T/C Hawken

It will ultimately depend on the rifling twist rate of your barrel. The vintage of your rifle will have some bearing on the twist. Early TC rifles had slow twist for patched ball. Later they tried to add versatility by going with faster twist. Lyman offers two different twist rates in their rifles one slow for patched ball and one fast for conical bullets. Its about impossible to say without shooting just what you have.

At some point TC tried to standardize and went to a compromise twist of 1/48" but that is neither fast or slow so really limited the best of both. A 1/48 will shoot a conical but it will be limited as to its length/weight. This applies to a plain flat base bullet but not to a hollow base bullet. A hollow base minie type bullet uses form stabilization in conjunction with spin stabilization so can shoot accurately even with a rifling twist rate that is normally too slow for the bullets length' Now the water is getting really muddy and you can see the only correct answer is it depends.

If your barrel is the 1/48" twist and you want to shoot conical plain base bullets then the one I would suggest trying is the Lyman Great Plains bullet. This bullet at about 385 grain in 50 caliber will be about the max length for your twist, Still there is the issue of bullet diameter and again the only way to be sure is by trial and error. I can not predict what it will be. I had a TC Encore 209x50 barrel that required a .500" to .501" bullet diameter and that seemed kind of tight. Most 50 caliber bullets we sell for use in ML request .503" but in my encore barrel that was impossibly tight.

The maxi ball bullets you bought may be too long as they are a plain base design with very wide lube grooves that make the bullet quite long for its weight. Another negative of the maxi also related to the wide lube grooves is the inconsistent ejection of lube in flight, something that does not lead to target accuracy.

I wish I had a simple answer for you and the many others that contact me thinking I will have but there is no simple answer because of the variables involved. You would be surprised to know how many people are a week out from their hunting season with a new to them rifle they have spent zero time with and want me to send them the magic bullet for their hunt. What it boils down to is as always each rifle is an individual that requires special treatment and the only way to learn what that is will be to spend time with the rifle.

The initial start is hard because you dont know what diameter bullet you need so about all you can do is to start out with a sample pack of one each of all available diameters which in this case from us is .500" , .501", .502", .503", .504" That will get most of the diameter issue out of the way but maybe not quite all because in use you still may have to decide on the best compromise between clean bore and fouled bore diameters. Its always a compromise between too tight and too loose. With a too loose bullet it can move off the powder charge in handling the rifle and if fired when the bullet is somewhere at mid barrel length can act as a barrel obstruction and cause serious damage. If too tight the bullet will have to be pounded down to the powder which will destroy the bullet and any chance of accuracy. Add in the clean or fouled condition and it gets complicated so you are always looking for that compromise fit.

We will help your journey in what ever way we can.

I will go out on a limb for you Gary not knowing your rifling twist rate or bore/groove dimensions just going on averages and will suggest for you TC 45 cal our Mountain Molds 330 grain Keith bullet at .451" diameter.
I am shooting an early Lyman plains rifle in 45 caliber and right now since we are into our heritage ML season it is loaded with the Lyman Gould 330 grain hollow point which it shoots very well. The reason I do not suggest the same bullet for you is that the HP bullets are slower to make and if your not hunting have no benefit to making holes in paper. The 330 Keith will work for both and is easier to make. If you will hunt with it I can make you some of the Gould bullets.

My rifle is supposed to have the 1/48" twist  but since it shoots up to a 400 grain conical well I have to wonder. That is a good reason to get acquainted with your rifle because if I had just assuned what would work in my rifle I would only be shooting a patched ball and so greatly reducing my practical hunting ramge. I am shooting 70 grain of FFG powder with the 330 Gould bullet so basically its a 45-70 which will have far greater range potential than a patched ball.

Yea I have a better idea. Shoot a few of he maxi balls and see if they stabilize. That will give a hint as to the rifling twist rate. I cast you some bullets today that I want to send as a gift, I just need your address. Because ML barrels and rifle cartridge barrels in 45 caliber have been the same for a long time the 45 caliber rifle barrels bore/groove dimensions are probably the closest to being standardized at .450"x .458". Most of the 45 cal ML I have tried are a good fit with a .451" bullet diameter. I do have a Spanish 45 here that is stamped 45 cal but the grooves measure .442" so is really a 44 caliber. With any domestic rifle like TC you should be pretty safe assuming standard.

I will size a batch of these 330 grain bullets I made today at .451" and send them off to you. Between these and what you already have you should be able to learn something about your rifle and once the learning begins everything just keeps getting better. Its just a little hard getting started sometimes. I often forget that unlike me not everyone has all the possible choices right at their finger tips. Not only that but all I have to do to get to the shooting range is step out the door. Pretty lucky huh.

Thank you.  I just found the Lyman mould number for the T/C  245 gr. .45 cal. Maxi Ball. It is: 454616, but has been discontinued.