50 cal TC Hawken deer load

I was given an old factory assembled 50 cal Hawken late last season. It looked like it hadn't been fired once & spent 20+ years in a safe.

Well, I dusted it off and am thinking about taking her out for deer season in OH.

Anyone have any advice on a starting load?

I'm planning on using Hornady .490 round balls, .15 patch, & some undetermined amount of powder. I was thinking about starting around 60-75 grains of ffg.

Any wisdom would be much appreciated.

:wink:

I have a few T/C percussion ml'ers and I started sighting them in with 50 grains of Goex 2F. Now they are sighted in and I stopped increasing the load at 85 grains. This year I'll be hunting with my CVA .58 cal Hawken . I use a 570 Hornady RB and Remington Percussion caps. The patch I use is a .015 and I applied mink oil generously to it. These are my results at 75 yards. I made an adjustment after the first 3 shots and the rest are right where I want them.


GOOD LUCK TO YOU AND ALL THE HUNTERS THIS SEASON.

Ray............... :yeah:

My .50 caliber T/C Renegades and Hawken rifles like 80 grain of 2f Black Powder. A .490 (never a .495 its too tight) and patch. If your shooting Pyrodex RS then 80-85 grains will be fine. Triple Seven 2f I shoot 70 grains of it. And I use a wad between the powder and the patch.

Thanks. I'll start around 50 and work up from there.

My load was 80 grains 490 bullet shoot great .

rwbaker said:

My load was 80 grains 490 bullet shoot great .

Click to expand...

Did your groups open up above 80 or was there no/little improvement as the powder was increased?

Danger said:

rwbaker said:

My load was 80 grains 490 bullet shoot great .

Click to expand...

Did your groups open up above 80 or was there no/little improvement as the powder was increased?

Click to expand...

I can't remember it was a while back in my life .

Danger said:

I was given an old factory assembled 50 cal Hawken late last season. It looked like it hadn't been fired once & spent 20+ years in a safe.

Well, I dusted it off and am thinking about taking her out for deer season in OH.

Anyone have any advice on a starting load?

I'm planning on using Hornady .490 round balls, .15 patch, & some undetermined amount of powder. I was thinking about starting around 60-75 grains of ffg.

Any wisdom would be much appreciated.

Click to expand...

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I use 70 grains of FFFg Swiss black powder in my older CVA .50 caliber Hawken Hunter/Carbine (24" barrel, 6½ lbs) and limit my shots to 80 yards or less. This load, using a .490 Hornady swaged rifle ball, a cut-at-the-muzzle .016 inch cotton denim patch and a thin vegetable over powder wad. This load shoots 3-shot groups of 3 inter-locking bullet holes at 25 yards and usually shoots through both sides of a whitetail deer. It's a very effective load out to 80 yards or less.

However, you need to test your rifle to see what "load" it's "likes" (i.e., which load is the most accurate at different powder loads).

My target load is 47 grains of FFFg using either Swiss or Goex black powder and shoots the center out of the bullseye at 50 yards with 5 shot groups making a single large hole of 1½ to 2 inches or so more due to my "old eyes" than the rifle. I.E., the rifle probably is more accurate than I am. My hunting load of 70 grains of FFFg Swiss is just as accurate.


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Old post. But, what the heck!
My .50 Hawken LOVES a 250 grain .45 caliber Hornady XTP, in a Harvester crush rib sabot over 70 grains of 3f Swiss Holy Black. Haven't chrono'd it yet, but that same load gets 1575 fps from my 24 inch Firehawk.
Dropped 2 doe with the Hawken and that load back in October. Even got one XTP back. 3/4 inch across and still weighed 238 grains.
According to Greenhill, the 250 grain .45 needs a 1-49 to stabilize. Don't be afraid to try a sabot load in your Hawken. You may be as happy with the results as I am!

My son's hawken has taken several deer with 60gr Goex and a round ball

@rogar71 Congrats to him!

That's a nice doe. Good shooting there Rogar's son!

I have an older TC Hawken. Cal, 50. I always use TC Maxi Balls with 75 grs. 2F

In my youth when I started using a 50 caliber TC Renegade I would work up to the most powder I could run using 3F Black what ever the club had for a hunting load using a PRB. I liked 90 grains as it would usually blow the cap off the nipple or split it enough it would fall off when the hammer was cocked. This was a deadly load in east Texas on the medium small deer in the national forests. I did recover a few looking like round flat pieces of lead. I still have that rifle but I load more like most of you, using 80 grains of 3F most of the time even just practicing.

Killed more deer with a .50 Hawken and patched round ball than all my other guns put together. 80-100 grains (v) of powder. I have used pure lead and balls made of wheel weights. Just put it where you should and bring a knife with you.

70-80gr of Goex 2F will kill any deer and be pleasant to shoot. Too much powder expands the soft ball too fast and you don't always get good penetration.

Magnumitis is the bane of the modern muzzleloading shooter. And the manufacturers love it, especially the powder manufacturers.

Like Muley Hunter said, 70-80 grains is plenty, even for calibers as large as .62. There is a guy up in British Columbia that has a .62 caliber Jim Chambers rifle that he has killed moose with using Jim's recommended powder charge of 75 grains.

More is not necessarily better.

My .62 caliber iron-mounted longrifle was dead on accurate at 100 yards with a 75 grain charge of fffg black powder. Never got to hunt with it, health issues precluded me selling off all my weapons shortly after I received it from the builder. I have no doubt that it would have killed any animal residing east of the Mississippi River, should I have hunted with it.

With a .490 ball and 70 grains of Goex 2FG out of a flint longrifle a buddy of mine lost a 150-class buck by shooting him in the shoulder at around 75 yards. We know because he (deer) was killed the next year and the flattened ball was recovered from a severely damaged shoulder blade, but the ball did not penetrate. The buck measured middle-160s when shot with a center-fire. I wouldn't go with less than 80 of 2FG if shooting a round ball.

A round ball is ballistically challenged. The velocity and energy drop off dramatically so I agree with bandocoot but would like to add, with a round ball shoot as much powder as you can safely and accurately. In post 16 I made a comment about using balls made of wheel weights. They penetrate.