First PRB deer! (Graphic)
 

Some years back, I found a .45 CVA "Frontier" rifle at a local pawnshop for $60. It was a kit-gun that the previous owner had never finished.

I added a few missing parts, some 'medicine' tacks and refinished the stock.

I had taken deer in the past with my other .45s, but with Maxi's and saboted rounds only.

I worked-up a decent PRB load for the 'Frontier' rifle: 59 gns of FFF 777 under a .445 roundball with a .015 Oxyoke patch... clocked abt 1800 fps and a 40 yd zero put me just-low at 100. Accuracy seemed up-to-the-mark.

I figured it was abt a 50 yd set-up. Those .45 roundballs run kinda' light.

Friday morning, I'd quit the blind and started walking back home. I came up on this cull-buck at abt 40 yds. (I'd caught some game-cam pictures of him before and made up my mind that he didn't need to be breeding our does)

The shot looked good, he swapped-ends and ran away, flag down. Plenty of blood where he'd stood, more on the ground along the way, he'd ran abt 70 yds before he piled-up.

First RB deer for me and a clean kill. If you'd been there, you would been an astonished witness to my rendition of the "Happy Pilgrim" dance!

Not much to look at, weighed 90 lbs on the game scale, but with crab-claw horns like these, I figured he needed to be taken out:



He was quartered toward me at the shot, and it looked as though the ball didn't exit.

The RB had broken the shoulder going in, got at least one lung, knocked a chunk out of the heart, slipped between the ribs and sat under the hide on the exit side. Penetration totalled abt 12".

When I saw that bone had been hit, I figured that the ball would have just blown to pieces. Was pleasantly surprised to see that the ball had remained reasonably intact, flattened out to abt .75, and had lost less than a grain in weight (weighed 133 gns leaving the muzzle, weighed just over 132 after recovery).

Not bad performance from an 'obsolete' projectile!


Now it's time to go out after a trophy, so far, so good!

(Signing off with a Happy Pilgrim Dance)

BP

Nice shot and congrats on your first PRB kill! Thats a fat young deer there! Not what I would consider a management buck, but it will be one good eatin son of a gun!!

Good job! Gotta love those pawn shop finds. I found my lyman .54 trade at a local one. It'd never been fired still had the grease in the barrel and under it in the stock, picked mine up for $160. Btw, like the stripes on the stock it's unique.

A .45 caliber roundball?? What the heck.. all them muzzleloading experts who's reports I read from time to time tell me that a roundball is a sub standard projectile for hunting deer. Of course that never stopped me from hunting deer with roundball. And killing quite a few to boot.

Congratulations on that nice little buck. Now that is the kind you want for the table. Going to be some tender eating there. Nice shot. And the expansion of that ball is amazing isn't it.

Congrats BrushPopper. Nice tender young buck. I'm not a fan of the .45 round ball for deer, but they've killed deer for centuries and your results speak for themselves.

Nice. Congrats!

A .45 PRB is what killed my first buck! Congrats and nice rifle

rw

I can smell the back straps. Congrats!





D

Nothing wrong with a .45 ball for deer...My first flinter bought in 1977 was a .45 and I killed a few dozen deer with it...My load for deer was 75grs FFF Goex...That ball would do just as yours did...The first deer I took with it was about 65 yards out, the shot was a high shoulder and it went through both shoulder blades and the spine...The ball was found flattened on the off side...

The only reason I made a .54 back in the 80s was because of an encounter with a bear...A BIG bear...When they walk up at 30 yards and then stand on their hind legs they get your attention... :)

Congrats on yer deer & the prb you popped him with

Nice looking buck, will be good eating for sure, congratulations

The first deer I ever shot was with a .5o cal. patched round ball.I hit him right behind the shoulder and the ball doubled in diameter stopping just under the skin on the oppiosite side.I thought that if it had not been a double lunger and the deer had gone anywhere I might have never found it because there was no blood trail.So I never shot another deer with a patched round ball and switched to the 370 grain Maxi Ball.There's no problem with finding a blood trail when you use those suckers.

Way to go. Our muzzleloading season, we can use anything 40 caliber and up. I would like to use a 40 cal blackpowder handgun but I do not know about performance at close range.:happy0157: If placed right it should do the job.