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Patched round ball or saboted?

Barnes T-MZ with yellow sabot or T-EZ with blue sabot...(if you have a tight bore go with T-EZ)...very pleased with the performance.
 
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I'd stick with what works. I think most hunters would go with what works best. Sabots are more accurate and have expansion properties that help to kill a deer faster. If balls were more accurate all bullets would be spherical not conical.

I have been lucky and have recovered all my deer I've shot with my ML shooting sabots. The deer don't make it 100 yards with a sabot in the ribs and they often leave a nice blood trail if they don't drop within eyesight.
 
I will attest from experience that that dates back to the 1970s that a patched ball will definitely kill deer cleanly. I mostly hunted with an open sight flintlock rifle even before Tennessee had a ML season. My advice is to practice shot placement (round balls being cheap so you ought to be able to do plenty of that) and keep your shots close. I like to keep my shots under 50/60 yards.
 
Chickencoop96 said:
Well because I have a lot of round ball and every deer I've seen shot with round ball has been retrieved
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Like I said, they will work, just stay withing 100 yards or so and pick your shot. Some of the bases I hunted had shotgun only areas that allowed BP as well, round ball was used for the longest time until conicals and sabots got popular, certainly shot better than a slug out of my smoothbore SG.
 
If you were a traditionalist, like using a recurve bow instead of a compound; yeah go patches. You have an inline though, so use the most deadly and effective item available, which is the sabots.
 
Chickencoop96 said:
Well because I have a lot of round ball and every deer I've seen shot with round ball has been retrieved
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Different guns shoot different ammo differently. . If you want to consider using round balls go and shoot some and see how it does. . I will say that a Knight in line was most likely designed to shoot Sabots. I would expect it to shoot better groups at longer ranges with sabots.
 
I don't know this as fact, nor am I a baseball pitcher, but....
Rifles designed for round ball have a 1/66" twist. Modern inlines are closer to 1/20". It wouldn't surprise me if shooting a RB in a fast twist produced a "curve ball" effect. Of course...I could be completely wrong 🤷
 
Tenntrapper said:
I don't know this as fact, nor am I a baseball pitcher, but....
Rifles designed for round ball have a 1/66" twist. Modern inlines are closer to 1/20". It wouldn't surprise me if shooting a RB in a fast twist produced a "curve ball" effect. Of course...I could be completely wrong 🤷
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Exactly my thinking also!
 
I have killed a couple with .50 caliber round balls but, they didn't amaze me. If a shoulder or neck shot, they flatten out nice and work ok but, through the ribs, I couldn't even tell they expanded at all. I have killed several with saboted bullets, and several with Maxi- Hunters, Maxi Balls, and Great Plains Bullets. Sabots and conicals do much better. An older hunter years ago, told me good round ball rifles start at .54 caliber.
 
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A T/C New Englander I once had, and wish I still did, was perhaps the most accurate rifle I've ever owned. It was amazing what it would do with a patched round ball and 90 grains of black powder or Pyrodex. It was responsible for the death of many a deer and a huge bobcat. I replaced it with a T/C Big Boar 58 caliber that was one of the most inaccurate rifles I've ever owned. There is no telling how much time, money, and effort was spent experimenting trying to find an accurate load all to no avail.

If a rifle really likes round balls then they are more than adequate. The vast majority of inlines have twist rates that will shoot sabot clad bullets or skirted bullets better than round balls. They will, however, probably shoot balls good enough especially at distances under 50 yards.

A fun and DEVASTATING load is the old double round ball. They will usually strike about an inch or three apart from one another. Every deer I shot with that combo went down as if struck by the hammer of Thor! I know, I know they were not then and are not now legal. A damn I did not give then nor do I now. If I still had the ol' New Englander that's the load I'd use.
 
348Winchester said:
A T/C New Englander I once had, and wish I still did, was perhaps the most accurate rifle I've ever owned. It was amazing what it would do with a patched round ball and 90 grains of black powder or Pyrodex. It was responsible for the death of many a deer and a huge bobcat. I replaced it with a T/C Big Boar 58 caliber that was one of the most inaccurate rifles I've ever owned. There is no telling how much time, money, and effort was spent experimenting trying to find an accurate load all to no avail.

If a rifle really likes round balls then they are more than adequate. The vast majority of inlines have twist rates that will shoot sabot clad bullets or skirted bullets better than round balls. They will, however, probably shoot balls good enough especially at distances under 50 yards.

A fun and DEVASTATING load is the old double round ball. They will usually strike about an inch or three apart from one another. Every deer I shot with that combo went down as if struck by the hammer of Thor! I know, I know they were not then and are not now legal. A damn I did not give then nor do I now. If I still had the ol' New Englander that's the load I'd use.
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"A damn I did not give then nor do I now" is probably my favorite response yet lol
 
I've got a H&R Huntsman .58 caliber. That 2 ball load would be devastating in it, if it would handle it. I think .58 balls weigh 279 gr. So, that would be 558 gr., and balls can vary a little.
 

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