meplate or roundnose

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  • Last Post 16 August 2015
tlkeizer posted this 24 April 2015

Greetings, I have both 423 grain meplate bullets and 516 grain round nose bullets for my 45-70.  Both shoot as well out to 100 yards (palm of hand or better) with 70 grains FFg.  Any body with experience have a recommendation for which one to use (caribou and black bear)?  Thank you TK

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jeff houck posted this 25 April 2015

I've hunted with a .45-100 for nearly 30 years now using a 350 gr. LBT long nose bullet. The flatter the nose the better for a hunting bullet. A round nose bullet will just poke a self sealing hole through an animal if you miss bone. A flat nose bullet will give you a wound channel approximately 1.5 to 2x the diameter of the meplat at black powder impact velocities.

Buy Veral Smith's book on cast bullets for an excellent work on how cast bullets perform for hunting

Jeff Houck 

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runfiverun posted this 26 April 2015

Flat. you don't need Veral's book to confirm that.

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Ed Harris posted this 01 June 2015

Original pure lead .44-40 bullets expanded well at rifle velocities obtained with black powder. Their meplat diameter of 0.26” is 0.6 of the bullet diameter. That presents a good standard as a compromise between reliable feeding in repeating rifles, with good game performance.

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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onondaga posted this 02 June 2015

TK

Even though your flat nose bullet is lighter, it is by no means a light bullet at all for your caliber.  Your load level suggests a soft alloy would expand excellently. I'd prefer your flat nose for hunting and would classify the other heavier round nose bullet as one that drops in trajectory faster, kicks harder and has no killing advantage over the lighter flat nose.

Some Hog hunters believe hogs have some mystical breast plate that only pointed bullets will go through. I say hogwash and your load with the soft flat nose 423 gr and 70 gr BP will have Hog pass through with a 90 caliber hole from any angle when shooting 100 yards or less at Hogs. A vital hit should be expected to drop big Hogs instantly with your load.

Gary

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jhalcott posted this 02 June 2015

I've SEEN RN's go thru with out hardly shakeing the target while FN's show dramatic terminal performance. In calibers from 7mm to 45-70 on deer sized game. On smaller stuff like varmints with smaller calibers , the effect is the same.

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John Alexander posted this 03 June 2015

I don't doubt that a wide meplate may inflict maximum damage for cast bullets.  With everything else even they should also be more likely to expand.  

But I think claiming minimum damage by round noses CBs, no matter how logical it may seem, has probably been exaggerated. I understand this is the conventional wisdom but it may be overstated.  A lot of animals, as well as men, have been killed pretty dead by round nosed bullets.

My limited experience is with round balls at 1,300 fps out of a 20 gage slug gun on five deer that all died promptly when shot through the lungs.  Two in their tracks and three after going relatively short distances.  Another hunter observing my skinned hanging deer last fall asked if I had been shot it with a mortar because of the size of the exit hole.   

 John

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Dirtybore posted this 15 August 2015

Much like John A. my experience is with round balls.  9 deer have fallen to my 54 cal. muzzleloaders and if & when the ball hit bone, it looked like a frizzby when recovered.  Many a ball went clear through, no matter whether side to side or stem to stern on 50 yds shots.  Not much blood shot but one heck of a hole.

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tlkeizer posted this 16 August 2015

Greetings,

Thank you guys. I am taking both to the field late Sunday for a couple days looking for caribou. If I have success other than just getting back home safely I will try to post pictures and let you know what bullet did what. I will more than likely start with the meplate bullet.

For you guys that use round balls in muzzle loaders, I use predominately a CVA .58 Big Bore Mountain Rifle with a 70 grain FFG charge pushing the round ball. I would like to say what the ball looked like afterwards, but never had one stop in either deer (100 yds) or caribou (54 yds) (both dropped like a ton of bricks when the ball creased the spine from shooting a couple inches high, see avatar for caribou).

TK

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