AirForce Texan Review -and a ?: Anyone else experience luck with roundball?

[toine]

http://www.airgunsarp.com/2015/06/22/tnt-air-reviews-the-airforce-texan-big-bore/

One of my guest bloggers put together a nice little 2 part review on the AirForce Texan. He goes into a decent amount of detail, but one thing that stuck me as odd (not being much of a big bore shooter myself) was that he seemed to have some pretty decent luck shooting roundball. Is this somewhat common with bigbores, or is it more specific to the Texan or caliber?

[William]

My Sam Yang Recluse .357 shoots round balls just as well or even better than most pellets or bullets, also my Kalibergun Cricket 9mm seems to love them as well. With a good round ball I can shoot 1" groups most of the time at 65 yards if I do my part. the better the round ball the better the groups. Swagged round balls with no flaws or flat spots will always shoot the best, if you can find them in the correct size Hornady makes about the best on the market.

William

[supertech77]

that gun got some serious power and accuracy.hum

[LeadBreakfast]

This doesn't seem all that unusual for me. Our deer hunting is done with muzzleloaders, which share a lot of similarities with air guns. Sabots are used for hunting purposes, but for target shooting we use round balls, and the Hornady round balls have been extremely accurate in the 2 major brands and one custom gun that we have in the family.  Some guns don't like them as well, but at closer ranges the differences are so minimal and the shooting so economical that it is hard to complain.

My Knight with open sights will stack them from a bench at 50 yards with a very light load of powder (40gr vs 100 w/Hornady sabots for hunting)

[BigBoreJack]

Round balls in air rifles are fine for target shooting, plinking of cans, etc. but should never be used for serious  hunting, especially hunting of big game.  Doing so is not only unethical, but lead balls show poor velocity performance, losing their velocity too fast over distance, they are too light for caliber, so they lack good killing energy compared to conical bullets of same caliber.   Even if balls give you more velocity, velocity does not mean killing ability---- they are not suitable for killing anything of any size.   

[Rescue35]

Round balls in air rifles are fine for target shooting, plinking of cans, etc. but should never be used for serious  hunting, especially hunting of big game.  Doing so is not only unethical, but lead balls show poor velocity performance, losing their velocity too fast over distance, they are too light for caliber, so they lack good killing energy compared to conical bullets of same caliber.   Even if balls give you more velocity, velocity does not mean killing ability---- they are not suitable for killing anything of any size.   

Somebody should go back in time and tell all of those mountain men with their Hawkens. The 8 point I shot didn't seem to care what I shot it with...he was dead in 60 yards. Airguns do not kill with energy.

[LeadBreakfast]

Round balls in air rifles are fine for target shooting, plinking of cans, etc. but should never be used for serious  hunting, especially hunting of big game.  Doing so is not only unethical, but lead balls show poor velocity performance, losing their velocity too fast over distance, they are too light for caliber, so they lack good killing energy compared to conical bullets of same caliber.   Even if balls give you more velocity, velocity does not mean killing ability---- they are not suitable for killing anything of any size.   

Somebody should go back in time and tell all of those mountain men with their Hawkens. The 8 point I shot didn't seem to care what I shot it with...he was dead in 60 yards. Airguns do not kill with energy.

Agree 100%... We hunt in a "shotgun only" zone for deer in MN. First some background...the area that we hunt on is 2400 acres, and we originally were a shotgun hunting "party" as it is defined by law in MN. The deer in our neck of the woods get big...big may not mean much to some of you folks in southern areas (or places where there are not mule deer), but up here where we have truly corn-fed whitetail bucks, a field dressed and well matured buck may well tip the scales a hair over 300lbs. Now, keep in mind that we don't scale measure our deer as we hunt strictly to eat and big antlers are a bonus, but we do harvest selectively IE: taking the small, irregularly formed bucks when they present an opportunity. In fact, in my 14 years of hunting, I have harvested only three truly "mature" bucks (over 2.5 years guesstimate) all of which I would classify in the 300lb range.

In this "shotgun only" zone, we cannot hunt with center fire rifles. However, we MAY hunt with muzzleloaders. My grandfather, uncle, both of my brothers and I have all opted to quit the "party hunt" and go muzzleloader only. It is much like air gunning, where shot placement counts much more than the power of the rifle, which is coincidentally significantly lower than even 20ga shotgun slug power levels. I have taken "mature" bucks with both a 20ga and 12ga, as well as a .50 blackpowder gun, and I did not for one second notice that any was "deader" than any other. In fact, our relatively low power blackpowder guns offer us a distinct accuracy advantage over our higher power slug guns.

Granted, we only get one shot, but just as in air gunning, with proper shot placement the game will never know the difference. Since converting to lower powered guns, those of us that hunt for meat have filled 3/4 of our tags for the last 9 years. If you gave me the best slug gun on the market, I still wouldn't go back. Our "low powered" guns do the job with more precision than we can possibly shoot with, and do so in one shot. A large percentage of our deer could be just as easily taken with round balls as sabots. My mother, who hasn't hunted in over 25 years, bought a tag last year and borrowed my rifle. With a little practice before hunting, it was a one shot, one kill ordeal. We are eating well this year.

As always, YMMV, but as they say, the proof is in the pudding, and we humanely take game just as people have done for hundreds of years with inferior technology. My freezer and diet tells me that as long as you know your limitations, your game will know no difference.