New to muzzleloading... love it!

Purchased a TC Triumph back in November. Honestly didn't have any idea what I got myself into, good thing I found this forum. Sales guy told me "everybody uses these", meaning Powerbelts. My Triumph didn't like them. Picked up some Traditions 250 gr, sabot loads (only other bullets they had), found enough accuracy at 60 yards, with open sights, to take a deer.

Foreword to this week, purchased a scope. Sighted in the scope with 250gr shockwaves and 2/50gr pellets of T7, 3 shot groups touching at 60 yards. Great! And good enough for now, will work up to longer ranges later. Now i get to the point of this, I also picked-up .490 round balls and proceeded to shoot 3" groups at 60 yards with 50gr of T7. Surprised me!

So... if i could bump-up the load to 60-70 grs and still maintain accuracy, would that be enough to take whitetails at close range with the round ball.(this year took mine at 50 yards) ?

Interested, well, because its muzzleloading!

yeah that will work fine on close range shots on out to 60-70 yards

Not sure how high you'll get the powder charge and still get acceptable groups, but if you can get there it's fine for long "archery" ranges ;D

go through the ribs not the shoulder for extra insurance.

johnnyo

Here some velocities for you with the load you were talking about... form these velocities you can compute energy....

I'd work with sabot and bullet combinations to find a better load...These inlines are easily capable of minute of angle at 100 yards...In addition, inlines are made for shooting sabots and bullets...A round ball barrel will be cut rifling .015 deep with a
1-66 or 1-72 twist in a .50 or .54 caliber...

But to answer your question, yes that round ball load you posted will kill a whitetail...I bought my first flintlock in 1977, a .45 and from then until 1990 I used 75grs of Goex FFF and a .440 round ball...I moved up to a .54 in 1990 and no use a .530 and 80grs of powder...As a side note, I rebarreled the .45 to a .40 and have even taken a couple of deer with the .40 and 60grs of FFF...

When you start going down in power it's almost like you are bow hunting...Limit your shots to 25-35 yards, get tight behind the shoulder and hit them right behind the elbow (low in the shoulder)...

btw...I walked into a gun store today and asked about "muzzleloader bullets"...The "sales guy" said he didn't have any, he sold out during the season...I said "Do you have reloading bullets for a .44 Mag, he says sure...

The guy had several boxes of .429 and .452 240-300gr bullets...I had to explain to him about buying sabots and working up a load with pistol bullets...

Most of these sales guys don't have a clue...Looks like you met one as well...

I'm very much interested in the long range capabilities of my inline, but i'm intrigued by the option of using a lesser load, even if i never use it.

sabotloader... thanks for the velocity data!

Yah... second time through different sales person, first time turns out it was the owner pushing the powerbelts which were way more expensive.

anything over 20 yards is long range archery for me... love getting close!