Advantages: .50 vs. .54

[Buglemintoday]

I am curious as to whether there is an advantage to hunting with a .54 over a .50 cal muzzleloader? I was looking at the velocities/drop and it looks like the .54 will have quite a bit of drop compared to the .50.

Is there any advantage to put one over the other?


Justin

 

[Patrick White]

You can do everything better with a 50 but one thing, shooting roundballs. Between conicals of equal weight in a 50 and 54, the 50 will have a higher sectional density and a higher ballistic coeficcent. With sabots it doesn't really make much difference, but the 50 caliber sabots are more common so the 50 wins there too.

With a roundball, the larger caliber roundball has more weight and better downrange performance.

 

[tooldog]

I agree with Patrick. If you plan on shooting mainly round ball then the .54 definitely has the advantage. Otherwise, I would stick with the .50 cal.

tooldog

 

[txhunter58]

And for better or worse, the 50 IS the most popular caliber. Therefore, it is much easier to find accessories, bullets, etc for the 50. Kind of like if you shoot a 270 or 30-06, you can figure that you will be able to find bullets in any sporting goods store.

 

[Buglemintoday]

Thanks guys

 

[minst7877]

My ML experience started over 20 years ago using a TC Renegade 50 cal cap-lock. Our state regs at that time limited us to round ball use and this gun was a awful choice for that use. Anything over 60 yards and you might as well throw a shoe at them as you had no idea where the ball went. When the regs changed allowing the use of conicals this gun came into its own and turned into a 120yd shooter. Then I got the bigger is better bug and replaced it with a Knight MK 85 in 54 cal. Shot conicals out of it for several years then discovered that it loved MMP purple sabots with a 325 grain jacketed bullet. Have taken several whitetails out to 185 yards with it and they have always been DRT. I love my 54 and the bang flops are very impresssive. I am very glad that I went with this cal. but the choices for things to shoot from it are limited in the stores as most will not stock any supplies for them.

DC