Does anyone know...

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paladin
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Does anyone know...

Post by paladin » Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:53 am

Does any one know how many grains of black power and at what distances did hunters shoot at in the days when only flintlock, percussion caps, inferior steel, and old fashion black powder were available?
Pal
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun . . . it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."

Thomas Jefferson, 1785

El Matador
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Re: Does anyone know...

Post by El Matador » Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:24 pm

I don't "know", but I can venture a pretty good guess. I've used traditional muzzleloaders a fair amount with black powder and pyrodex, round ball and conicals. The powder charge isn't very different from what you'd use with an inline. For .50 cal rifles you'd use anywhere from 60-100 grains of powder with either type of bullet. Of course in the really early days all they had was round ball. Those projectiles are not very accurate past 100 yards. They can be deadly accurate at 50 yards but they probably lose stability as they get further out due to poor ballistic coefficient. When conical bullets arrived on the scene it allowed longer range shots. Some of the .50 cal conicals can weigh 500 grains, 3 times as much as a round ball. Extra stability made the guns accurate at much greater ranges. Sharps rifles, some of the first cartridge guns, are very similar to muzzleloaders in that they shoot a big lead bullet and 60-120 grains of black powder. They have a reputation for being extremely accurate at long range and were used extensively for shooting buffalo from great distances. A 1000 yard shot on a buffalo would have been quite doable with a good tang peep sight. Of course there is a lot of bullet drop with those guns so often times shooters would have to "walk" the bullets into the target by raising the elevation a little at a time. Once the right elevation was found they could sit and shoot dozens of buffalo from a single spot.

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AZ_BOWHNTR
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Re: Does anyone know...

Post by AZ_BOWHNTR » Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:35 am

I've been to a few mountain man rendezvous and it seems like everyone was shoot 80-100 grains in their rifles...most were shooting black powder.
JB

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