New Mexico New York New Hampshire Moose Buffalo Hunts

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If you muzzleload for any of the game animals shown at the top of this page, then I'm sure you've had a few thoughts about knockdown power...and whether the load you use for deer generates enough energy to put a really big animal down quickly. I know I have when going after large game that can also prove dangerous.

The 400-grain Barnes Bullets .458" diameter BUSTER bullet, shown above, is one that I played around with this past winter, loading it into several different .50 caliber No. 209 primer ignition in-line muzzle-loaded rifles using the black .50x.45 Crush Rib Sabot produced by Harvester Muzzleloading. This particular bullet was designed for loading .45-70 Govt. cartridges for use in a lever-action rifle. Barnes also offers the BUSTER bullet in .429" diameter (300 grain) for the .44 Magnum; in .454" diameter (325 grain) for the .454 Casull revolvers; and in .500" diameter (400 grains) for the .500 Smith & Wesson handguns.

Here's what Barnes has to say about these bullets...

Purpose: Deep Penetrating Hunting Bullets for Handguns and Lever Rifles

"Barnes offers new heavy-for-caliber handgun and lever rifle bullets intended for hunting bear, wild boar, moose, bison, buffalo and other large—even dangerous—game. The bullet features a thick copper jacket and a heavy lead core, resulting in deep penetration and maximum weight retention.

This premium hunting bullet combines bone-crushing power with pass-through penetration. Unlike conventional expanding bullets, the Barnes Busters track straight without deflection. These tough bullets are specifically designed to deliver maximum penetration, even in large and dangerous game. In one field test, a Barnes Buster fired from a .45-70 T/C Encore drove completely through an American bison, anchoring it on the spot.

These cannelured, heavy-for-caliber bullets drive deep through dense muscle and bone. Bullets remain intact—jackets won’t separate from the core. Great for hunting hogs and tough, heavy game; it’s the ideal bullet for those who carry handguns for protection against bears in Alaska and other wilderness areas."

At right, the Barnes heavy jacketed lead core .458" diameter 400-grain BUSTER bullet is shown with another 400-grain bullet - the .451" diameter Hard Cast bullet from Harvester Muzzleloading. I've put a few hundred of the latter down range, and consider it one of the best muzzle-loaded saboted bullets for taking big black bear. Both of these bullets are of flat-nose design, and smack game with a tremendous wallop.

My hardest hitting load for the Harvester Muzzleloading 400-grain bullet has been 120-grains of Blackhorn 209, which gets the .995" long hardened lead bullet out of the 30-inch barrel of a Traditions VORTEK Ultra Light LDR rifle at 1,933 f.p.s., generating 3,316 f.p.e. at the muzzle. (That's more muzzle energy than what Knight's .52 caliber produces with their load for the 375-grain Red Hot bullet.)

   

The longer 30-inch barrel of the Traditions .50 caliber VORTEK Ultra Light LDR more effectively consumes hefty charge of Blackhorn 209 than shorter 26- to 28-inch barrels.

The rifle at left is the rifle I'll use to hunt black bear this spring. While my deer hunting load is still more than enough for putting a 300+ pound bear down (or an elk for that matter), my goal with the saboted 400-grain .458" BUSTER bullet was to see if I could indeed work up a "Maximum Knockdown" load for the .50 caliber Traditions rifle that would come close to matching the wallop produced by 150-grain charges of FFg Triple Seven and the big .475" diameter 375-grain spitzer hollow point all-copper Red Hot bullet Knight recommends for their .52 caliber rifles. 

Common sense says a 120-grain charge of Blackhorn 209 should get the big 400-grain .458" Barnes BUSTER out of the 30-inch barrel at about the same velocity as the 400-grain Harvester Muzzleloading 400-grain .451" bullet. 

With the sighting of the rifle tweaked for a 110-grain charge of Blackhorn 209 and the 400-grain .458 BUSTER bullet, the group shot (above) measured 1.050" center-to-center.

Taking the powder charge up to 120-grains of Blackhorn 209 changed point of impact very little. This was the best of three groups, measuring 1.110" center-to-center.

I realized that the .458" diameter bullets would be tighter fitting and harder loading using the same Crush Rib Sabot I've used to load and shoot the .451" diameter "Hard Cast" bullet. The recessed muzzle of the VORTEK Ultra Light LDR allowed pretty much 2/3rds of the sabot and bullet combo to be slipped in before the base of the sabot made contact with the rifling of the bore. Using a reasonably short bullet starter, with a flat for the palm of the hand, I found I could start the saboted 400-grain BUSTER without having to use excessive force. Once the sabot and bullet were two or three inches into the bore, seating with the range rod was fairly easy. (Note: We found it next to impossible to load this bullet/sabot combination in the bore of a .50 T/C Triumph, the fit was way too tight.) 

   

I started my shooting with a volume measured 110-grains of Blackhorn 209. The first three shots were fired to tweak the sighting of the Hi-Lux Optics TB-ML scope, which had been previously sighted with 120-grains of Blackhorn 209 and the saboted 300-grain Scorpion PT Gold. Surprisingly, pushed out of the 30-inch barrel by 110-grains, the big .458" bullet printed only about 1 1/2-inch higher at 100 yards. The first group was the only group I shot with that charge, and can be seen above left. Recoil was not bad.

My first three rounds with the 120-grain charge behind the 400-grain bullet went 1.425" center-to-center - which on the average is pretty much a typical group for me. The second group is the 1.110" group above right. This was my best group with the heftier charge of Blackhorn 209. The third group went 1.285" center-to-center. All in all some very good groups with a bullet that measure 1.076" in length. Recoil with the heftier charge was very noticeable, and I'll say right here, I doubt seriously if I ever load and shoot 130-grains.

                                

The 120-grain charge is not a load you would want to shoot much more than the 12 shots it took tweak the TB-ML scope and to punch the three groups shot. It rocks back pretty hard. With that said, for checking the rifle's sighting before a hunt...and for the several shots one would shoot during a hunt, the recoil is still very tolerable.      

The .458" Barnes 400-grain BUSTER bullet as a .242 b.c. and retains velcity and energy well down range.

The 110-grain charges put three of the big heavy jacketed lead-core BUSTER bullets across the screens of my chronograph at an average velocity of 1,888 f.p.s. Perhaps thanks to the heavy weight of the bullet and tighter fit of the bullet and sabot in the bore, the slowest veclocity was just 1,884 f.p.s., the fastest went 1,891 f.p.s. - for a velocity spread of just 7 f.p.s.! Average muzzle energy was 3,168 f.p.e.

Upping the charge to 120-grains took average velocity to 1,941 f.p.s. I also chronographed three 120-grain charges with the noticebly easier loading .451" Hard Cast, which (on this day) averaged 1,935 f.p.s. (Estimated b.c. of this bullet is .230.) Again, the tighter fit of the sabot and .458" bullet in the bore most likely contributes to a more efficient burn of the powder charge. The energy produced by the load, at 1,941 f.p.s., is 3,340 foot-pounds of knockdown power.    

Barnes gives the 400-grain .458" BUSTER a .242 ballistic coefficient. That being the case, the hotter 120-grain charge of Blackhorn 209 would have the bullet still flying along at around 1,380 f.p.s. out at 200 yards, and it would drive home with almost 1,700 f.p.e. - and that's pretty impressive for a bullet of flat-nose design. I divided my shooting with these heavyweights during three different visits to the range. On a beautiful March afternoon with the temperature at 47-degrees, I put three of the big bullets downrange at 200 yards to check bullet drop. The "group" was about 3 1/4 inches across. At 100 yards, the rifle was sighted to print the load 1 1/2 inches above point of aim. The three holes in the target paper averaged right at 10 inches below point of aim - for a total bullet drop of around 11 1/2 inches.

The .45-70 load used by the Barnes crew to take a buffalo (American bison) with the 400-grain BUSTER bullet, more than likely, got the big flat-fronted bullet out of the muzzle at a velocity very comparable to the velocity I was getting with the 120-grain charge of Blackhorn 209 out of the 30-inch barreled .50 caliber Traditions VORTEK Ultra Light LDR. My feelings are that the performance of the bullet on game would be about the same...with the vast majority of loads punching out the other side...and breaking any bones that the bullet contacted on the way through.

 

At the range, I sat the tote on an old table at 100 yards...refilled it with water (adding about two more gallons) then placed two water filled plastic gallon milk jugs in front of one end of the tote. The first shot, shooting the 400-grain Barnes BUSTER, exploded both milk jugs. I replaced them and shot again, this time with the 400-grain Hard Cast bullet. Again the jugs exploded. Both times the dirt on the backstop kicked up.

  

After passing through 12 inches of water (two 1-gallon milk jugs full), both the 400-grain Barnes BUSTER (lower hole) and the 400-grain Hard Cast bullets pushed all the way through 24-inches of wetpack newspaper and cardboard - at 100 yards.

After passing through nearly 12-inches of water before hitting the tote filled with almost 120-pounds of water soaked newspaper and cardboard, both of the big 400-grain bullets had no trouble punching right through the very wet, very soaked and swollen 22 inches of wetpack.  

Punched squarely through both front shoulders, there is absolutely no reason to doubt that the 120-grain charge of Blackhorn 209 out of the 30-inch barreled Traditions .50 caliber muzzleloader would push either the .458" BUSTER or the .451" Hard Cast all the way through game as large as a 1,400-1,500 pound bison. Personally, I feel that the softer recoiling 110-grain charges would still do the same thing. If you've been considering putting together a special purpose load just for taking very large game or especially very large dangerous game, you might want to check out either the 400-grain Barnes .458" BUSTER or the 400-grain .451" Harvester Muzzleloading Hard Cast bullets. Both shoot with great accuracy, and drive home with tremendous knockdown power. - Toby Bridges, NORTH AMERICAN MUZZLELOADER HUNTING 

(Note: Here at NORTH AMERICAN MUZZLELOADER HUNTING we have used pretty much exclusively the black .50x.45 Crush Rib Sabot from Harvester Muzzleloading when loading and shooting .458" diameter bullets out of a .50 caliber rifle. We have found some rifles to have a slightly tighter bore, making it extremely difficult to load and shoot bullets of that diameter with that sabot. One solution has been to load those rifles with the .50x.458 sabot offered by Muzzleload Magnum Products.) 

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In recent years, all the hoopla over the continued popularity of the old .30-06 Springfield cartridge for hunting a variety of big game has fianlly started to quiet down just a little. Now don't take me wrong, thanks to improved powders and bullets, the ol' '06 is still a great cartridge...even though it was adopted by the U.S. Army as this country's official military cartridge way back in 1906. That makes it 107 years old, and it is still one of today's best selling calibers, despite that many of the newer cartridges, such as the 7mm Remington Magnum and the .300 Winchester Short Magnum are the result of one heck of a lot more engineering.

Probably even more amazing is the continued popularity of the older yet .45-70 Government cartridge - adopted by the Army, along with the Trapdoor Springfield rifle, in 1873. Even though the caliber is now 140 years old, new powders and much better bullet designs tend to keep it young and alive.

The 400-grain .458" diameter Barnes BUSTER bullet just covered above is one of those bullets that help the .45-70 hang on to its reputation for putting down game on the spot.

The buck in this photo was taken at just over 175 yards. The rifle had been sighted in to print 1 1/2 inches high at 100 yards. At 150 yards, the 300-grain Barnes bullet printed right at 2 1/2 inches below point of aim, at 200 yards the load printed 7 1/2 inches below point of aim. The buck had pushed a doe out into an open grassfield, and would not let her return to the timber. Using the knee high grasses for cover, I had crawled half way to the deer, but as the field rolled to a rise, I was afraid I'd be spotted. I slipped out of my jacket, and rolled it up to make a nice rest. Then, ever so slowly I inched forward a few more yards, to where the rise topped out. With the rifle on the jacket, and the crosshairs high center of the shoulder, the trigger came back...the rifle roared...and this buck dropped on the spot. At 175 yards, by my calculations, the deer was hit with somehwere between 1,750 and 1,800 f.p.e.

  

Don't be surprised if you read two or three additional NORTH AMERICAN MUZZLELOADER HUNTING reports on loading...shooting...and hunting with .458" diameter bullets this year. Personally, I think they are the door to better downrange ballistics for modern .50 caliber in-line rifles and loads. 

One .458" bullet that intrigues me is the longer and heavier 400-grain version of the Barnes Original. The 300-grain Original measures .941" in length, the 400-grain bullet measures 1.160" in length. The added length, and 100 extra grains, significantly ups the b.c. of the bullet to .389. Now, if this bullet can be gotten out of the muzzle at the same velocities as the .458" 400-grain BUSTER, think of the down range performance.     

At 1,941 f.p.s., with 120-grains of Blackhorn 209, out of the 30-inch barrel of the VORTEK Ultra Light LDR, the 400-grain Original would generate the same 3,340 f.p.e. at the muzzle. It's the high b.c. which takes over once the bullet is out of the muzzle. At 200 yards, thanks to that .389 b.c., this bullet would continue to speed along at close to 1,600 f.p.s., with around 2,270 f.p.e. All the way out at 300 yards, the high b.c. bullet would retain around 1,400 f.p.s. and more than 1,700 foot-pounds of knockdown powder.  

The length of the 400-grain Original could push the turn-in-28 twist bores to provide adequate stabilization. A couple of years back, I got the slightly longer 1.235" (including the polymer tip) 300-grain Barnes .458" diameter all-copper SOCOM to shoot with exceptional accuracy. Upper end velocities likely helped in the stabilization of that lengthy bullet. 

The right hand bullet in the photo at upper right is a prototype of a 350-grain .458" diameter version of the Harvester Muzzleloading Scorpion PT Gold. (Shown here with the production run .451" diameter 300-grain Scorpion PT Gold.) The heftier .458" version of the bullet measures 1.155" in length (including the polymer tip). I convinced Harvester Muzzleloading to make me up a small batch of the 350-grain bullets - and, loaded with the black Crush Rib Sabot, it proved to be one of the most accurate saboted bullets I've ever shot. With a 120-grain charge of Blackhorn 209, the bullet could be pushed from a 28-inch barrel at 2,011 f.p.s., generating 3,143 f.p.e.. Comparing the trajectory from 100 to 200 yards, I concluded that the bullet likely has a .315 to .325 b.c. Rounding that b.c. range off to .320 would mean the load would still be good for around 1,550 f.p.s. at 200 yards (and hit with in the neighborhood of 1,860 f.p.e.).