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The Almighty Roundball The muzzleloading community, in their search for flatter
shooting, harder hitting; longer range bullets, often overlooks a true
classic- the ever reliable patch and ball. Granted a roundball will never compete with conicals or
sabots in range, velocity, or energy, so why mess with them? Really there are only three reason to
use a roundball: 1) you have to, due to hunting regulations. 2) You’ve become so infected by the
black powder bug that you’ve got to try doing it the old way. 3) You like to
make life hard for yourself, and want to increase the challenge of black
powder hunting. If you are going to hunt or shoot with a patch and ball
your equipment list is almost identical to that of sabot or conical shooter.
The only differences are: Roundballs, patch material, and a barrel with slow
twist. Roundballs shoot better
with slower rifling twist, a 1:60 or slower is ideal. My guess is your gun doesn’t have a
twist rate this slow, but don’t despair, a 1:48 twist is adequate for
roundballs, and a number of guns come with this twist rate, yours might be
one. ML manufacturers are
offering fewer guns with the slower rifling required for roundball shooting.
This is unfortunate, because, regardless of what you look for in a
muzzleloader, any black powder affectionato should have at least one good
roundball gun. Correct roundball size is typically 0.010” smaller than
you bore diameter, so a .50 cal gun typically shoots a .490 roundball. Next, for simplicity, get pre-cut,
pre-lubed patches (0.015” thick). You can get un-lubed patches and lube them
yourself, but for the beginner it’s easier to just buy the pre-cut, pre-lubed
patches. The patch is used to
form a gas seal between the barrel and ball, and to grip the ball, in the
barrel forcing, it to spin with the riflings. To load, pour powder in barrel, center patch over barrel,
and push the ball into the patch, so the patch is between the powder and
ball, and gripping the sides of the ball. Seat the ball, cap you nipple, or prime your flash pan and
you’re ready. When hunting, some thought has to go to the load and
projectile to achieve the “perfect” load, (OK there’s no such thing as a
perfect load), but several factors must be considered. Bullet weight, accuracy, range,
transfer of energy, and even cost per shot all play into the selection of
what to use when hunting/shooting.
Let’s see where the roundball falls in these areas. I’m a roundball
fan – but I’ll tell you right now, a roundball ranks pretty low in many of
these categories, when compared to its more modern counterparts. Bullet weight:
The first thing you’ll notice, is that for a given
caliber, a round ball is one of the lightest available projectiles – which
makes sense if you thing about it, a roundball could be considered as a short
conical. The only way to add
weight to roundball is to add length, add length and you end up with a
conical. Even the smaller
sabotted bullets typically out weigh a roundball. Looking at the 3 most popular muzzleloading calibers: .54
.50 and .45 you get 224, 177, 128 grains respectively. With high enough velocities these
bullet weights are perfectly acceptable for hunting deer. When looking at load data roundballs
typically have good muzzle velocities, unfortunately they tend to loose
velocity rather quickly, thus limiting their downrange energy. I’ll talk more about this in a
minute. Before hunting with a
roundball, especially a .440 roundball be sure to check local regulations to
make sure the ball meets the minimum bullet weight/caliber requirements. Range: This
is the round balls weakest point.
A roundball just doesn’t have a good Ballistic Coefficient (the BC is
a numerical representation of how fast your projectile will slow down). In layman terms: roundballs just
can’t travel as far as other projectiles. Their low BC means that for long shots you have to aim
really high, which creates a flight path with a lot arc. If you have too much arc in your
flight path you have to compensate for range. I, personally don’t like to do that, it’s too easy to
misjudge distance, and too hard to keep track of where the bullet is at the
given distance, especially in hunting situations - where you may be dreaming
of the big buck you are about to put on your wall, and not thinking that for
a 50 yard shot you need to aim 4 inches low. I prefer to keep my flight path in about a ± 3in
limit. This will limit
roundballs to about 100 yards, but you won’t have to compensate for any range
up to 100 yards. The other aspect of range, when hunting, is retained down
range energy. Let’s look at some actual data: Compare a .50 (.490”) roundball to a .54 (.530”) roundball
using a 90-grains of 2Fg powder, shot from a 28” barrel with a 1:48
twist. A .490 roundball (177
grains) will have a muzzle velocity around 1712 fps. This gives you 1152 ft/lbs at the
barrel, but by the time you reach 100 yard the ball is traveling at 959 fps,
and only has 362 ft/lbs of energy left.
In my opinion, this is too low on the energy scale, for clean, efficient
killing of deer size game.
Stepping up to a .530 (255 grains) roundball, you get 1673 fps, and
1399 ft/lbs at the muzzle, at 100 yards the numbers are 1004 fps and 504
ft/lbs, still not a tank, but probably enough for a deer. I know some will
argue this is still not enough for a deer, and others may argue that 362 is
enough, follow you conscience. (Numbers
courtesy of the CVA Sidelock Warranty Information booklet. By the way this
little booklet is a great little muzzleloading introductory manual and can be
downloaded at www.cva.com). Down
range energy is directly tied to weight, and velocity. Roundballs will have a
fixed weight, and tend to have very respectable muzzle velocities. Unfortunately they loose that
velocity quite quickly and down range energy suffers as a result. In my
opinion, if you are hunting with a roundball bigger is better. The bigger the
ball, the better the BC, the better the BC, the better the ball retains
velocity as it travels, the better it retains velocity, the more down range
energy you will have. The added weight of the bigger calibers also
contributes to downrange energy. Accuracy: This is where a patch and ball really shine. When good round balls are used, with
the right patch, load and barrel, incredible accuracy can be achieved with a
round ball. Why? Well, the ball doesn’t have an up,
down, left, or right, the ball will encounter the same air resistance no
matter position, and it can’t tumble, or wobble. This results in the flight path for each ball. Smoothbore shooters can achieve 3”
inch groups at 50 yards – try that with your sabot and no riflings! I’ve even
heard (read: this may be a bunch of bull) some tout the round ball as a great
brush bucker for the simple reason that if it does hit a small twig or branch,
deflection will be at a minimum, because the ball doesn’t care which end is
up (you can’t make a round ball tumble). I’m not promoting taking shots through the brush- but hunt
long enough and sooner of later you’ll find a branch that jumps out in front
of you just has you squeeze down on the trigger. Transfer of Energy: I don’t know how to
quantify this, so I’ll tell you what I want with a hunting projectile. Guaranteed penetration to the vitals,
and as much damage in the vitals as possible. I also want the projectile to stay on course and not be
deflected in the body cavity, by bone or innards. Now a personal experience:
I shot a small buck a couple of years ago; that I believe exemplifies this
quality of the almighty round ball.
I was hunting with .490 roundball, and the shot was around 50
yards. The buck was facing me,
at a slight quarter. I hit him
in the front, of his front left shoulder, the ball traveled through the hart
and lungs and stopped just under the skin on the right side, in the middle of
his rib cage. I recovered the
ball, it had flattened to the size of a quarter, and I could easily see the
indentation of patch on the back of the ball. The ball hit the front of the buck shoulder bone, still
penetrated the vitals, expanded perfectly causing a lot internal damage, and
judging from the wound track there was very little if any deflection from the
original flight path. In other
words, the ball did exactly what I wanted it to. I won’t say roundballs are flawless, but in my experience
they perform very well on game. Cost per Shot: Round balls $8.00 per 100 = 8 Cents (versus 8.00 per 10 – 15 for sabots
and conicals) Black powder $8.00 per pound, about 77 rounds with 90
grain loads = 10.5 Cents Patches $6.00/ 100 for pre-lubed = 6 Cents Caps $2.50/ 100 = 2.5 Cents Total 27
cents per shoot. *Prices will vary depending on quantities and suppliers and are only meant to be estimates. Conclusion: Roundballs are a fun and challenging way to enhance your
hunting and muzzleloading experience.
Don’t take this to say you MUST hunt with a roundball. Roundballs have some real limitations
that the conicals and sabots don’t.
I wrote this article because I believe there a lot of new black powder
shooters out there, who are moving more in the traditional direction, but
never consider using a roundball because of all the hype for the sabots, and
conicals. While this article
endorses the use of the roundballs for hunting, I would only recommend them
for the hunter disciplined enough to spend time on the range to know the
limitations of a roundball, and who is ethical enough to pass on a shot, that
a sabot or conical would be perfectly capable of making. Roundballs are only for those who are
looking to experience black powder shooting and hunting much like it was over
150 years ago, or those looking to increase the challenge of hunting. The roundball hunter owes it to
himself, and the game being perused to know the capabilities and limitations
of the roundball, so if you aren’t willing to spend some time on the range
prior to the hunt, don’t hunt with roundballs. If you’re looking for a cheap
plinking load roundballs may be an option. If you do choose to hunt with a roundball, I also believe
bigger is definitely better, and would not consider hunting with anything
less than a .50 caliber. Keep
your powder dry, shoot safe, shoot straight!
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