david58
Member
PRB in a barrel made for bullets can be a challenge, in that a hot load can cause the ball to basically strip past the rifling. I found that with my TC, 85 grains was the max load I could use to maintain accuracy, using a .495 ball.
My scratch-built .50 has a deeply rifled Sharon barrel, and likes 120 to 140 grains. My limit is 100 yards, mostly due to my eyesight, but am confident that a good shot with good eyes could go another 25-50 yards with this rifle.
We usually have a tendency to overestimate yardage. Spending a lot of time on the range helped me with that, and of all things refereeing and coaching soccer helped even more (had to estimate distances accurately as a ref, got good at guesstimating distances on the pitch as a coach). The deer is usually closer than I guess to begin with - the longest shot I took a deer with was 90 paces. I have shot and lost a deer at 30 yards, though - ultimately your distance is determined by how well you shoot, not so much if the gun can kill at a given range. Usually if pointed correctly, a .50 will do the job across the entire range of what you can shoot accurately.
My scratch-built .50 has a deeply rifled Sharon barrel, and likes 120 to 140 grains. My limit is 100 yards, mostly due to my eyesight, but am confident that a good shot with good eyes could go another 25-50 yards with this rifle.
We usually have a tendency to overestimate yardage. Spending a lot of time on the range helped me with that, and of all things refereeing and coaching soccer helped even more (had to estimate distances accurately as a ref, got good at guesstimating distances on the pitch as a coach). The deer is usually closer than I guess to begin with - the longest shot I took a deer with was 90 paces. I have shot and lost a deer at 30 yards, though - ultimately your distance is determined by how well you shoot, not so much if the gun can kill at a given range. Usually if pointed correctly, a .50 will do the job across the entire range of what you can shoot accurately.