lead round balls, Elongated lead balls, PowerBelts and Conicals, and even automobiles, they will all blow up if driven to hard to a near dead stop collision.

Pglasgow, thebufflo hunter that he is, can live with and has learned how to shoot looping howitzers, or grenades at the speed necessary to deliver a big punch when they get there. Others like myself still want to achieve flatness with velocity - but yet have the punch on the business end. And I must say if I lived in the state of Colorado or even Washington - I would learn and master the howitzer also - probably from a White Super91.

Again just my 2 cents....

I disagree with you Phil on your belief of the roundball as being an inferior projectile. Also the use of large conicals I personally think is much more prevalent today then it was back in yesteryear. It was my understand that;

In 1848, a French army Captain Claude F. Minie designed and developed the projectile we commonly call the Minnie Ball or Minnie. It was named after him. This projectile had nothing to do with hunting. All this was developed for was to enable soldiers in the field to load faster and shoot further, without cleaningtheir weapon as often, there by giving them the opportunity of better killing or injuring their fellow man.

Prior to the development of the Minnie.. early settlers in the east depended on very small bore rifles .32 -.45 caliber were very common. Most of the common arms one would have encountered were muskets and shotgun to take game. Rifles were all hand made and very expensive.

The introduction of large bore muskets for instance the .69-.75 calibers were again an introduction by military to better wipe out their fellow man. Granted some of these muskets made it into civilian hands. Many large bore muskets even appearedin the Civil War. There are records of .69 caliber muskets and later rifles in common use. Civil War General for the Confederacy "Stone Wall" Jackson was rumored to have been shot (which later lead to his death)by his own troops in the night with a .69 caliber smoothbore musket. Which by the way normally fired a large roundball.

The Civil War did help lead to the development and popularity of large bore rifles such as the .54 caliber and the .58 caliber, as well as some of the modern cartridge rifles we know today. Such rifles as the Creedmore, and Sharps. Even lever action and cylinder action rifles started to make an appearance towards the end of the war.

As early white settlers and explorersmoved west, they encountered many animals much larger and more ferocious then accustomed to in the east. The plains herds demanded larger caliber rifles. Mountain men in their exploration of the Rocky Mountain regions saw the immediate advantage of calibers of .50 and larger when they encounters the great bears and some of the larger deer and plains species like bison and elk. Most of the time the projectile used was the simple patched roundball. It was not until the introduction of the Creedmore and Sharps among others, that the modern projectile was seen being used. Then of course with the advancement of the lever action and cylinder revolver came the cartridge development which we know today.

Roundballs have been killing and dispatching game and man for hundred of years. Granted I will not argue that they have the same ballistics as a sabot projectile, but anyone knows.. put a 1/2 inch or larger roundball through the vital organs of an animal and that animal will die. Sooner or later it will cause the death of that animal. I have hunted for many years with roundball and will vouch for their ability to cleanly and humanly take game animals when used in a responsibile manner.

Sabots were a recent improvement to the muzzleloading market. It was discovered that a projectile of smaller dimensions, through their use, could be shot from a muzzleloader accurate and with better ballistics which increased the effective range of the muzzleloader. Which is all sabots actually do, increase the effective range of the weapon.

The large conicals we see today,I really can not find any reference to their development in early years. I wonder if they were not some kind of adaptation of the minnie or other smaller conicals. Ball-et are also a recent invention.

What it all boils down to is, the sabot allows the muzzleloader with the correct rifle to shoot a projectile at a longer distance and still have acceptable accuracy and energy to dispatch game. When the roundball is used in the ranges it was originally intended to be used is still as deadly today as it was three hundred years ago.

Most of the long distance shooting the common muzzleloader shooter does today would not be as easy as it is if it were not for the use of optics. In my case, take the scope off the rifle and a roundball is as deadly as a sabot because I can not or will not shoot any further with either projectile.

As for the powerbelt, I have often wondered what was the original intention of the inventor. Do you feel that perhaps the material used and the design of the powerbelt could be responsible for the fragmentation we hear about today from their users?

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