I have a good friend here, who uses his English Sporting rifle for Moose most every year. This rifle has dropped some 40 or more moose. It is .75 calibre and he uses a .715" round ball cast of wheelweight metal with a heavy denim patch. He started out at 200gr. 2F powder for 1,600fps. At that level, he couldn't keep a round ball inside a moose, no matter what angle the shot, front to rear, rear to front, both shoulders, angled shots, always taking at least one lung. Our Bull moose in that area run to about 1,200 pounds on the hoof, some bigger, few smaller. This is a man who has taugt many to hunt our moose, but usualy ended up finishing them off after being wounded by others, hense being able to stick several (or more) per year.
: Being one to show up at work with several bullets or balls recovered from moose, Keith was beside himself - nothing to show but his freezer full of moose meat. Over the years he reduced his load in about 20gr. increments to 110gr. At that charge he successfully managed to recover some balls to show us. They were non-deformed, of course, except for the odd branch gouge or bone rip on the outer surface. WW balls worked splendidly for him, and we've found them to work well in as small as .54 calibre rifles, muzzleloaders, of course.
: His loads can be be duplicated, using those same balls and powder charges in brass, paper or plastic hull in a 12 or 10 bore shotguns or rifles as shown by my own testing. The target below, is an 8 bore group shot with round balls. It is not wonderful, but does show that at normal forest hunting ranges, a smooth gun is capable on big game. My own double 12 made groups like this at around 80 to 85 yards, with the balls spreading to 8" to 10" maximum at 100 yards, my designated maximum range for them.
: With a hardened ball such as WW metal, or 1/2 and 1/2, WW and pure lead, any hardeness can be acomplished by hardening and then drawing the temper to whatever level you want. This is done with water and the kitchen stove. A ball harened to brinel 30, then drawn to about brinel 18, will not only be very hard, but also very tough, that is, if WW metal isn't good enough. We've found straight WW metal to be all & more than what's needed, but then, we havne't shot any buffalo with them. We do know we wound't be undergunned for our Bison, that's for sure. Smashing both shoulders of a bull moose and then exiting is what they'll do, given even a moderate charge. If that isn't enough, then perhaps other hobbies should be persued.
: The loads he used in his muzzleloading rifle will fit in normal 2 3/4" plastic hulls & are the same as the African factory loads in 12 bore. The velocity is normally higher in the ctg. gun as there is no pressure loss at the nipple as with the caplock rifle.
: He could have used a .735" ball of about 620gr., but the lighter 545gr. ball did the job at hand quite nicely & loaded more easily.
: Think about this - if a round ball can exit an animal such as a moose, with it's huge elastic-like hide, where most modern rounds can't, surely there is enough to penetrate to the vitals of most game. "Through and through" were Baker's words describing a 15 bore ball from a 14 bore rifle. Keith's loads using a 12 bore ball from an 11 bore rifle were considerably more powerful than the loads Baker was talking about.
: What is "enough gun".