50-90 Hunting Bullet

[ffffgdave@yahoo.com]

i think im beating a dead horse here but i always have to comment.. you can view the gel balistics for the .45 acp at ... http://www.firearmstactical.com/wound.htm ... this is what i believe is the closest type of wound chanel damage done by a hard non expanding lead black powder bullet, (unless hiting a bone blowing parts of it thru the body).. seeing this you can tell that bullet placement is critical with any bullet that is under hydrostatic shock velocity.. i guess i belive that if you have a .45 or .50 or 450 grain bullet or 650 bullet at 1200 fps doesnt matter a whole lot, but bullet placement matters a whole bunch.. my opinion only... good luck dave.

[pete]

When we went to Nebraska for buffalo John Hanson who's the manager said the worst results he's seen are with people shooting the 20-1 alloy because they don't expand and just go through. He recommends pure lead flat points. I have used pure lead Lyman 420 gr. 457193's in my 45-70 for two buffalo, a deer and an antelope and they work. Diameter on recovered bullets ranges from .7 to .9 and there's no doubt to me that expansion really helps. The energy figures for blackpowder cartridges are less compared to modern high velocity cartridges and the modern bullets are designed to expand.

[Bearbait2]

Pete,
If you don't mind my asking, for the recovered bullets, how much penetration of the animal did you observe? Do you know the muzzle velocity of your rounds?
Appreciate you sharing your experience.
Thank you.
Shoot Straight

[pete]

Bearbait2; No problem. The first buffalo I shot took 3 shots because my first shot was quartering away from 150 yds. I hit one lung and she along with the rest of the herd took us on over a mile run. We finally got in front of them and I shot two more times from 60 yds. as she ran after seeing us. One hit the left side, one hit the right side after she turned and ran the other way. The first bullet penetrated right around 30 inches (We measured) and lodged in the meat in the off side shoulder close to the skin. One other was under the skin on the off side. The third exited. Velocity that time was 1230. I shot the second buffalo at about 100 yds just above the heart hitting a rib near and far side and the bullet was in the shoulder meat on the far side after it broke the upper leg bone in the far shoulder and deflected into the meat some where. It didn't go through to the skin and was found by the meat cutter. She only went about 30 yds and went down. I used Swiss 2f and Velocity was 1340 fps. I hit the deer a little high and broke his back the bullet deflected down through the chest and also lodged in the shoulder close to the skin. It turned sideways after it deflected and was flat on one side. If it didn't turn it probably would have exited. Range 100 yds. That was a one shot kill. The antelope was 200 yds. and it exited after breaking the bones of both legs just above the elbows and of course going through the chest. The load for both deer and antelope was 1230 fps. Geez! looking back through my post it looks kinda grisly and hopefully not more than you wanted to know but I think it shows that so far penetration is plenty sufficient especially considering some of these bullets broke some decent sized bones.

[Bearbait2]

Pete,
Most impressive performance. Never ceases to amaze me as to how well these "old" slow moving heavyweights do their job. So much for the "gun writers" that insist one has to be firing a projectile at 3000fps or the bullet will undoubtably bounce off of an animal's hide. I'm exagerating just a tad of course but not by much. Thank you for your time.
Shoot Straight