DEAD CENTER BULLETS by Precision Rifle Custom Muzzleloading Bullets
When I started testing PR Bullets, I was surprised. Having been through several frigid, blizzardly battles with several sabots that seemed impossible to properly load except by mechanical press, piles of spit patches blowing across barren bean fields, chronometers that got slower and slower in concert with my ever-numbing fingers, and augmented by factory Popeil Pocket Fisherman ramrods that seemed better designed for bobber and bluegill than seating a bullet . . . well, Red Hot became attitude as well as a bullet brand. No single muzzleloading bullet and weight can be looked at as the ideal bulletif it was that simple, thats what we would all be shooting. Tight barreled Thompsons and XTPs, Barnes Red Hots and barrels that do not readily accept them, and the notion that several muzzleloading manufactures offer bullets that are the most profitable, not the best performers in terms of accuracy or lethality has made the muzzleloading market a bit less than tidy. All based on bore tolerances that are all over the map, the bullet is often blamed as ill-fitting, when it is the actually the barrel that is terminally ill. My personal, flagrant ignorance of the full spectrum of Del Ramseys Power of Polypropylene added considerably to my own consternation. The notion of Big Bore Express Black Belts (Powerbelts) made life easier, as spreading rendered animal by-products (the part of the road kill that cant make it into the hotdog known as Bore Butter) seemed inelegant, if not just plain silly to me. Powerbelts, in a sub 100 yard scenario, still hold appealjust not what is popular. As they are fundamentally conicals, the 348 and 405 grain weights are the worthwhile projectiles, not the more popular flyweights.
Dead Centers changed my opinion of sabots quickly. They broke the conventional convolution of too tight is right, loose wont shoot, and the only good sabot is a thin sabot. Neither continuous ogive bullets, ballistically superior .40 caliber projectiles, or polymer tip projectiles as applied to muzzleloading were on the scene before the multi-colored polymer parade of Silver Lightning, QT, and now the Dead Center combinatorial refinements as developed by PR Bullet were released to the unwashed masses. Rather than settle between just one or two bullet weights, picking the lesser of two evils, the broad range of 175 gr. to 340 grain in the Dead Center line, with bullets of different ODs, let you decide the best combination for you and your guna far cry from the one size does not fit all approach.
Dead Centers load easily in a variety of guns, due to lead construction, step or boat-tail bases, that augment the elastomeric sabot qualities of todays sabots by shortening and bellying out upon firing, and proper sabot design that ether reinforces the lead boat tail to prevent column collapse, or a short enough step to address the same issue. At present, the only ¼ MOA groups Ive fired from a smokepole have been with Dead Centers, and the only repeatable ½ MOA groups have been from the same Dead Center. Relatively loose loading (still requiring a spit patch between shots) and tight groups have become a clear trend. This still varies with the respective gun, and the longer bearing surface versions of the ever-growing DC line are naturally a bit snugger to seat than their shorter counterparts, but still delightfully easy to load by comparison.
Ballistic coefficients are best used when doing comparisons between bullets of their respective manufactures, and your personal retained velocity and observed drop tells the tale at the ranges you intend to harvest, not muzzle velocity or BC numbers concocted by unknown means. They remain only numbers, not directly indicative of specific terminal velocity or energy. PR Bullets has drawn attention to them like no other bulletmaker today, and I salute them for thatas I believe resistance to wind drift and trajectory are clearly forms of field accuracy. If you believe exact shot placement is tantamount and paramount; it is a much more feasible task with a bullet that goes where you seek to place it.
For me, the Dead Center line operates at its best in the 2100 fps range, or as close as you can get to it with accuracy in your gun, with your chosen powder charge, and your desired bullet weight. The terminal performance of these bullets has been engineered and re-engineered over time by firing into body temperature animal carcasses repeatedly at range, then examining the results from a wide variety of wound path angles. This method garnered instant praise from my friends at Olin, who themselves avail themselves of their on-site Doppler radar range, and a variety of FBI barrier and Four Denim tests, with Olins simple comment of you just cant beat that!
I wont go nearly so far to suggest that Dead Centers are the only bullet that can take game quickly and humanly. There are millions of deer that have succumbed to other projectiles before their introduction to even begin to suggest that. There is something, however, that I find more important about Dead Centers than most anything elsetheir packaging.
Pure lead has been a benchmark of ethical muzzleloading hunting bullets for a long, long time. What has been lacking is receiving a pure lead bullet that looks as if it was just made. Compound the truck, UPS, or other common carrier handling with poorly packaged bullets that arrive with resultant cocked noses and dents, and are then mashed into firing position with arbitrary seating tools that do not in anyway properly contact the nose with deforming it on the way down the muzzle, and it is of little wonder why they just cannot perform at their very best.
The current PR Bullet clam packs that not touch the ogive, featuring sabot-protected dressed bullets inclusive of a proper bullet starter, and now we finally have a muzzleloading projectile that arrives in pristine condition. That is one of PR Bullets very best contributions, in addition to all the above citations. They are not the only choice for todays performance-minded muzzleloader, but at present, my muzzle says they are the best for North American humane, hooved animal harvestingparticularly if you desire the flexibility to hunt at varied ranges and terminal velocities. Let your own frontloader and your own game tell you.
