The Lowly Round Ball

[Missionary]

I would not venture to write the Round Ball is superior to all other fired projectiles. But it sure has served our world well through these last 600 hundred years of history.

 

[Ben]

While I don't shoot round balls, that doesn't mean that I don't respect their killing power.

Ben

 

[Jeff H]

I can attest to their efficient performance to the range within which trajectory does not start to tax my indirect fire capabilities. Starting at 1900 fps, and just past a hundred yards, which is stretching it these days for iron sights and my eyes, there's no guessing where it will hit vertically, and it will surely pass clean through the biggest game animal in my habitat. You use the least amount of lead for a given bore size and it is still going to do all that can be done at that range anyway - for what I need. Accuracy, with mine has been very good as well, but I use a 1:66" twist too.

If I were hunting bigger stuff which I felt a half-inch ball would not handle, I'd go with a larger diameter "round ball." Mass increases out of proportion to increases in diameter of a sphere, so you get a two-sided bump in performance.

I surely wouldn't want to be "playing catch" on the wrong end of one.

EDIT: I should add that my conical experience is limited, as I have never found them to be AS accurate in MY guns, they smacked ME harder and I'm pretty tight with my lead stash.

 

[smokeywolf]

The round ball and the soft, almost pure lead was what caused the usually catastrophic wounds suffered during the war between the North and the CSA. When someone was shot in the leg, even discounting the almost certain infection, the damage to tissue, vein and artery was so extensive it was rare that the appendage could be saved. When a soldier was hit almost anywhere with a large caliber round ball, that was most likely the end of his service in combat.

 

[Winelover]

I've taken deer with both .50 & .54 RB. Usually, under 50 yards, where I hunt. Have shot Maxi's in both the .54 Renegade and the .50 Tennessee Mtn. rifle. IIRC, both are 1:66 twist. Accuracy is pretty good..........better than a 12 gauge rifled slug but you definitely feel it on your shoulder. For large game, like elk, I would use the Maxi.

 

[JWFilips]

I only use round soft lead balls when hunting with my flintlocks! I have never had one that hit a whitetail, that failed me since 1983!

 

[Missionary]

Pretty much our experience. I did once hit two does standing side by side with a .57 40-1 and the far doe required some long tracking before she expired.

 

[Winelover]

The first deer I took with a .50 caliber dead soft RB, went about 60 yards before piling up. When I got the meat back from the butcher, he asked what I shot it with and handed me a corkscrew shaped piece of lead. Said he found it just under the hide on the off side.

 

[Missionary]

The soft RB does due peculiar things as it forces its way through tough spots.

 

[RBHarter]

I long thought of ML as old fashioned minimalist tools looking for a challenge . I mentioned that I'd shot a 45 Cal PRB over 90 gr of RS Pyro and that the ball got to 200 yd in a hurry . The guy looked at me and said something like , it's a 45-90 with a 150 gr bullet I bet it was quick .
That was when it all started to click , what they lack in BC they make up for in impact trauma . Being the numbers guy for fixed comparison reference that 28" 50 cal TC Hawkins is spitting that .490 PRB out at 2600 fps MV , full tilt give or take for powder , hammer lift , etc or basically equal ME to a 180 gr 06' .
The 50 cal Minie' I have on hand weighs 340 gr and the one in 45 goes 285 ....... With 70 gr of powder ........ Not really a limp noodle .

 

[todd]

my younger brother has a couple of rb that are found under a deer's hide. unfortunately fer me, the rb is thru-n-thru. when i went with the lyman left fl deerstalker in 50 cal, it was a 80gr goex ffg with the rb. it was also a maxiball(345gr?) that was 80gr too. nowadays, its a CVA Hawken lh fl in 50 cal with 70gr of Goex ffg.

 

[Jeff H]

I'm feelin' the itch again with all this talk of lead round balls, patches and black powder.

The patched round ball does it all, within the ranges of what the vast majority of people (myself included) should be taking a shot at game.

It's a heck of a lot more fun this way too and I always felt like I was "getting over" on the game department and the Foster-slug/auto shotgun boys, out to herd and ambush deer. There was NO challenge to anchor a deer with my ML, rather to be in the right place at the right time. I cheated further by wishing and waiting for a stumble-bum with his semi-auto shotgun to blunder into the woods and chase deer my way. It may seem "unsporting" to wait until they bound within a hundred yards or so and WHISTLE, whereupon they all freeze just long enough to get off a shot with the excellent trigger on a several-hundred year-old lock design, but it did put meat in the freezer WAY more reliably than any shotgun I tried to use.

Man, I want to shoot my muzzle-loader.

 

[JWFilips]

my younger brother has a couple of rb that are found under a deer's hide. unfortunately fer me, the rb is thru-n-thru. when i went with the lyman left fl deerstalker in 50 cal, it was a 80gr goex ffg with the rb. it was also a maxiball(345gr?) that was 80gr too. nowadays, its a CVA Hawken lh fl in 50 cal with 70gr of Goex ffg.

In the 18th century in America It was common practice to load a rifle ball with enough energy only to pierce both sides of the deer's flesh and be able to recover the lead under the skin to remelt it into another round ball! The documentation on the Eastern Longhunters, meat hunters for a settlement, did this every time they could! A lead ball was the source of their livelihood & they did not want to waste it!

 

[Jeff H]

Many of those lead balls were puny 40 or 45 caliber balls too. The deer must have been the size of cats in the 18th century, because today, we need all the mass, diameter and velocity we can muster from any given arm with which we hunt today's beats.

That is one very cool historical item, @JWFilips . Today, we feel threatened if we don't have 20k small pistol primers, but we don't know INDEPENDENCE like our forefathers did, as they were "independent" of modern manufacturing means and complex supply chains we take for granted today.

Don't get me wrong, I'd still feel WAY better if I had 20k small pistol primers myself.

 

[RBHarter]

Many yr ago F&S ran a series of articles on famous figures . Daniel Boone stuck with me . The president told him he was too old at 40 to go with Lewis and Clark . So he went home and on with business . His last long hunt with his boys he only stayed out 3 months having left home with his horse , bed roll , 3 good rifles , 7 pack horses , and sacks of flour , salt , and shot . Presumably powder as well . 3 months with a bed roll and a horse at the tender age of 86 but too old at 40 .....

 

[Missionary]

Well no one ever said the military has always been guided by the brightest minds....
Ticket punchers, glory seekers and other self servers have been around a long time.

 

[JWFilips]

A History Lesson brought to you by a person who has spent a good part of his life understanding antique weapons!
An interesting thing about the round ball: This directly ties to why the Pennsylvania longrifle came into being;

In the 16th and 17th and early 18th Century in Europe; You had to be rather wealthy to own a " flintlock gonne" Most were Estate owners and they had their porters carry their heavy short barreled flintlocks for them when the were hunting Fallow & Red deer. The average bore size was between .72 and .80 caliber Not many balls to a pound. & they Killed by mass alone! The barrel lengths averaged about 28 "

When the German gunsmiths came to America...they started to realize these heavy bore guns were not the best for moving through the dense forests between settlements! Ingenuity caused them to reduce the caliber, but lengthen the barrels to create more speed from a smaller lead ball to create the same killing force by using velocity....thus inventing high velocity weapons! They went to .58 & .54 calibers with a 37/38" barrel
A lot easier to cary 25 .54 caliber balls 20 miles then 25 80 cal balls!

By the late 1760's Pennsylvanian German / American gunsmiths were toying with longer barrels and lighter calibers to have similar killing force! Barrels started to go out to 42 inches /44" and more and .50 caliber and less....Lighter to carry but with the same killing force as the big heavy slow moving European round balls. This was the beginning of high velocity rifles!

 

[Eagle223usa]

This thread reminds me of when I was a kid, late 70's to the 80's. It seemed like every gun club had a muzzleloader shoot. We went on Wednesday nights. You fired 10 shots for score. The round ball was king of the accuracy game, all shooting was under 100 yards. Everyone seemed to cast their own balls. Most had built there own rifles. Ah, the good old days. It also reminded me that my .54 flintlock is still loaded. I'll try to get that handled this weekend.

 

[BBerguson]

I used a lot of steel round balls when I was a kid, of course we called them BB’s! English Sparrows, starlings, crackles and pigeons were my favorite targets but sometimes bees and spiders got in my sights too.

 

[todd]

I used a lot of steel round balls when I was a kid, of course we called them BB’s! English Sparrows, starlings, crackles and pigeons were my favorite targets but sometimes bees and spiders got in my sights too.

grasshoppers!!!!!!!!!!