redka

This question came to mind a while back....is there any reason smaller caliber muzzleloaders could not be manufactured like a 270, 308??
And wouldn't they have relatively higher velocities compared to the contemporary 45 and 50 calibers?

gleason.chapman

There are 32 cal MLers in sidelocks and flintlocks, I have not seen one in inlines. I know over on the Savage forum, that some guys are replacing their.50 caliberwith .40 PAC-Nor barrels and shooting sabotless with smokeless powder.You can NOTget BP up to smokeless speeds, so the ballistics would not be as good as a .270 CF.
Chap

cayugad

There are .32 caliber inlines. I think Green Mountain Barrel Co in cooperation with Knight make one, for small game hunting. But like Chap said, we can not push a muzzleloader bullet as fast as smokeless so we depend on bullet performance and raw energy to get the job done. In the old days, it was a large conical bullet or a roundball. The whole sabot craze is not really that new when you take a timeline of muzzleloaders advancements in a time line.

spaniel

A muzzleloader of ANY caliber has a powder column behind the bullet that is a cylinder the diameter of the bore. In a centerfire, you get higher velocities by reducing caliber over a FIXED powder charge -- ie you neck down the brass so you are using the same amount of powder to drive a smaller bullet.

Now, if you bored the breech of a ML barrel to .50cal where the powder is but it is say .270 starting where the bullet sits, you actually would be boosting the velocity somewhat. However, the reason such small bullets kill well in centerfire guns is they are driven 50% higher velocity, AT LEAST, than a ML. You would not accomplish this by "necking down the bore" as I just described, so you'd lose a lot of killing power.

UncleNorby

By definition, muzzleloaders are loaded from the muzzle.

A smokless ML of 27 or 30 caliber could be made easily enough. The 27 or 30 caliber column of powder would be tall in relation to the height of a 270, 308 or 30-06 cartridge, but perhaps a smokeless powder with a proper burning rate could be used.

The real problem is the projectile. You're not going to have much luck driving a standard 27 or 30 caliber bullet down that bore. Use of sabots might mean the bullet would have to be a pretty small caliber, and therefore pretty light. The FPB concept may have some potential.

I don't see a great market for this concept, given that the 45 and 50 cal systems we have now seem to work very well. Never know though.

gleason.chapman

If your really serious about this smaller caliber, go smokeless and shoot a .40 cal Pac-Nor on a Savage Action, join this forum:

http://dougva.proboards34.com/index.cgi?board=Savage

and lurk out for about 6 months before you buy anything. You can probably get this done for about $1000. Best Wishes,
Chap

redka

Thanks for the replies. After reading them, thought I'd mention that I'm not a ML user...still centerfire deerhunter, for about 50 years. Not trying to develop anything new. I just figure there will be lots more ML's in use in future years and the traditional centerfire calibers in a ML would really be useful if they could attain the relative velocities and trajectory.
I was thinking that a .277 bullet half the weight of a .50 cal bullet, and using the same powder charge as the .50 bullet would maybe jump on up to .277 centerfire velocity.So it sounds like ML powder does not work like that. The nature of the ML powder is the limiting factor?

cayugad

While you feel the smaller center fire caliber might have some future potential (or your just wondering), these guys here are proving every day that muzzleloaders can do it now. You push a .44 or .45 caliber projectile or a .50 or larger conical and hit something, there is going to be damage. Some of the distances they are shooting and killing deer and elk are amazing to the old rock and ball shooters.

You need to get to some place that shoots these kind of rifles. Get your hands on an old traditional rifle and start shooting round balls at things that explode like water bottles, pop cans filled with water, that has to be one of my favorite things to have new shooters do on the range. When they see that .490 ball hit a pop can filled with water and just blow up.. the smiles tell it all. The noise, the smoke, the power, its all there. I have no need to go to some small caliber. In fact I like to get as big as I can.

In all honestly, I never took up this sport to shoot extreme distances. Where I hunt shots are close (for the most part) and cover thick. The large bore muzzleloaders were a natural selection for a good stopping powerrifle in these places. Plus knowing you did it with one shot, one chance basically, from powder you measured, and a bullet you might have evencasted, and made that charge and it worked perfect.. carries a lot of satisfaction.

MLKeith

The nature of the burning of black powder the suggestion about using a larger chamber for the powder and necking down to bullet caliber would most likely cause an explosion as the black powder would see the restriction and build pressure faster than the bullet could move. Black does not burn at a progressive rate like smokeless and consequently the only way to achieve faster velocities with smaller bullets is to use a very thick sabot and smaller diameter bullet.

spaniel

That would depend how thick your breech was

The pressure characteristics of BP are very different from smokeless. The flame front speed is MUCH slower, you just can't build smokeless velocities.