Happy New Year!
I have a Traditions .54 percussion cap rifle. It has a 1:48" twist barrel. Basically a cannon on a stick, I put a little 2.5 power scope to make up for my aging eyesight. It loves 230 grn patched balls, at 50 yards its dead-on and I would think deadly on whitetails. Thinking that accuracy out to 100 yards or so might be problematic with the balls, I wanted to try shooting a sabot with a .44 or .45 XTP. I I found some sabots and some .45 cal 240 grn XTPs so I decided to try that combo first. I own some property and went out to my range and discovered that 100 grns of Pyrodex select will put that bullet consistantly into the x ring at 50 yards. Happy enough with that, I hunted with the load, though I saw nothing to shoot for the ML season.
Here's the question: Anyone have any thoughts or experience on the suitability of that load for shots out to say 150 yards on whitetail? I was thinking that I could go up in bullet weight to as much as 300 grns, but not sure that the twist is sufficient to stabilize that heavy a bullet. I'm interested in your comments on accuracy and downrange performance.
Also, was thinking about going up in charge weight to 120 grns or so. Any thoughts on pros or cons? I was thinking I'd get a bit more velocity, which might lead to better downrange performance.
Thanks for any help!
I have a Traditions .54 percussion cap rifle. It has a 1:48" twist barrel. Basically a cannon on a stick, I put a little 2.5 power scope to make up for my aging eyesight. It loves 230 grn patched balls, at 50 yards its dead-on and I would think deadly on whitetails. Thinking that accuracy out to 100 yards or so might be problematic with the balls, I wanted to try shooting a sabot with a .44 or .45 XTP. I I found some sabots and some .45 cal 240 grn XTPs so I decided to try that combo first. I own some property and went out to my range and discovered that 100 grns of Pyrodex select will put that bullet consistantly into the x ring at 50 yards. Happy enough with that, I hunted with the load, though I saw nothing to shoot for the ML season.
Here's the question: Anyone have any thoughts or experience on the suitability of that load for shots out to say 150 yards on whitetail? I was thinking that I could go up in bullet weight to as much as 300 grns, but not sure that the twist is sufficient to stabilize that heavy a bullet. I'm interested in your comments on accuracy and downrange performance.
Also, was thinking about going up in charge weight to 120 grns or so. Any thoughts on pros or cons? I was thinking I'd get a bit more velocity, which might lead to better downrange performance.
Thanks for any help!