According to The Ballistics Program...

[Loyalist Dave]

So it looks like I might just get a chance to shoot at steel at 200 and 300 yards tomorrow. Well, I'm taking my son out for a birthday outing, and he's all fired-up about AR type rifles, so it's to give him a chance to shoot his beyond 100 yards (the most common range distance here in Maryland). Yeah I know..., I was all into modern stuff at his age too, and I was into ACW living history too, but I think he will come around to the "dark side" eventually....

So he asked if I was planning on shooting and I thought I might take Trudy, my flintlock .54 Cabin Creek PA Mountain Rifle, and give her a go.

So I found a book that listed .530 round ball at a .075 ballistic coefficient. My load chronographs out right at 1500 MV, and the rifle is sighted in at 100 yards. So I found a ballistics program online, and with that, it says I will need to "hold-over" about a yard at 200 yards (34" is what it read). At 300 yards I will need a whopping hold-over" of 124" or just a teeny tad over ten feet.

I checked what the load should give me that I normally use ... and I should get a little more than 1700 fps if I up my load to 90 grains...then the hold-over only drops to 31" @ 200 and 110" farther on... that's only nine feet instead of ten feet hold-over at 300 yards using 20 more grains of powder than I normally use .., and I doubt I am going to be that precise, so I don't think it matters enough for me to worry about changing my load.

Any thoughts?

Here's hoping I can find that full box of .530 round ball I have round here somewhere.....

LD

 

[45 Dragoon]

Good luck! Seems you did some homework so I'm sure you'll do well from the get go!! Hopefully your son will be impressed with Trudy !!

Mike

 

[Gordon]

Yeah , with traditional round balls hot loading muskets does seem counter productive. I'll bet the wise frontier men didn't do it either. They found what a gun liked and used it

 

[Jackrabbit1957]

That's what I do, find what it likes and stay with it, no changing things up and down. Less fiddling with thing is better.

 

[J-Bar]

I’m eager to read the follow up range report!

 

[W. Bittle]

I have a Hawken reproduction flintlock in .54 caliber made in Italy.
I got the best accuracy with
a "Minie Ball" and between 80 and 90 grains of ffg Goex black powder with
ffffg in the flash pan. The barrel in this gun is 29" long with a barrel
diameter at just over an inch at the muzzle. I found these Minie Balls,
which are actually conical bullets, are much more accurate at longer
ranges then any round ball. But, they move a lot slower since they weigh
440 grains as opposed to around 185 grains for the
.54 cal balls. In my rifle, these Minie balls expand into the rifling
due to the large hollow base which in my rifle really enhances accuracy
as opposed to a patch and ball. With 80 gr of black powder
in the chamber and one of these 440 grain bullets, the
rifle when zeroed at 100 yards has a drop of 26.5" at 200 yards and 85.7" at 300 yards.
That is with a velocity of around 1250 fps leaving the barrel.
At 50 yards you are shooting about 2.6" high and at 150 yards you shoot
only 9.5" low. My flintlock has a flip up peep sight I can adjust for elevation
and windage which makes things a bit easier then the sights that come
on some of the cheaper Hawken rifles I see today. I bought this rifle decades ago
used so I have no idea what it sold for new or if it was considered
a good rifle. All I know is that for me it has been very accurate and
having that set trigger makes it nice to shoot without having to
be Conan the Barbarian to pull the trigger. This gun does have
a kick just about like my .308 with this load. Let's just say you know
when you pull that trigger and you get the shot off as opposed to
just the classic flash in the pan. This rifle will handle black powder loads up to 100 grains
but I find around 80 to be more then enough. With 100 grains it makes a .223
or 5.56 look like a kid's toy. Energy with just 80 grains is 1492 FT. lb.
With 100 grains you are shooting with the energy of a 30-30. That
is pretty impressive for a flintlock. In the Civil war, they had sniper rifles
they used that could pick off a soldier at over 500 yards. Even
the basic Springfield and Enfield rifles fielded in the 1860's
could easily take out things at ranges well over the 300 yards you
plan to shoot at and they were still deadly at ranges well over twice that.
The Minie Ball and the rifled barrel
dramatically increased the effective range of firearms.
I think your son may well be impressed with what these rifles can do and
the fact that flintlocks like mine produce more energy when fired then the
AR15. I am no expert on black powder. But I have shot this old flintlock
a lot over the years and it is a delightful change from the ordinary.
Cap locks are a lot more user friendly, but there is just something
about that 'click...boom' thing when shooting a flintlock.
One thing. You really REALLY need to learn not to flinch at all when
firing a flintlock. That was the toughest thing to master with my rifle.
But once I got used to it, I found the rifle to be amazingly accurate.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

So...., Back from the Range...
(I appreciate the information on the conical, but with a round bottom rifled barrel 1:56, conical just won't stabilize.)
So my son did very well, and his (well mine but I was letting him shoot it) his AR-pistol with the 12" barrel hit very well at 300, but that's not what people want to know.

I started with 100 yards to ensure my open iron sights on the flintlock were "on", and I shot a group from the bench that was 3 rounds touching at 3 o'clock on the edge of the ten circle. So that was pretty good for me...
Out at 200 yards, mostly with a following wind, which sometimes switched and was 25 mph gusts from left to right, I hit the 8"x8" steel 2 out of five shots. The other three were very close. They hit the berm behind with good elevation just a little right or left. I was lucky in that the windage flag downrange on the berm was just the right height so I could use it to gauge my sights above the steel.

Now at 300 yards, I scared the steel but didn't hit the 26"x26" square. A couple shots were under it about a foot, so if it was 1776 and I was shooting during the AWI I would've whacked the target in the shins. , and the rest were a bit high. No real reference point for me at 300 yards,...

The important point was for my boy to have a good time (HA "boy", the boy turns twenty in a few days...this trip was a birthday gift )

LD

 

[Jackrabbit1957]

Whacking the guy in the shins still puts him outta the fight. I would recommend reading Jack Hinsons private war just for fun. He made some amazing shots in the ACW.