If you're planning on taking your black powder weapon out hunting it can be an sensible to find out how the bullets reacts when they hit the animal, especially for big game hunters. I Norway, roe-deer is the most common animal to hunt with a black powder weapon due to the energy requirements.

Shooting bullets into a stack of wet phone books is the poor man's way to test hunting bullets for penetration and expansibility. A while back I tested a .58 cal. 1861 repro Springfield muzzleloading rifle musket, a 12 mm (.48 cal.) original military issue Remington rolling block rifle, two .50 cal. muzzleloaders and a modern .308 Win. hunting rifle with various loads shot into wet phone books. The phone books had been soaked in water overnight in water and were stacked without space between the books. The loads were shot at a distance of 10 yards. As you can see from the table, the 12 mm Remington rolling block achieved the best penetration of all, including the smokeless .308 loads. The 1861 Springfield had the second best penetration. The results can be viewed in the table below:

* = A 4 mm hollow point was manually made on the bullet nose.

The .58 cal. bullets. From left to right: Two unfired bullets, one bulle fired with 63 grs. 2 Fg Wano black powder, while the last was shot with the same load but with a hollow point bullet.

.58 cal. Hornady Great Plains swaged hollow point bullets before and after firing with 65 grs. 1 Fg.

M-1867 Jämt-bullet fired from an original Husqvarna M/1867 12 mm Remington rolling block. The load is the same, but the bullet on the far right had a hollow point.

.490" roundballs shot from .50 cal. muzzleloaders. The ball in the middle was shot from an Armi Sport Kentucky loaded with 66 grs. 2 Fg, while the ball to the right was shot from the custom made southern Mountain rifle "Death Wind" with 87 grs. 2 Fg.

Two .30 cal. bullets from Sierra fired from a .308 Win. hunting rifle from Remington. The one on the left is a 150 grs. Spitzer Boat Tail GameKing bullet, and the one on the right is a 168 grains Hollow point Boat Tail MatchKing. Both had core/jacket separation.