.50 Caliber for Elk Hunting

I am a big believer in heavy bullets for elk. I bought some Remington .45-70 bullets from Outlaw State Bullets that were modified to hollowpoints for the .458 Socom. I use Harvester orange sabots and 115 gr. of 777. My muzzleloader uses #11 caps. I've shot 4 cow elk with them, and three dropped in their tracks and the fourth went less than 50 yards. Most of my shots are around 200 yards. Prior to finding those bullets, I had elk run off with no blood trail. Pointy bullets tend to needle through the hide and not bleed on that side. Pure lead bullets will expand to over an inch, and usually won't exit. A flat point bullet hammers hard, and leaves a hole. Hardcast bullets will penetrate from stem to stern, but don't kill as fast as I like. You don't need Blackhorn 209. Everyone loves it because it doesn't require swabbing the bore between shots, but 777 is almost as fast, at half the price. I have an Accura LR .45, and it doesn't shoot any better than my old Kahnke rifle. Shooting #11 caps, you don't get the crud ring that 209 primers cause. Arrowhead will convert your breechplug to shoot large rifle primers, and prevent blowback. My Accura has no blowback with Winchester 209 primers, but I haven't seen any available for a couple of years. If you find some, buy a brick.

NM is taking public input right now on not allowing scopes on muzzleloaders. Please comment if you're old like me and can't shoot well with iron sights.
 
Old and have a tuff time with iron sights. They have been talking about no scopes in Utah also. They use to allow 1X scopes before scopes were allowed. Funny how archer's with there primitive weapons are shooting 150 + yards.
 
I am a big believer in heavy bullets for elk. I bought some Remington .45-70 bullets from Outlaw State Bullets that were modified to hollowpoints for the .458 Socom. I use Harvester orange sabots and 115 gr. of 777. My muzzleloader uses #11 caps. I've shot 4 cow elk with them, and three dropped in their tracks and the fourth went less than 50 yards. Most of my shots are around 200 yards. Prior to finding those bullets, I had elk run off with no blood trail. Pointy bullets tend to needle through the hide and not bleed on that side. Pure lead bullets will expand to over an inch, and usually won't exit. A flat point bullet hammers hard, and leaves a hole. Hardcast bullets will penetrate from stem to stern, but don't kill as fast as I like. You don't need Blackhorn 209. Everyone loves it because it doesn't require swabbing the bore between shots, but 777 is almost as fast, at half the price. I have an Accura LR .45, and it doesn't shoot any better than my old Kahnke rifle. Shooting #11 caps, you don't get the crud ring that 209 primers cause. Arrowhead will convert your breechplug to shoot large rifle primers, and prevent blowback. My Accura has no blowback with Winchester 209 primers, but I haven't seen any available for a couple of years. If you find some, buy a brick.

NM is taking public input right now on not allowing scopes on muzzleloaders. Please comment if you're old like me and can't shoot well with iron sights.
Ok, awesome! Thank you for all the info!! Heard that!!
 
I am a big believer in heavy bullets for elk. I bought some Remington .45-70 bullets from Outlaw State Bullets that were modified to hollowpoints for the .458 Socom. I use Harvester orange sabots and 115 gr. of 777. My muzzleloader uses #11 caps. I've shot 4 cow elk with them, and three dropped in their tracks and the fourth went less than 50 yards. Most of my shots are around 200 yards. Prior to finding those bullets, I had elk run off with no blood trail. Pointy bullets tend to needle through the hide and not bleed on that side. Pure lead bullets will expand to over an inch, and usually won't exit. A flat point bullet hammers hard, and leaves a hole. Hardcast bullets will penetrate from stem to stern, but don't kill as fast as I like. You don't need Blackhorn 209. Everyone loves it because it doesn't require swabbing the bore between shots, but 777 is almost as fast, at half the price. I have an Accura LR .45, and it doesn't shoot any better than my old Kahnke rifle. Shooting #11 caps, you don't get the crud ring that 209 primers cause. Arrowhead will convert your breechplug to shoot large rifle primers, and prevent blowback. My Accura has no blowback with Winchester 209 primers, but I haven't seen any available for a couple of years. If you find some, buy a brick.

NM is taking public input right now on not allowing scopes on muzzleloaders. Please comment if you're old like me and can't shoot well with iron sights.
I also have a hard time with iron sights due to aging eyes but I also still believe in keeping the muzzle loading season at least a little bit primitive. There are different types of iron sights that do work better. Just have to check out the alternatives.
 
I also have a hard time with iron sights due to aging eyes but I also still believe in keeping the muzzle loading season at least a little bit primitive. There are different types of iron sights that do work better. Just have to check out the alternatives.
Will do, thanks!
 
Plenty of deer killed with my .50 muzzle loader, I always aim to break the offside shoulder. With regular store bought sabot you should be fine out to 200ish yards. I've run t/c 200gr shockwave bullets and 100gr 777 for deer since I was a teenager and they've always done the job. From nearly point blank to 180yd never had one that wasn't drt or down within 50yd.
 
Good Morning,
I am looking at buying a CVA Accura LR-X, .50 Caliber. I haven't hunted a lot with muzzleloaders but, was wanting to start to. I have a cheaper but not bad Thompson Center right now. My questions was going to be, is a .50 Caliber a good muzzleloader round for elk hunting? Thank you for all info and wisdom!!
The .50 will do the job just fine. Bullet performance is the thing to question. I took me a long time at the range to get a loading that worked well and gave me sufficient velocity at expected ranges to allow the bullet to do its job. I use an original Remington 700MZ converted to 209 primers. I settled on Barnes MZ Expanders, a copper mono with a cavernous hollow point that I have had good results with out to 250yds. I found that pouring the charges gave me inconsistent velocities. Luckily Pyrodex pellets worked out for me, two 50gr and one 30gr for 130gr total. I've had very consistent velocity results. I was right around 2000fps +/- 20fps and yes I did practice at 250yds and found bullet drop to be around 16" at that velocity and range. I also found with that barrel that after 4 shots the POI would start to walk. and besides it started to get hard to load. Pyrodex isn't as dirty as Black Powder but it still mucks things up.
 
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