how accurate is a round ball ?

R

rebs

New member
MY muzzle loader is an Investarms made in Italy 58 Cal carbine and sold under the Cabela's name brand.
In a muzzle loader how accurate is a round ball ? Also the conical s and sabots ?
How much does powder charge effect accuracy ? I started with 60 gr Pyrodex and have moved up to 70 grns. Am I in the ball park or do I should I increase the powder ? I am used to center fire and working up a load, how do you work up a load in a ML ? What do you look for or how will you know when you have reached the safe max load ? I have the manual for my BP rifle and it states for a .570 round ball 88 gr of Pyrodex. Under black powder it says for a 58 cal .570 round ball use 60 gr in reproduction black powder rifles and muskets.
Then it says the above loads are for G_O FFG black powder. When using Pyrodex reduce these loads by 20%.
Isn't this kind of confusing ? Isn't any brand new black powder rifle that you buy today a reproduction ?
A friend of mine has a Remington 700 black powder rifle and he shoots 90 gr of black powder for everything he shoots, round balls, conical's and sabots.
 
I shoot real black powder muzzle loaders in competition in the North-South Skirmish Association (http://www.n-ssa.org).

Load workups are critical for optimal accuracy. You will get a divergent spread with too little or too much powder. Your best bet is to find someone shooting your particular caliber and twist rate and find out what bullet and charge they are having success with, and start from there.

For example, I shoot my P53 Enfield and Richmond Carbine with the RCBS-Hodgdon expanding ball bullet and about 45 grains of 3F Goex powder.

If I had a new gun I of similar parameters I would start with 35 grains and work up to 55 grains in 5 grain increments. Once you find the group with optimal accuracy you could work up and down in 2 grain increments. But honestly I think once you get within 5 grains you are there.

.69 caliber round ball smoothbore muskets were good out to about 100 yards. We shoot them in competition at 25 and 50 yards. Some people are more accurate with them at 25 yards than I am with a rifled musket at 50. Bear in mind that in N-SSA competition you cannot use patches so people do things like rough the balls up with a file and coat them in Lee Alox lube and other arcane things to achieve optimum accuracy in addition to load workups.

If you are buying a new BP gun, they should tell you what the maximum load is. But be aware that you will probably not be achieving maximum accuracy at maximum load.

The service load of the P1853 was about 60-68 grains of musket powder behind a 500+ grain bullet. I am shooting competition with 45 grains behind a 400+ grain bullet.

But we shoot out to 100 yards. 19th century target practice started at 100 yards.

Steve
 
I speak from over 50 years experience , round balls will shoot into the same
hole at 50 yards. That is to say , you shoot 5 shots and the hole will look like
you had shot only one shot. At 100 yards I would say 5 shots under a inch
measuring center to center. At 200 yards probably 2-2 1/2 inches Don't really know at 300 yards, but some very good scores are shot at Friendship. I had 3
shots under 2 1/2 inches ar 100 yards in a pistol match at Friendship in June
So, round balls will shoot.
 
A ball is as accurate as the barrel and rifle that is firing it.
If we look at the record groups shot at Friendship (NMLRA national headquarters) and also look at records of old we find that there are MANY instances of round balls being fired with amazing accuracy.
I make muzzleloaders to earn most of my living, and I have been a barrel maker in years past. I have shot 50 and 100 yard groups with many of my rifles that even amazed me.
Looking at records in newspapers and in old journals of men and women of years past we see names come up several times that have places in American history not only for their exploits but for their shooting. Remember, in the years before the "era of illogic" shooting events were common in the USA and names like Boone, Crockett, Kenton, Wetzel, and York, and others were noteworthy in their winnings of such events as recorded in the papers of the time. If you look at the events at the time you will be impressed. Shooting was often done at 40 and 80 rod (1 Rod = 5 feet 6 inches) so 40 rod is 73 yards and 1 foot. 80 rod is 146 yards and 2 feet. Targets were often things like walnuts, the head of a turkey, and sometimes a chicken egg.
String shoots were also common. A string shoot is a 5 shot group and a string is then stretched around pegs fit into the holes. Boone was known to make strings of about 5-6 inches many times at such events. Takes a 6” string and make a circle with it. You will see that it makes a circle of about 1.9”. Very few shooters today can shoot a 1.9” group at 75 yards OFFHAND with even the best scoped rifles.
Walnuts at 146 yards? Anyone want to try that with iron sights today? I could do it when I was younger, but no more. Wetzel could do it in his 50s.
But Wetzel did it with a flintlock rifle using open sights. I could do it with an accurate AR-15 with high quality peep sights. At my best I doubt I was as good as many of the old timers.

All these things were done with balls.

Now I am not saying the round ball is the equal of the modern bullet any more than I would say the SPAD bi-plane is the equal of the F22 Raptor. But the round ball in a good barrel, inlet properly into a good rifle is still capable of hitting about any target a human eye can see out to about 200 yards. The balls “downfall” is in it’s susceptibility to external forces to a much higher degree than a modern bullet. Wind and temperature variation as well as variations in humidity will affect a ball WAY more than a bullet, (Which is why all modern rifles shoot bullets, not balls)
The limitation is more on the human than the weapon however.
If you’d like to demonstrate this to yourself take the most accurate rifle you can get with iron sight (even the best peep sights) and set walnuts at 70 yards and at 140 yards and fire 5 shots at those walnuts and see how well you do. In fact, do it from prone. Not offhand like the old shooters did at 74 yards. Just test your rifle as well as you can but without a scope. It brings a new level of respect for some of those old American shooters.
 
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Here is a 50 yard target shot at Friendship last year There are 2 shots in the
practice bull which makes 7 shots on the paper. If all of these were on the same
bull, they would have made just one hole for 7 shots

a668ec2cfdf4f0d66936cc187755a618.jpg
 
The "X" ring is .390 dia and the "10" ring is .890 dia.In the bottom middle
and bottom right bull you can just barely see a piece of the "X" ring
 
It should be noted that some of you are talking about round ball shot out of a rifle. This is an entirely different animal than shooting round ball out of a smoothbore, which is all I have experience with.

Steve
 
So from the questions in my original post what direction should I be going as far as using Pyrodex .
 
So from the questions in my original post what direction should I be going as far as using Pyrodex .
Click to expand...

As I recall, Pyrodex is volumetrically equivalent to black powder.

So if you have a volume of 60 grains of 2F black powder, then the same volume of 2F equivalent Pyrodex should give the same bang. Not weight.

https://www.hodgdon.com/loading.html

But I don't shoot Pyrodex, I only shoot black powder.

Steve
 
Mehavey

Really. Want to see the target? I measured it just a min. ago. 2 1/2 inches
for those three in the "10" ring. One hand hold un-supported. 32 caliber
shooting Hornady "0" Buckshot .

9a344dfe29cf7bd9832c7bdffa7d7316.jpg
 
Rebs

I would change over to Goex Black Powder . Use 60 grains and your .570 round
ball with .017 thick pillow ticking patch A water soulable oil patch lube will be
OK. This should shoot under 2 inches at 50 yards. Those type of guns will shoot
Surprising Well.
 
Yes, a patched round ball can be very accurate, but they drift like ping pong balls in a crosswind. I'm sure those bench rest and offhand shooters in Friendship watch those wind flags like a hawk and hold their fire if the conditions aren't perfect.

When I first started shooting muzzleloaders, I tried shooting tight groups at 100 yards at a local public range and sometimes I lucked into a really tight cloverleaf group and then a flyer. At that time, I didn't realize just how much a 5 mph crosswind can move a round ball nor did I realize how much changing light conditions can move your point of aim with iron sights.
 
I have a .58 Investarms (Cabellas), that I recently purchased used. I was working on a hunting load with it yesterday with stiff breezes and occasional rain sprinkles. I was shooting at 50 yds, and getting about 2" groups, but I think it can still do better. I was using a Hornady round ball, 85 gr. of Goex 2f, and a .015 patch, lubed with bore butter.
As it is shooting right now, I can..and probably will shoot one deer with it this season......but..I think it could do better yet in the accuracy dept. if I continue to experiment with different powder weights.
You might try even loading as low as 30 grains for close target work and it might surprise you. I have never had much success with Pyrodex or faith in it's consistency, but maybe that's all in my head.
 
Here's the wind drift of a Federal 12 gauge one ounce slug in a 10 mph crosswind. Data taken from Federal's website.

Muzzle velocity 1610 fps
25 yard velocity 1467fps 10 mph wind drift 0.3 inches.
50 yard velocity 1340fps 10 mph wind drift 1.6 inches.
75 yard velocity 1229fps 10 mph wind drift 3.7 inches.
100 yard velocity 1139fps 10 mph wind drift 6.6 inches.

Patched round balls are even worse. Both the wind drift and the velocity loss at long ranges makes them a poor choice for long range hunting.
If you hunt with a traditional muzzleloader, you've got to respect the limits of your equipment, same as with bows and arrows.
 
Ummm... three shots out of ten hitting in 2-1/2 inches at 100 yards is a statistical issue, and does not mean you are shooting a 2-1/2 inch group.
 
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