muzzle loader mold

[Haywire Haywood]

Veral, has anyone ever requested you make a conical mold for a 50 cal muzzleloader?  I was thinking a full caliber Maxi with an LBT WFN nose would make great whitetail (or mule deer or elk) medicine, or a .452 WFN with no lube grooves for use with a sabot.

what do ya think?
Ian

[Haywire Haywood]

Looks like your catalog answered my question...  You've got a new one since I looked last (been a while).

Ian

[Veral]

  I make many muzzloader bullets, but conical hollow base.  The most successful for 50 caliber rifles are 44 and 45 caliber LFN's with a small bevel base so the set nicely in sabots, and smooth sides so they get full bearing support.  They are very deadly at full muzzloader speeds which are around 1400  1450 fps with 300 gr bullets.  I make similar profile bullets for any caliber muzzleloader, to suit sample sabots sent in by the customer. 

  Contact me personally through our web site at LBTMoulds.com

  Don't concern yourself with the fact that I don't list much for muzzle loaders on the site.  I make about anything you want.

[Hank08]

Hey Haywire, Just saw this old thread and had to tell you about a mold Veral made me for the .50 muzzleloader.  I drew up a picture for a 500 gr LBT type mold. .500 at the top band and .499 the rest. 2cavity.  It casts 490 grs. with pure lead.  It shoots wonderfully in every fast twist barrel , TC, Ruger, Knight, White, Rem, Green Mt.  Many hunters shoot it around here and many, many Deer and Elk are killed with it each yr.
I've never recovered a bullet and no one else had until last yr. from a 6x7 big bull Elk
one was finally recovered under the skin and was expanded to a little larger than a quarter.  It has a huge wide flat nose that is a killer.  We've shot qroups of 4" at 200 yds. with 90 grs. of 2F real black powder.  Everyone says it's the most accurate bullet they ever shot in their muzzleloaders.  I've shot Elk in the chest and had it exit from the hind quarter.
H08

[Veral]

  Thanks for this report Hank.  I don't recall ever hearing how performance turned out with this type bullet.  As I recall the .500 nose band was to get some contact with the rifling and the .499 to provide an easy slip fit down the barrel.  Upon discharge, the bullet base and probably at least 2/3 of the bullet obturates out into the rifling, which is what gives it it's good accuracy.

[Hank08]

Here's the bullet and this is what expansion is like when shot into soft dirt at 230 yds.
The one from the Elk was similar.
H08

[Veral]

  For the record one can rarely find any kind of dirt which give expansion similar to flesh, with dirt being far more hard on bullets.

  With nearly 500 grains of lead, that kind of expansion is deadly, but with lighter bullets, large expansion detracts from kill power.  Especially with handgun type bullets, where hard and no expansion, using a large meplat bullet gives the most consistent and reliable killing power.

  But with muzzloader bullets where pure lead is mandatory, large expansion is going to be certain if remaining velocity on impact is over about 1100 fps.