Ethan – from the I Love Muzzeloading Podcast – recently published an excellent study on the Ballistic Efficiency of 4 Popular Lead Bullets for Hawken Muzzleloaders.   Since many of us buckskinners use blackpowder muzzleloaders for hunting, and almost all of us have or have had some variation of a Hawken rifle, I thought this would be excellent to share.

Here’s what Ethan had to say:

This test will be conducted at 50 yards with my Traditions St. Louis Hawken. The Traditions St. Louis Hawken has a 50 caliber 1:48 twist barrel and operates using a percussion lock and a no. 11 percussion cap. I’m using this rifle in this test because 50 caliber muzzleloaders are the most common muzzleloader on the market, and there are a wide variety of off the shelf, non custom, projectiles available for them.

 

We’ll be testing 4 projectiles in this test

 

.495 roundball, 184 grains

 

Hornady PA Conical, 250 grains

 

T/C Maxi Hunter, 275 grains

 

Hornady Great Plains Bullet, 385

 

Each of these projectiles is considered a “Traditional” projectile by many state hunting rules. They are all lead projectiles with no sabot, plastic, or jacket and their designs date back to the mid to late 19th century at the latest.

 

For powder in this test, I’m shooting each shot with 80 grains of Swiss 3F blackpowder measured by volume. Volume is the standard means to measure traditional “real” blackpowder in the field. Many shooters will use 2F blackpowder in their 50 caliber muzzleloaders, but by using this 3F Swiss brand blackpowder, we should be able to get optimum speed out of this rifle.

You can see all of the details in the video he posted to YouTube: