Colorado, check out http://www.americanlongrifles.com/forum/default.asp?CAT_ID=2
: That forum has many of the very best ML custom makers on the North American continent.
: While mostly concerned with flinters of the American heritage era, many shoot caplocks, chunk-guns and now the rage is large bores with several .73's, 8's and 4 bores being made now by some of the members.
: The forum members have a wealth of information, from the technical stuff to plain building and load developement.
; Although for a given charge, the ctg. gun, with it's closed system will give hgiher bllistics than a ML rifle or smoothbore. There the similarity stops. A muzzlelaoder doesn't have a case constricting how much powder can be applied. In large bores, the pain will stop you before you use enough powder to get up to even 12,000CUP pressure, much below what a smaller .45 to .54 cal runs as normal.
; Even a smallish .69 with a 5dram charge will exit from the Indian Elephant's head on a bain shot, so says Samual Baker. The 'Bore" rifles had enormous power and recoil too. A ctg. 4 bore, restricted in it's powder charge by it's case capacity, broke WW Greener's recoil machine as it only registered up to 200 pounds. The .460 Weatherby, recoils with about 85lbs. Actually, equal recoil usually means equal power. The big Weatherby, with it's 7,000fpe or whatever, has less actual effect on a buffalo than does a .500 Nitro, with it's 5,000fpe - go figure. According to those who've used these a LOT on African game, each step up in calibre, created MORE effect on the animal, having more smashing power than the smaller bullet, even though the FPE didn't reflect that visual effect. Just another expample of fpe and it's lies.