Muzzleloader coyote load

LARUEminati

LARUEminati

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Yes… due to state regs I’ll be bringing a muzzleloader at night to take care of the preds that hang up outside of my shotgun range. Anyone have experience with muzzle loaders on a coyote, NOT using a deer bullet? In specific with blackhorn 209 powder. This topic has been discussed however there isn’t much solid load info, other than suggestions to use a round ball (not an option for me).

I’ve only tried using 230grain Winchester .45CAL FMJ handgun bullets in a .50cal sabot, loaded with 90 grains of blackhorn 209. Shoots very accurate to 50 yards and I’ve had so/so results at 100 yards based on the wind, I’ve also measured 18” of drop between 100 & 200 yards when zeroed at 100. I chose this bullet for zero expansion, hoping for one hole in and one hole out. Thinking I may stay on this path and just switch to a premium bullet like a hornady or sierra.

The gun is a CVA Accura V2 with the Bergara barrel, extremely accurate with my deer load shooting Barnes bullets.

Any input is appreciated
 
I have experience hunting fox with a Flintlock muzzleloader, .45 patched round ball over 80gr of 3x, killed them dead but it killed deer dead too. My .54 Flintlock will keep a ball in a 6" sized target to 150. I would have no qualms about hunting coyotes with a .40 with a round ball.

Re-reading your post, why don't you just use your standard hunting load in it, is there a restriction on bullet type for coyotes? As to hunting with your rifle it is no different from hunting with a modern bigbore single shot rifle (44 Mag, 444 Marlin, 45-70). The only restriction is how far can you keep the FIRST shot in a 6" target.
 
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Originally Posted By: LARUEminati^ Can a round ball go down a rifled barrel? What's the deal with that, i've only shot modern sabots?

Sure, patched round ball is the gold standard.



Do a little research and decide what twist your barrel is. Depending upon twist it will prefer round ball or Minnie ball. Google is your friend.
wink.gif



Regards,
hm
 
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Usually Round ball guns have a very slow twist, 1-48 to 1-72 it doesn't take a lot of spin to stabilize a round ball plus the rifling is quite deep to grab the patch.

In rifles designed for bullets or sabots the is a much faster twist nearing those found in a modern rifle to stabilize the longer heavier projectile also the rifling is much shallower to easy loading of the harder projectile. Trying to to shoot patched roundballs out of a modern MZ can be difficult as the patched ball will strip in the barrel unless loaded with a very light charge, probably far lower than you would want for a hunting load.

Again why not just use you regular hunting load? I doubt that a large caliber deer bullet out of a MZ will expand very much on a coyote.
 
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Originally Posted By: AWS Again why not just use you regular hunting load? I doubt that a large caliber deer bullet out of a MZ will expand very much on a coyote.

Was thinking this, might have to give it a try. Would you suggest lowering the powder charge? I shoot 110 grains of blackhorn with the 250gr barnes TEZ and it keeps sub 1" groups at 100. My twist rate is 1-28.

Just was trying to stay away from blowing the hides up, i'd like to mitigate that as much as possible. I keep or give them away as tanned wallhangers.
 
I know my buddy loads one triple seven magnum pellet with a powerbelt bullet for a kid load, this may work for you but if you already have a good shooting deer load I would just use that.
 
While deer hunting a few years ago I had 2 coyotes step out of the of the woods and into the field edge I was hunting that is a well used deer trail .
I had my Thompson Omega loaded with 2 triple 7 pellets and a Barnes TEZ 250 grain sabot load . At about 75 yards I shot the big male in the left shoulder and it broke both shoulders and left a huge exit on the opposite side .
If you are not saving pelts use your deer load . It is instant death on an animal that size .
 
Originally Posted By: natebelleWhile deer hunting a few years ago I had 2 coyotes step out of the of the woods and into the field edge I was hunting that is a well used deer trail .
I had my Thompson Omega loaded with 2 triple 7 pellets and a Barnes TEZ 250 grain sabot load . At about 75 yards I shot the big male in the left shoulder and it broke both shoulders and left a huge exit on the opposite side .
If you are not saving pelts use your deer load . It is instant death on an animal that size .

I shoot those same bullets for deer, that's what i'm trying to avoid & why I tried a FMJ.
 
Use the handgunner mentality. Who cares if it expands, .45 in and .45 out works fine on deer and hogs. I have never used a BP rifle, but I have used a bunch of hard cast 44 and 45s.
 
A buddy of mine shot one with a .50cal muzzleloader with a deer load. It definitely didn't go anywhere...straight down. That's about it. Are you just trying not to blow big holes in them? That one he shot was tore up.
 
1:28 is probably too fast of a twist for a round ball. The faster twists tends to tear the patch which will make it inaccurate/inconsistent.
 
Originally Posted By: rkite1:28 is probably too fast of a twist for a round ball. The faster twists tends to tear the patch which will make it inaccurate/inconsistent.

Thanks, good to know. Thinking i'm still going to use the handgun round however i'll try a premium bullet with the same powder charge that shoots accurately with my deer load. I'd go with a lighter bullet but I don't think it would stabilize.

I contacted blackhorn and they seem to think the 110gr charge (same as the deer load) will fix the issue. Kicks like a mule. I'll report back with the range report.
 
Originally Posted By: danthefoxmanI would contact cecil epps at pr bullet .com very knowledgeable im sure he can get something that would work for you.

Just shot him an email, thanks for the tip.
 
Went back to the range this weekend to try and get my load finalized. I wasn't able to get higher quality FMJ's locally so i'll have to revisit that.

Previously i tried to reduce my accurate deer load powder charge in the name of less power needed for predators. Turns out that cost me accuracy, so I returned to the 110 volume charge of blackhorn 209 and that was the trick.

Another thing I learned throughout all this range testing, as I am new to muzzleloaders, is the fouling in the barrel has a HUGE effect on consistancy. CVA reccommendes that you shoot a primer on a clean barrel before you load, and that turned out to be very much true. It took me awhile to figure this out. My final process at the range was to fire a shot, remove the breechplug and dry patch the barrel, put the breechplug back in and fire a primer, then reload. This produced excellent results, again for range purposes and load testing. This is also with blackhorn 209 which is very clean so others many not have the same results with different powder, dry patching the blackhorn basically fully cleans the barrel almost to new with little to no fouling.

I also learned the ballistic tables dont really corolate to muzzeloaders and I needed to do the trajectory testing myself. Or at least I wasnt seeing what the table said all the way through the bullets flight, some ranges it was right others it was wrong. I settled on 1.5" high at 100 which should have me zeroed at 135-140 yards. This put me .3" high at 25 yards and 1.6" high at 50 yards.
 
The thing about those ballistic tables, is that I don't see how they can take into account what the rifle does as far as muzzle-rise, which has to vary quite a bit between different rifles, powders, bullet diameters, etc.

Like the reason why a heavy 230grainer out of a .45ACP, or a 255grainer going out of a cap n ball revolver, will print higher than a 165grainer going faster out of a .45ACP, and a roundball going faster out of a cap n ball revolver.

I use those tables to compare one load to another, and get a baseline idea of what to look for, though.
 
I remember reading a story once about a group of guys (injection molding engineers) that were making custom sabots, and stuffing them with a 6mm projectile and getting some pretty amazing results.......
 
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