A guy at work was telling me he has a custom made muzzle loader that is a 56 caliber (he also said he makes his own lead balls with an RCBS mold) with a 46" progressive twist barrel that takes 400 grains of powder. He said he has killed deer at 700 yards with it. He has a Sharps style sight on it. Now knowing muzzle loaders a lot of this sounds a bit out there, but knowing modern technology anything is possible. He also compaired the ballistics to a 240 Weatherby.

Does anyone know of this type of muzzle loader or if it is possible? I would really like to know.

hmmm thats odd....goes against everything i ever heard....about how much over 100grs of powder your just blowing it out the bore because it doesnt have time to burn...(i seen it today at dusk with my 50cal...shooting 90gr of 2fg goex...i watch a little fly out the bore and burn..) and i just read in a magazine a 50cal round ball zeroed at 50yds drops about 50 inches at 200yds....just doesnt seem likely...unless he has some kind of special powder or something of the sort? and im not sure what a progressive tiwst barrel is either....maybe that makes it possible? and 46inches i guess he could get more powder to burn in there....but 400gr? thats ALOT of blackpowder....then again theres like a pound in a cannon......anyone smarter then me know? im kinda interested now....

I think they had 50 caliber sniper rifles at the end of the Civil War with recored kills of up to a mile. At that time wouldnt they have to be muzzle loaders? I wonder if it is a modernized version of one of the old sniper rifles?

I think the progressive twist barrel starts the rifling out slower and gets faster as it goes down the barrel, but I am not positive.

hmmm thats wild......everything i thought i knew about muzzleloaders went out the window somewhere if this is true....the end of the civil war? im not sure but i think the metalic cartridge came during the war....im not posative though....i know blackpowder cartridges are able to do it...like the 45-70s and all them old "buffalo" guns.....but dont know about a muzzleloader....i really want to know....the progressive twist doesnt sound like it would do much for velocity and power....just stabilizing the bullet.....so i dont know how its possible 700 yds with a muzzleloader is a poke and a half....someone should know something on here

The Whitworth Rifle was the favorite Confederate sniper rifle of the Civil War. It was a .451 caliber with a 1:20 twist, which shot a 590 grain bullet on 80 grains of FFg powder. This Confederate weapon, when outfitted with a telescopic site was rummored to have an effective range of 1,500 yards. The twisted hexagonal bore imparted a steadiness of flight to its .45 caliber bullet, and made this rifle the favorite of Confederate sharpshooters. The Confederacy imported a small number of the rifles from the Whitworth Rifle Company of Manchester, England beginning in 1862. (This information was gathered from another site where this rifle was discussed in more detail. Musketman was the poster at this site.)

As for your friends claim of a 400 grain charge, I would doubt that. I would think the barrel would not be able to withstand the barrel pressures that would result in the discharge of the load, let alone burn all that powder off in a barrel of any length in an effective manner. Perhaps he meant 400+ grain projectile. Many of the target Sharps today run no where near a 400 grain load. I believe from some of my readings, they usually are at most in the 120 FFg catagory.

Also without a telescopic sight of some sort, no matter how good the Sharps Verneer Tang site is, I would think making a shot at 700 yards on a deer size target would be something to see. I know there is no way I could pull something like that off with the naked eye. I would have a hard enough time making a shot like that with a modern rifle and scope.

I suspect he is bragging a bit, given what he has told you. If he is, indeed casting ROUND ball, he has no business shooting deer at 200 yards, let alone 700. RB has such a poor ballistic co-efficent that velocity drops very quickly. 700 yards? Not probable.
If he is casting and shooting a conical bullet, it IS possible to get hits waaaaay out there, but that brings up other problems. First, .56 caliber is awfuly big for a conical to get any ballistic co-efficent without being so heavy that his rifle either: 1, weighs 40 pounds (possible), or 2, Recoil knocks him into the next county when he fires it. BP trajectories are very high compared to high velocity smokeless cartridges. The only common denominator of any BP propelled projectile to a .240 Weatherby is the fact that both expell a projectile from the muzzle!
High trajectorys mean you must be able to estimate range within just a few yards to hit. BP guns will knock the stuffin out of any animal that ever lived, but you gotta hit'em first. Unknown distance (700 yards known beforehand, or measured afterwards), with open sights, on a kill zone about 12 inches in diameter? Not likely, at least not repeatedly.
If you look at the shooting done by the Irish team in the first international rifle match on Long Island, New York, in 1874. they used Rigby muzzleloading rifles, probably among the finest ever made. They competed at 800, 900, and 1000 yards. Known ranges, with ranging shots fired for sight settings. Targets 12 feet by 6 feet, with a center , or bull of 3 feet by 3 feet. The best target fired, by John Rigby himself, was a 55, out of a possible of 60. Great shooting, but his bulls were still scattered over an area of 3 feet by 3 feet.
All in all, I just do not believe it is likely that he has any 700 yards kills on whitetails.

It doesnt make any sense to me!!!!!!!!!!

A Progressive twist is supposed to help with high breech pressures.

Yep the progressive twist barrel starts out slower and gets faster at the muzzle.

400 grains of powder I think something's up with that...