Hi Guys. Just returned from a semiannual visit with my wife and mother-in-law to my wife's sister and her two daughters in Canton, GA. It was eight days of estrogen overload. Even my traditional tour of local gun and pawn shops didn't help much. Very little in the way of muzzle loading stuff.

I spent a lot of time sitting on the back porch watching a couple of white oaks drop a bumper crop of acorns, smoking my pipe, dreaming of opening day in two weeks and musing about guns, loads, bullets and such.

Returned home late yesterday evening and spent much of last night and this morning catching up on all of the threads I missed over the last week. One that caught my attention was Grouse's thread on "Knight lovers are going to be happier in 2012", and the discussion about the possibility of a fast twist .45. That thread matched up nicely with one of my musings - an Omega X7 designed to shoot Speer 210 grain .410 Deep Curls.

It seems to me that the 210 grain .410 bullets designed as hunting bullets for the .41 magnum by Speer, Hornady and Sierra are the perfect bullets for deer. I don't know what would be the right twist rate for those bullets in a muzzle loader. But if Knight produced a break open model with a twist that matched that bullet I would be buying my third (and last) inline.

I own a perfect .45 caliber I do not need another. Mine of course is a White .451 and it shoots a 460 grain conical with authority. Nothing walks away from that little rifle. I sure don't need another inline rifle. But actually I have thought about getting a CVA Electra. Even though I can not hunt with it.. I think it would be fun to play with.

Semisane
According to both my experiments and the numbers using the formula for twist to bullet length the 1-28 and the 1-24 should do quite well with the 41 cal 210 gr bullet.
The 1-20 twist figures out to shoot something like a 38 caliber 210 to 240 gr bullet or a 250 or 275 gr 40 caliber bullet depending on the construction of the bullet we are talking about lead jacketed bullets here the brass or copper bullets are longer for weight so would be lighter at the right length. { just my 2 cents}

i think i'd really only want a 45 for range fun. Even then i guess it wouldnt make much sense for me to own one. With open sights you're still limited to around 150 yards with my eye sight and cant even use it on an elk so again, wouldnt make any sense. Actually i just bought a .45 TC Hawken a few days ago but resold it to a buddy who had been looking for one.

Lee... Question??

Using the 1-20 twist shooting the shorter bullets should create a problem called 'Over Stabilization' which really is not a problem as I understand it IF the bullet can can handle the faster spin rate.

From the reading and writings that I have read... 'over stablization' (spinning the bullet to fast) along with the accellerated velocity really creates 'wobble' in a less than perfectly round and balanced bullet. This wobble then causes loss of accuracy.

Is this not one of the reasons that you can not accurately shoot a PRB from a fast twist bore with out reducing the charge to slow the ball down?

I do not have the article available to me on this computer that discusses this but I will look for it on my base computer.

Found this quote...

I thought about a .45. It does have better ballistics than a .50. The problem is, it would have to be deer only here. We have to use a .50 for elk.

Patched balls in a fast twist are an entirely different problem Sabotloader. The issue with them is the small bearing surface the ball has against the barrel and the integrity of the patch. With a fast twist at high velocity the patch tends to strip the lands. Two bad things can happen. The patch tears allowing blow by and/or fails to have enough grip to cause the ball to rotate. Lighter charges are successful because the slower speed allows the patch to maintain its integrity. Heavy charges can work in a fairly fast twist if the patch/ball combination is very tight in the bore - usually requiring a hammer start.

Semi

OK that makes sense, i am just not much of a round ball shooter. But then could I apply it back to my White... It will, or it seems to me, it will shoot long lead conicals lights out with a hefty charge of T7 but it really is bad with very short lead conicals and that same charge.

Since you brought up a PRB in a fast twist. I'll give you a range report.

I got my new Optima a couple of days ago. I'm still waiting for a bullet order, so I couldn't shoot it. Ever get a new gun you couldn't go shoot? That doesn't work for me.

Yesterday morning I was fiddling with the gun, and saw a round ball on the floor I must have dropped. The light went off. Why not shoot some PRB's in the Optima? It's better than not shooting at all.

So, I tried some .018 pillow ticking and a .490 ball in the bore. A nice tight fit. Tighter than I would normally use, but I figured that would be better in the shallow rifling.

I loaded up with 60gr of BH 209. What a pleasant recoil. I was overly impressed when it shot 1" at 25 yds for 5 shots. I went to 50yds, and the group was 2".

It started to rain hard, and I called it quits. I want to try 75yds and different powder loads. I think it will be a perfect small game load and just general plinking.

I'm glad I didn't have any bullets to shoot, or I never would have tried a PRB. It sure will be cheap to shoot, and the lighter loads are really fun to shoot.

Dang Muley. I'm pretty sure it's a MAJOR sin to put Blackhorn under a patched ball. You may as well go ahead and scope your sidelocks.