I kinda understand the concept in a high powered rifle with the boattail thing where you need to sometimes take 300 to 400 yd shots, but. with 50 caliber muzzleloader does the boattail make that big of accuracy difference. or is this just another marketing thing.

With more powder developments on top of centered ignition thanks to Tony Knight around 20 years ago, you can see an actual BC difference with streamlined, pointed, actual bullet-shaped ML bullets. The most popular boattails these days are the rebatted design where the tail diameter is reduced to minimize drag & keyholing, maintain spin longer & eases loading. There are other benefits, but I'm not an expert on bullet designs.... not an expert on MLs either.

I still feel that lead hollow points in conjunction with powder charges under 120 grains produce more deadly/bloody deer harvests than these plastic poly-tips that bullet manufacturers like to charge a high price for just because they are prettier & fly 10-20 yards straighter/longer. I'll take more bullet-drag with my hollow-point leaded Buffalo S.S.Bs that do house the rebatted boattail. I'll raise my sights to accomodate it's lower B.C. All & any deer will never know these "not-so-popular' bullets of mine are uglier than the pretty orange tipped copper-clads. I'll also save alot of dough buying them in closeouts/bargain dens where other ML bullet shoppers pass them by looking for a centerfire-type bullet for MLs for alot more money than I spent.... getting sub-par performance in many hunting situations too.