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There are ten guys in our hunting club. Other than me and my brother-in-law, none of them are muzzle loading enthusiasts. The others are "once a year/extend the hunting season" kind of guys who shoot sabots exclusively.

I shoot mostly round balls and sabots for hunting, but play around with big lead on the range. I used to hunt with a TC New Englander and 410 grain Great Plains bullets. But sold that gun a few years back. My b-i-l used to hunt with his TC Grayhawk and 385 grain Great Plains bullets. But for the last few years his Grayhawk has sat in the cabinet while he hunts with sabots in his Knight or TC Omega.

A semi-scientific survey of what is stocked at various retailers seems to indicate bore-sized balls are well represented, if you count the Powerbelt family.

The heavy conicals shoot very well out of my mk 85s as well as my Whites. Most of my shots are pretty close compared to some of the shots you get out there Chet. I like them, they perform well on game, they load so easy and I like the fact that they are economical to shoot.

i prefer conicals to be honest. I could have used a sabot in new mexico but i just didnt see the point in changing over.

You can also compromise and shoot the White PowerStars. I've got some 435 grainers for .50 caliber and some 350 grainers for the .45. I'm hoping the Apex .45 will like those 350 grainers.

I don't know if Steve can still supply those bullets or not. Someone should make them again if he doesn't.

Here's a weird group I shot while playing around with an Encore .45 that I no longer own. That is the only Encore barrel I ever owned that would flat shoot even with the QLA present.



Made a scope adjustment after that second shot then fired two more at 50 and one at 100 to test "drop". Didn't seem to be any.

I love shooting conicals but I've also grown fond of BH209 powder so am using plastic more than ever before. And I'm getting (?? ) horribly lazy.

I've got big plans to test that .45 Apex with both conicals and sabots using the BH209 and Swiss 3f but will probably only do about a 1/4 of the shooting I've planned. The bore on that barrel sure looks like it would handle conicals well. The .50 I've got in the same model will shoot the conicals very well (based upon just a very few shots). I've got to wait for a warmer day though.

Chet, not so very long ago, i had a chat with a game warden about muzzle loader regulations. Whut brought it about is a difference in the wording of muzzle loader requirements in the general big game regulations vs the wording in the muzzle loader application. The general regulations only mention rifle caliber; bullet caliber is never mentioned. The minimum muzzle loader rifle one can use in SD is 44 caliber. However in the muzzle loader regulations, the word bullet appears.

We came to an agreement that one can use a 45 caliber rifle with a 40 caliber bullet during any rifle season, but not during the muzzle loader season. The way the muzzle loader regulations are written, one must use at least a 44 caliber bullet during muzzle loader season. The reason i bring this up here, is because you virtually must use a conical during the muzzle loader season, if you use that 45 caliber rifle.

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There are a lot of us that have an open choice, there are many things that enter into the choice of projectile. around here you can shoot any thing at wild hogs and the deer and bear regulations are also reasonable they restrict us to a 40 caliber projectile or larger which I think is quite reasonable compared to other states.
I personally like PRB and sabot+ bullet projectiles. I do shoot some conicals because I occasionally go out west where they seem to be out of tune with the rest of us and out there I used to shoot the 460 gr conical now I have switched to the 350 grain FPB which does an excellent job out of my TC guns.
I know that a lot of people shoot conicals but have never known if it because they like them or the state laws force them to. I do know that the trajectory of them is difficult to master.

I guess the appeal of the conical bullet kind of stuck with me from my Traditional rifle shooting days. Before inline rifles, I hunted mostly with a .54 caliber Renegade and shot roundball or Buffalo Bullet 426 grain hollow point conical bullets. After I took the front end off a deer with a Buffalo Bullet conical, I kind of swore off them. I always did cast my own roundball, so I started casting the 300 and 380 grain REAL conicals for the Renegade. My friends also started shooting REAL conicals because they were free and they shot real well out of their rifles.

I was pretty happy with this until I met a bunch of White Rifle shooters on a forum I think no longer exists. They talked about shooting 460 and 495 grain conicals, some even bigger. I kind of thought.. horse hockey. But I purchased some 460 grain No Excuses and shot them out of my Black Diamond XR and they shot perfect. So I was back to the large conicals again. Then I got my first White Model 97 in .504 from Sportsman Ware house. That first afternoon I shot off all my No Excuses stock. I was in love again with conicals. No swabbing, easy to load, and the down range power was amazing.

Where I hunt and shoot 100 yards is a long way. My conical bullets will do that in a heart beat. And the end results is just as dramatic or more so, as a sabot bullet. With the more Whites I accumulated, I even thought of selling off all but my White rifles and forget the entire sabot thing all together. But I like to shoot to much.

I think that were some of you live, and this shooting 200 yards.. a sabot might be better suited, although a conical can and will do the same thing. I guess it is a matter of choice. A matter of what do you trust to plant the deer where it stands, so you don't have to worry about a blood trail. For me that is big lead.