riddleofsteel
New member
I guess the title says it all. I have been around a lot of muzzleloader shooters this season and there seems to be a LOT of different loads out there. One guy swears by the new Power Belt projectiles and I saw the damage a .50 245 grain Power Belt did to a big 8 point buck he had hanging up, another fellow uses the .50 180 grain ball and patch. He had a prong horn buck hanging as well but the trauma damage difference between the two deer was very evident.
When I started out I was shooting a T/C Renegade with the compromise 1/48 twist. Patched balls were shooting pretty well but much past 50 yards I could tell they were not tack drivers. I started using the T/C 255 grain Maxi-Hunter and found that my groups tighted up. The performance on deer sized game was pretty good with .50 holes going all the way thru in most cases. Then a friend of mine showed me sabots one afternoon at the range. He was shooting the .44 200 grain Nosler semi-jacketed hollow point in a one piece green sabot. His CVA side hammer was putting them into 2 inch groups at 100 yards. I was also hunting with a .44 Mag 6" S&W at the time and the kills using the similar 200 grain Hornady XTP hollow point were spectacular out to 150 yards. A quick visit to the gun store for a bag of sabots and I went to the range. The chrono revealed my Renegade was pushing the 200 grain XTP a good bit faster than my 6" .44 Mag so I thought why not change over.
Of course the one piece plastic sabots started melting to the inside of my barrel. Pushing a load down the barrel was next to impossible ect. ect. I bought some T/C break away sabots with the felt washer soaked in Wonder Lube. That solved the plastic residue in the barrel but you still had to almost drive the load down the barrel. Smearing some Wonder Lube on the plastic part of the sabot helped some and it helps conditon the barrel but loadeing was still difficult. Accuracy was fantastic hovering around MOA out to 75 yards and around 1.5" after that. Then there was the damage a .44 200 grain XTP hollow point does to a deer when it hits at 1700 FPS+. Even a marginal shot results in massive trauma.
Eventually I bought a replacement barrel that had a slow enough twist to handle patched balls. Accuracy is great now but you have to shot center for maximum damage to the animal or you will be tracking for a while. My son still shoots that Renegade because it is so easy to load. I picked up a used Renegade for a song at a gun store when the current inline craze first started. I am back to forcing my old load of a T/C breakaway sabot and a 200 grain Hornady XTP hollow point down the barrel. I killed two deer so far this season and the damge this combo did was the talk of our deer camp.
Well enough of me.......what are you shooting?
When I started out I was shooting a T/C Renegade with the compromise 1/48 twist. Patched balls were shooting pretty well but much past 50 yards I could tell they were not tack drivers. I started using the T/C 255 grain Maxi-Hunter and found that my groups tighted up. The performance on deer sized game was pretty good with .50 holes going all the way thru in most cases. Then a friend of mine showed me sabots one afternoon at the range. He was shooting the .44 200 grain Nosler semi-jacketed hollow point in a one piece green sabot. His CVA side hammer was putting them into 2 inch groups at 100 yards. I was also hunting with a .44 Mag 6" S&W at the time and the kills using the similar 200 grain Hornady XTP hollow point were spectacular out to 150 yards. A quick visit to the gun store for a bag of sabots and I went to the range. The chrono revealed my Renegade was pushing the 200 grain XTP a good bit faster than my 6" .44 Mag so I thought why not change over.
Of course the one piece plastic sabots started melting to the inside of my barrel. Pushing a load down the barrel was next to impossible ect. ect. I bought some T/C break away sabots with the felt washer soaked in Wonder Lube. That solved the plastic residue in the barrel but you still had to almost drive the load down the barrel. Smearing some Wonder Lube on the plastic part of the sabot helped some and it helps conditon the barrel but loadeing was still difficult. Accuracy was fantastic hovering around MOA out to 75 yards and around 1.5" after that. Then there was the damage a .44 200 grain XTP hollow point does to a deer when it hits at 1700 FPS+. Even a marginal shot results in massive trauma.
Eventually I bought a replacement barrel that had a slow enough twist to handle patched balls. Accuracy is great now but you have to shot center for maximum damage to the animal or you will be tracking for a while. My son still shoots that Renegade because it is so easy to load. I picked up a used Renegade for a song at a gun store when the current inline craze first started. I am back to forcing my old load of a T/C breakaway sabot and a 200 grain Hornady XTP hollow point down the barrel. I killed two deer so far this season and the damge this combo did was the talk of our deer camp.
Well enough of me.......what are you shooting?
Don