A .50 caliber hawken!

[Trooper224]

Flintlock for me. I haven't shot it in years, but it's surprisingly accurate.

[BobM]

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[SCCY Marshal]

My T/C Renegade is a 54 caliber and shoots Maxi Hunter or Maxi Balls great. I tend to prefer the Maxi Hunters if buying pre-cast as they start as pretty much a wadcutter and look even more like one after seating. Granted, any lead solid of that diameter tends to work fine.

Looks like a nice eating buck, got any specific plans for him?

[03RN]

I'm pretty impressed that I can't find my bullet. The patched round ball hit high and far back breaking the spine then going down and forward through a lung and rib. There is a tiny slit through the skin on the far side that I didn't notice skinning him in the dark.

He was angling away walking up hill over 100 yards away.

I took some PTO for yesterday and today and I'm glad I did as I'm just now finishing up butchering for the day. Tomorrow I'll wrap stuff up for the freezer.

I'm just going to clean off the skull and put it with my other skulls/antlers.

I almost want to make some buckskin. I've never tried it with deer. Just coons and fishers

[03RN]

Last night was heart, onions and oyster mushrooms I found.

[03RN]

Went out today to shoot the ball I reloaded so I can clean it.

I had my son stand where the deer was and I paced it off to where I was sitting. 115 paces.

[Tannhauser]

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Congratulations! Great shot with a patched round ball.

My first muzzleloader deer was with a T/C White Mountain carbine. Old school lead and BP can do the job.

[03RN]

Congratulations! Great shot with a patched round ball.

My first muzzleloader deer was with a T/C White Mountain carbine. Old school lead and BP can do the job.

Thanks!

I was really expecting to find the ball in him. I can't believe it went through the spine and a rib and exited at that distance.

[gato naranja]

Thanks!

I was really expecting to find the ball in him. I can't believe it went through the spine and a rib and exited at that distance.

I found that as long as I did my part of the job, the pure lead round ball was actually a pretty effective projectile if it was sized correctly for the intended game; by some parameters it is also a fairly efficient one. They just keep getting more and more effective up until the recoil becomes an issue. I never hunted big or dangerous game with any muzzleloader, but have launched round balls out of a 20-bore Trade Gun at targets from the sublime to the ridiculous, and fired a few smoothbore Charleville and Brown Bess replicas back in the day.

The only trad Hawken copy I ever owned was a .54, but I basically lost interest in frontstuffers between the time I ordered it and the time it was delivered... and it was sold without me doing much more than sighting it in. Were I to do it all over again, I'd probably just go the Trade Gun route simply because it is a bit more versatile.