Is that your impersonation of me?

Not bad, but the smiley ruined it.

Maybe because the patched roundball was the real first projectile that I ever used, and for many years, when I started shooting muzzleloader, is a reason I like them. When I started there were patched roundball, and minnie ball, and maxiball. Other then that you were pretty much on your own.

I hunted for years with roundball out of a .54 caliber Renegade and never had a problem taking deer. In fact when Knight came out with their MK 85 and an article talked about shooting pistol bullets out of it with plastic sleeves... my friends and I laughed our heads off. We just could not see why someone would give up the extra diameter in the bullet (we all shot .54 or bigger) to go from a .530 to something like a .451... why that was ridiculous in our eyes. But us old dogs learned that the pistol bullet really did work and work well.

Ballistics are not kind to a PRB. But evidence in the field is. But some of the muzzleloading experts love to post numbers and figures of the roundball to prove they don't work or at least in theory should not work. The thing to remember with a PRB is they are not what I consider a long range projectile. 100 yards, maybe a hair more is about it IMO. And even then I much prefer them 75 and under. But you place that small piece of lead in the right spot, it does some amazing things.

I read you say most of your shots are short range. As you know. The PRB is perfect for that. I've set my limit at 75 yds too. I'm good with open sights at that range. Although, i'm going to install a peep sight for hunting. Just to keep things a little clearer.

I'm seriously thinking of just hunting muleys from now on. I'm going to switch for the hot sweaty ML season to the late rifle season for deer. It will be in the cold and snow. Which I prefer. It also thins out the hunters.

I'm going to do all my hunting with the GPR from now on. It's a .50 cal, and should be fine for deer. If I decide to continue to hunt elk. I'll buy a .54 cal barrel for it.

Anyway, that's the plan. Use the GPR for everything. Rendezvous shoots, and coyote hunting all year long. Really get to know the gun, and what it can do. Then during deer season i'll be confident I can make solid accurate shots.

ive already taken a cow elk at 140 yards with 80gr Pyro RS and the 230gr PRB. It killed her perfectly. Thats where im setting my limit for the time being with a .54cal round ball. Doc White says the .54cal round ball can kill cleanly out to 175 yrds.

Can I borrow your eyes for my next hunt?

Like Cayugad, I hunted with a ML long before they became popular and before there were special seasons. And also like he said, all we had were RBs, Maxis and Minnis. If there were other hunters around they would either snicker at my ML or were intrigued about it. I shot my first ML deer about 1969 with a .45 PRB from my T/C Hawken fliner at about 35-40 yds. She ran about 50 yds and piled up. A few years later I 'graduated' to a .50 flinter when PA started their primitive season. And then only PRBs were allowed, and buckhorn style sights and flintlock ignition, 44 cal or larger. Today you can still only use open sights and flintlock but the projectile is anything you want to use. Bore size must be .44 or larger.
There is an early season in mid October where you can use any muzzleloader and any sights (including scopes) and any projectile. But the bore still must be .44 or larger. And this year you can use a ML pistol, .50 cal min.
I plan on using my .54 1:70 with PRB and carry my Lyman .54 Plains pistol in case I get a shot <25 yds.

Today I went for a hike at 11,000ft, because I knew it was snowing up there. I'm sick and tired of the heat at 8000ft. I had a great time, and it reminded me just how much I love snow.

So, i've decided for sure i'll be hunting with my GPR during late rifle season. I put on the primitive sight that came with the GPR. It looks much better than the adjustable sight that came installed from the factory. Surprisingly, I can line up the sights better now. I'm going to stay with it, and hold off on a peep sight.

Cripes! It's 1 1/2 months to the season, and then I have another year on top of that to wait to hunt deer again.

Oh well. Rabbits and squirrels for a few months of hunting, and then the rest of the year for coyotes will keep me busy.

I ordered some lead and a mould to cast some .50 balls. I'll be shooting a lot of them over the next year.

muley, i want to put the primitive sight on my gpr but the damn thing just slides right across the barrel, everyone keeps telling me to "peen" it to make it a tighter fit, but noone want to tell me where to peen it, on the edges or in the middle?

Mine was the same way. I took a punch(not a center punch), and hit right in the middle on both sides. Does that make sense?

Just in case it didn't. I used a punch with a flat face. Maybe twice as big as the head of a pin. I placed in the middle of the barrel over the dovetail, but still back a bit from the edge of the dovetail. I didn't want to bend over the edge. A couple of hits on each side gave a perfect fit.

What I do is use a center punch to put some dimples on the underside of the sight. I put the sight upside down in a vice so as to support the base of the sight (but do not close the vice tight on the blade of the sight). Then I put three small dimples on bottom of each wing to the left and right of the blade. This raises enough metal to tighten it up in the dovetail.