Hawken em out there !

[bigpete]

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OK so I did a bit of playing with my .50 Hawken today. I cast a bunch of 360gn minies a while back that didn't shoot as well as my round balls so I put them aside,but I may be getting the chance to hunt camels and sambar one day,so I dug them out to experiment with.

First I tried 80gn of 3f with a ½" leather over powder wad under the minie. It printed around a 2" group at 50m but high and left.

Next was the same load without the wad. Ended up around 5" group but on point of aim.

Third was 97gn of 3f under the minie,just to see if the extra powder would get the skirt to engage the rifling better. Ended up around 10" roughly poa but it kinda looked like one minie tumbled in flight. Plus it kicked reasonably hard

Gun is sighted in for .495 prb and shoots pretty consistent 2" groups with them. Interesting how the addition of a simple leather wad changed things so much !

[Noisydad]

How well do your Minnie's fit your barrel? A fit that's to sloppy doesn't help them. I discovered this in my .58 Zouave (Zoli) and made a die to up size them till they only have .002 clearance. The groups improved a fair bit.

[bigpete]

No idea really the mold says they're .500 and I run a .495 ball and .015 patch in it normally. I'm actually reasonably happy with the accuracy with the leather wads. If I ever use these it will be on big critters

[No1Mk3]

G'day bigpete,
How big are these "critters'? If you go for buff you might want to increase your load. Forgetts .58cal elephant load was a 610g Minie in front of 180g of FFFg, using top hat musket caps for positive ignition of the big charge, the same bullet with 125g of powder for lion, zebra and antelope. He was getting 4.5" groups at 100yds with these loads. My .50 used to like .503 solid base bullets of 370g (Lyman mould) with 120g of Curtis & Harvey FFFg and was lethal on Red and Sambar from 75yards, Cheers.

[bigpete]

As I said in the op,I may be getting after sambar and camels one day. And feral donkeys and horses maybe (I'm no horse lover,but I'm just not sure I'd like shooting then much). 120gn of 3f sounds like a lot of powder.

[No1Mk3]

G'day bigpete,
Lyman list for 50cal, 150g FFFg for 370g solid in a 28" barrel, and 90g in a 43". Their RB max is 200g in the 28" and 170 in the 43". Forgetts loads were heavy, but he was shooting the Big 5 with a .58 and 26" barrel at 1:66 rifling, Cheers.

[bigpete]

Wow that's a lot of powder ! The only chart I've really seen tops out at about 100gn of 3f behind a prb for >1800fps

[Redwood]

Uh oh, someone has a .50 cal.

Make sure you don't accidentally shoot down any planes, because apparently that's a real concern!