Round balls and patches?

[Newtosavage]

Anyone here hunt with round balls and patches?

I have really enjoyed shooting and hunting with my Ruger 77/50 over the past 5 years, but have always shot .44 cal pistol bullets in a plastic sabot over Triple Seven.

I've been curious about patches and round balls out of that gun. Looked hard at them at Cabelas the other day, but had no idea what thickness patch I needed. They had .005, .010 and .020 thickness if I recall correctly. I didn't know which one I needed, so I didn't get anything at all. Figured I'd ask around first.

Thanks.

 

[Patocazador]

What's the twist on your barrel? PRBs shoot best out of a slower twist than conicals.
1:48 is considered a compromise twist for both but a strictly PRB barrel would be on the order of 1:66.

Yours is likely much faster than that. Trying it is the only way to tell if it will be accurate. Cutting down on the powder charge in a fast twist barrel helps also.

 

[AJumbo]

I don't have any experience with the 77/50, but in general terms, a fast rifling twist will be problematic with round balls loads, especially at any usable velocity. I spent a long and frustrating day trying to get a TC White Mountain .50 to group with round balls. Best group was 2" at 50 yards, scoped, using 35 grains of Pyrodex P. At that, the fourth shot was always a flier. I tried different patches, lubes, ball diameters, swabbing between shots, meditation, changed from Coke to Pepsi.... all in vain.

There are a lot of variables to consider- patch thickness, material, rifling twist and depth, which powder you use, balls size, and the list goes on. If I were you, I'd get packages of the two thicker patches, some .490s, and give it a whirl. You may hit upon a good plinking/bunny load, thereby increasing the versatility of your hunting rifle.

 

[Newtosavage]

Okay, I looked up the rifling twist and it's 1:28

So maybe it's not a great idea to try the round balls and patches.

I was thinking of a plinking load with those. I get solid 1.5-2" groups at 100 yards with my sabots and .44 cal. pistol bullets, so no need to change anything there for deer hunting.

 

[Noz]

I have a 1-48 50 cal rifle that WILL NOT shoot a patched round ball.
I tried every thickness of patching including a desperation buckskin patch, every lube you can imagine, 3 different diameters of ball and FFFg and FFg in 5 grain increments from 30 to 150 grains. None of the combinations could be kept on a 24" square target at 50 yards.
In sheer desperation I bought a box of 285 gr Maxi Hunters from Walmart.
I have not found a powder charge they do not like. I settled on 80 grs and it shoots pretty little cloverleafs at that same 50 yards.

 

[Panzerschwein]

My Harpers Ferry .54 caliber smoothbore horse pistol loves a good PRB :

 

[midland man]

cooldill hows that horsepistol, does it shoot good?

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

Patched round balls, 50cal in the wife's and 54 in one of mine, have accounted for deer in Oklahoma and Kansas for us.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

The twist rate is not the primary, nor the only, indicator of what type of bullet will work. The depth of the rifling, and the method of rifling are also huge factors.

The 1:48 rifling existed looong before conical bullets, and was rather common in the patched, round ball era. That "compromise" myth was a marketing ploy in the 1970's.

Many modern reproductions of Civil War rifles have 1:72 or even 1:78 rifling for conical bullets, but supposedly those bullets won't be stabilized by anything so slow.

The Pedersoli Jaeger, flintlock rifle, has a twist rate of 1:24, and the bullet that they recommend for their rifle is a patched, round ball.

Slower twist rates in barrels intended for patched round ball are for those who wish to use large powder loads. When the caliber is extreme, AND the powder load going with it is also extreme, a very special type of rifling, known as Forsyth rifling is used...it's more than just a very slow twist.

So bottom line is you must try them in your rifle. You will want to use 50 grains of black powder, a .490 ball and a .010 patch to begin. Some prefer that ball with a .015 patch. If you get bad accuracy then you may need to check the depth of the rifling grooves, and adjust the thickness of your patches up or down.


LD

 

[Panzerschwein]

cooldill hows that horsepistol, does it shoot good?

Yes, it shoots very nicely! I put up a review on here a week or two ago. Very nice pistol.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

To the OP's question: The diameter of the ball in relation to the bore size determines your patch thickness. You want enough material in there to fill the gap to prevent blowby and to impart the spin from the rifling on the ball. I generally shoot a ball .010 smaller than the bore given diameter (that is a .490 ball in a .50 caliber rifle or pistol) and use cotton cleaning patches saturated with Bore Butter as a patch. I have never measured the thickness of them but they are cheap, readily available, and work well for me in the accuracy department. I use .22 caliber cleaning patches for my .45 pistol and my .50 rifles. Patching material and lube discussions will only open an endless can of worms so I will only say that try some of the suggestions and use what works for your purposes.

 

[Newtosavage]

Thanks guys.

LD, I think I will try it out, based on your recommendation. It may work great, and it may stink, but there is only one way to know for sure, right?

I'll start with .490 balls and .010 pre-lubed patches over 50 grains of Triple 7 (what I have) and see what happens.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

I have a nice fat doe to skin this morning thanks to a patched round ball out of my 62 cal. smoothbore flintlock.

 

[delrom418]

The .010's are a fine choice. I figure if you don't know what you need, but are given three choices, buy the one in the middle! Seems to work for a lot of different things. Anyways, there's a bit of trial and error in the patch selection. If the patched ball seems to slide down the barrel too easy, try a thicker patch. If you have a heck of a time getting the patched ball down the barrel, try a thinner patch.

 

[dagger dog]

Why not compromise and try a minie design bullet. They are shorter than a sabot and might shoot in your gun

October Country offers quite a few minies in most popular caliber's.

 

[Newtosavage]

I figure if you don't know what you need, but are given three choices, buy the one in the middle!

Actually, that exact thought went through my head when I had both the box of .490 round balls and the 0.10 patches in my hand at Cabelas. But I put them back and figured I'd ask first. I already had too much stuff in my hands to buy that day. LOL.

 

[Iggy]

Made meat shootin' round balls at Elk, Mule Deer and Antelope. Works just fine.

 

[Zeke/PA]

I shoot a .50 cal TC /Hawkin that I built from a kit about 35 years ago.
With a home cast .50 round ball and .013" patch, the rifle is super accurate.
The barrel twist is(?) 1in 48 and a good number of deer can contribute to my rifles accuracy.
If bullets are permitted in my hunting area, I use a home cast bullet, weight and lube eludes me at this point
Does a Lee mold casting 375 gr. bullets sound right ?
Haven't cast for awhile so some of the info eludes me at present.

 

[alsaqr]

i've fired patched round balls from guns with relatively fast twist rates. My cheap old .50 CVA StagHorn with its 1:32 rifling shoots patched rounds into tiny groups using 70-80 grains of Pyrodex RS: i often squirrel hunt with that gun. My .54 Fire Hawk with its 1:38 rifling shoots patched round balls like a laser. The .50 Encore with its 1:28 rifling is not very accurate with patched round balls. Maybe i have not found the right powder load.

There was another reason behind the slow twist in old rifles. Those old rifles had fixed sights. Shooters often varied the powder load. A slow "round ball" twist allows variation of the powder load without introducing horizontal dispersion.

 

[Panzerschwein]

Today I shot my Harpers Ferry .54 smoothbore pistol with patched round balls:



Minus a couple fliers, this gun put about a dozen shots into a 2.5" group at approx. ten yards. That's pretty good for a smoothbore pistol with crude sights offhand, one handed! Even this type of gun can be very accurate with a PRB.

 

[PapaG]

I have shot patched round balls in guns with twists from 1 in 24 to 1 in 72". The 1 in 24 was a TC Patriot pistol and it worked great with 20 gr fffg. I tried round balls in two "modern" muzzle loaders with 1 in 28 and both failed miserably with anything that would give hunting velocities.
My Bob Tingle had fairly shallow rifling, about 1 in 58 and shot .445 round balls patched with Indian Head Linen and 60 fffg well.
My Zouaves, one from Centennial, the other a Navy Arms, and one with a Numrich 7 groove barrel all shot way better with patched round balls than with any of several minies. The SWC minie was O.K. with plinking loads, actually quite accurate but it is a very short bullet, not much longer than a round ball.
My flintlock has a Douglas premium 45 cal 1 in 66" barrel and shoots round balls great and has put three 45 cal Maxiballs into three inches at 100 yards on occasion.
You can never tell till you try what a gun will like and what it will hate.
My original 54 Renegade, 1 in 48, would put alternating round balls and maxis into the same group at 50 yards (100 grains of FFg). Kicked like heck with the maxis.