BTW, here's what a Fury exit looks like at 2500' impact velocity:
He trotted past me one morning and I basically never turn down a shot at a coyote. He was maybe 50 yards.
I don't usually take pictures of deer wounds but when I've shot deer with them the insides have typically looked about like his exit wound.
I guess it goes without saying, but the craze in eastern/smokelesss muzzleloaders, of high weight high speed bullets, has nothing to do with terminal performance up close, and everything to do with longer range hunting. Last fall I used the same gun (45 smokeless) with a powderpuff load of 28.0 N110 and a 40/200/SST so my daughter could hunt with me, and I shot a nice buck at maybe 60 yards with that load. He was hit in the heart and both lungs and went maybe 60 yards, about like a bow-kill would have. Virtually every modern muzzleloader load you could dream up, is overkill for deer at closer ranges. You just have to endure that to have a decent trajectory at longer ranges.
If I was hunting with an open sighted muzzleloader in, say, CO, I'd likely limit myself to 125-150 yards. I shoot open and peep sighted .22lr a lot during the off seasons for fun, and think 150 yards is about my limit in good light with my eyes. Every now and then I impress myself at longer distances (I shoot .22lr to 225 with peep sights, but it ain't always pretty) but realistically I think 150 yards is a long shot with peep sights.
My point in saying that - if I was in an open-sight-only state, I'd forget high speeds and just learn my trajectory well out to perhaps 150 yards. Even at more traditional conical bullet speeds, trajectory isn't terrible inside of 150 and a .45 caliber *ANYTHING* through the middle-ish of both lungs will kill very quickly.
