a .45cal with 1:48 twist is normally a patched ball shooter. The smaller the cal, normally the faster twist they will have. Large bores having the slower 1:60 twist and slower is much more common than a .45cal with 1:66 twist.

I owned that gun. It had deep groove rifling. Do sabots work in it?

You do realize that there were sidelocks that shot 1000 yards in the mid 1860's right?
They were fast twist with peep sights and "new fangled bullets" And since they could shoot 1000 yards I don't see that they would have many limitations. There were gun cranks back then. Joseph Whitworth made "Hot Rods" for back in the day. They are still Hot Rods in my Book. :rock:

Yes, I do, but they weren't Hawken/plains rifles.

What we're shooting are copy's of what a production gun was back then. Some are better copies than others.

It doesn't matter. This forum allows anything as long as it's a sidelock.

Well I know that Devil. The gun is designed to be a round ball shooter. But I have several different brands of 45/40 sabots and and assortment of .40 caliber bullets. So you know I'm going to give it a try for grins and giggles. You just won't see the report in this forum. Uh-OH! I probably should not have said that here. ;)

Don't know Muley. They might work. It will be interesting to see what happens with 180 and 200 grain .40 caliber bullets. I haven't tried to measure the depth of the rifling. Eyeballing it, I would call it a bit deeper than the rifling on my Omega and not as deep as the rifling on my Green Mountain ball barrels.

I can get one of Ed Mehlig's 350 grain .451 conicals in the bore with very firm thumb pressure. So those will get a try also. Come to think of it, I have some .45 sabots for .357 bullets, and some 158 grain .357's. Man, the first range session with this gun is going to be really fun.

What's the matter with a PRB? It will kill deer just fine.

It's not about there being anything wrong with round balls. And not about killing deer.

It's about having fun and playing around with loads just to see what happens. If my interest in muzzleloaders was just about killing deer I would own only one gun, would find the most effective load for it, and shoot nothing but that load. How boring would that be?

Not at all for me. :p

conicals were made long before the 1860s. Jager rifle comes to find and one reason why german gunsmiths when they came to America, came up with the kentucky rifle as huge slugs were not needed in the eastern forests.

I guess you haven't seen the bears in Pa.