I must admit that after 5 elk, 1 shotters, numerous mule deer and some whitetail The powerbelts are my choice for western state legal bullets. In Colorado, no scopes your rifle will shoot better than you will, you and the iron sights are the weak link.At about 150 yards your iron sights cover half the animal and by covering it, block out the animas front half to the point you can't tell which part of the front half you are on. The trick I use is to take out the the glow bar so it works like a front peep sight. Now you can see where you are on the front half.
The platinum 287 Powerbelt is big medicine. It will stop an elk every time. The platinum is for heavy thick skinned game. You can use the same weight but in copper jacket for deer they are more likely to stay in the body of a deer than the platinum. The same bullet with, no jacket will give you a good chance in a deer on a mushroom and bullet recovery. I haven't has as much luck with dependable accuracy on the couple of different non-sabot bullets.
One thing that I have fount to be the BIGGEST ACCURACY IMPROVEMENT in the last 10 years that I have hunted at least 1 state 3 every year with a muzzleloader is the Powder BlackHorn209.
I took all of my Shockie's, pyrodex,Pyrodex Pellets, FFG, and you name it and burned it up for 4th of July.
If you are not using the Blackhorn 209 you are hunting in the dark ages, come hunt the 21st century with you inline. It is a Black Powder substitute but doesn't have all of the negative factors of the others because it doesn't use the old blackpowder or blackpowder valter recipe.
You can shoot your Muzzleloader 50 times and it is still clean!
It doesn't stink like burning your old girl friends socks !
The always clean barrel is the best thing you can do for accuracy. Each shot is going through the same barrel conditions so where the bullet goes in consistent. I has shot it every year for the last 5 years someday I might even clean it. Breech plugs come out in a snap, no residue, it burns clean!
There is a reason that they work all year to fill all the shelver with blackhorn 209, yet when August comes every store quickly sell out, hunters have found out about it, and buy 2 just in case.
Since it requires 20% less powder to get the same speed performance it costs less to shoot.
Keep in mind that if you have a older muzzleloader you will be shooting a better and more consistent clean burning. Extruded (Like small pipes) was not even invented when your muzzleloader was built. To upgrade your rifle to today's standard you will want to contact your manufacturer and get a updated flash hole breech plug. Today's muzzleloaders come with a size 52 flash hole and will always give a positive and consistent ignition. The older flash holes were about 42(These are the sizes of the machinist drill to give you a reference.we are talking roughly 1/32 of a inch). Some people just drill the hole with th 52 drill from the hardware store but I recommend highly to contact your manufacturer they know what they are doing. I noticed for CVA a company called Montana Powders in Montana even sells some breech plugs for CVA and possibly others.
1 quick thing to keep in mind is not a 209 primers are created equal. Some fire hotter than others. If you go with CCI 209M you will never go wrong they are one of the hottest, I even saw a black box of 209 primers that said the were for muzzleloaders and they are about 1/2 as hot as the CCI 209M, I assume the M is for muzzleloader, and it works. Remember many 209 primers were made for shotgun shells with large cavities and flake powder pushing up against the fire end of the primer all complete water tight sealed.
Does all of this work ? You bet with a Savage 110M Muzzleloader, a 4-12 scope, 5the 130 Grains by volume BlackHorn209, a CCIM Primer with the rifle in a shooting rest to take out as much human error as possible. I have taken 3 270 Grain Powerbelt bullets and shot a 100 yard target. All three were touching and all but one cut the bullseye.
If that weren't enough I mounted a Burris 4x12 eliminator V2 scope. Sighted it in dead on for 50 yards. Set the scope settings to 12 inches of drom at 200 yards and went to Utah where muzzleloader are allowed to be swcoped. A Muley 5x5 that I had been patterning and was set to take one afternoon cam down 1 draw farth away from me than he had before. This made mt 100 yard shot a a 295 yard shot. With a good rest I used the accurate range dot in the scope, put it on his shoulder and fired. It knocked him right over in his tracks.
There isn't any thing in here that isn't 100% true. I can show you a picture of the target, but as far as the deer all I can show you is a picture of him and I together. He is the brown dead thing in front. You have my name and phone number if you would like to talk.
Greg Merriam
Discounted Hunts LLC CEO
The Hunting Consultant with Hunting Connections
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