Effective Range of a .54 Cal Muzzleloader with Round Balls?

[maverick2076]

Round balls? Why not just use Minié balls? Civil War confederate guerrilla sniper Jack Hinson made hits on union soldiers up to 1000 yards out, using a muzzle loading rifle custom built for that kind of shooting, loaded with Minié balls. Admittedly, he typically fired down onto troop transports from high up on bluffs lining the river, which would have had the effect of reducing his bullet drop over the range; but those would be hard shots even with a modern centerfire today. It seems to me that shooting that kind of bullet would at least increase your hit probability, and maybe even extend your range a little bit.

Such a great book!

[Deltaboy]

You be fine!

[Archery1]

There is a reason armies using muzzleloaders lined up abreast of each other and fired in volley! The inherent inaccuracies of their firearm!

Smooth bores were/are horribly inaccurate. Smooth bores with minnies proved even worse, though used because mass was increased by the conical. Ergo, rifled bores, which throws a ball not as accurately as it does a conical.

[joe817]

What's the effective range on whitetail deer of a .54 cal muzzleloader (Lyman GPR) using .530 balls (about 225 grains). The powder charge will be enough 777 ffg to give me a muzzle velocity of around 1800 fps. I think that should do the job on our Central Texas whitetails out to about 100 yards, but don't know for sure.

Opinions? Crash

IMHO when shooting a smoothbore barreled muzzleloader the maximum effective range is about 75-80 yards......Maybe 100 yds.
IMHO when shooting a rifled barrel muzzleloader, the accuracy is extended out greatly to about 500 yards. Some reach out farther than that, but few.

[oohrah]

I have a Lyman GPR .50 with round ball twist, and I added the adjustable peep sight. I get decent groups (pie plate size and less) at 100 yds.