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I recently bought a 50 Cal Hawken-style rifle from a fellow Calgunner. My intent is to take it deer hunting next year if I can get drawn for my usual late season hunt. So I have time to learn the quirks.
The seller sent some round ball and spoke well of its accuracy. However, looking at raw numbers from the loading manual, round ball would be sub-500 fpe at 100 yards. For most centerfire ammo, I know the minimum fpe is closer to 1000 for deer (700-1k being the usual minimums).
But some folks in other states are now using .357 air rifles that have less than 400 fpe at the muzzle and claiming that they can take deer out to 100 yards or so (200-300 fpe at impact). Plenty of other folks using round ball out to 100 yards for quite a number of years now.
So my question is whether fpe matters as much when the caliber increases. is a 50-caliber round ball still good at 100 yards? Or should it be more of a 75-yard gun to keep the energy up? Is energy as important with 50-caliber, where expansion isn't really needed? Or is it still as critical as it is with smaller calibers?
We'll brush over things like shot placement & lead vs non-lead. Bad shots are bad shots. I have ITX round ball on backorder right now and hope to get some before I hunt. Weight is virtually the same as lead so raw data should be comparable.
The seller sent some round ball and spoke well of its accuracy. However, looking at raw numbers from the loading manual, round ball would be sub-500 fpe at 100 yards. For most centerfire ammo, I know the minimum fpe is closer to 1000 for deer (700-1k being the usual minimums).
But some folks in other states are now using .357 air rifles that have less than 400 fpe at the muzzle and claiming that they can take deer out to 100 yards or so (200-300 fpe at impact). Plenty of other folks using round ball out to 100 yards for quite a number of years now.
So my question is whether fpe matters as much when the caliber increases. is a 50-caliber round ball still good at 100 yards? Or should it be more of a 75-yard gun to keep the energy up? Is energy as important with 50-caliber, where expansion isn't really needed? Or is it still as critical as it is with smaller calibers?
We'll brush over things like shot placement & lead vs non-lead. Bad shots are bad shots. I have ITX round ball on backorder right now and hope to get some before I hunt. Weight is virtually the same as lead so raw data should be comparable.
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