So what REALLY happens when Minie Balls are NOT nearly-pure lead?

[Grump]

I know the recommendation is to use dead-soft lead, but in a bit if youthful misguided "helping" my Dad mucho long ago (my first season of casting, BTW), I poured a few HUNDRED of them that are BHN 11 or so.

We fired a few and loved not having to use patches, but never really checked for group size.

So when I finally get all scientific and test 'em at 50 and 100 yards, will I need a 2x2 foot target backer or a 6x6 foot one?

[carbine]

Hard to say exactly. Harder lead does not expand as well. The prevailing wisdom is to cast them 1-2 thousandth under bore size. Things could be worse if they are much smaller than that. You might get away with a 2 X 2 backer. I suggest casting new minies with soft lead 5-6 BHN and re-melt the others for breechloader of some sort.

[fouronesix]

A what if question like this is best answered by doing the test and reporting back. Pretty simple really.

Cast up 5-10 with dead soft lead. Cast up 5-10 with the harder 11 BHN lead. Shoot the soft ones on a target. Clean the gun. Shoot the hard ones on a different target at the same range. Keep everything else the same- same bench rest/shooting technique, powder, charge, lube, etc.

Report results and post picture of targets. :)

[Hellgate]

You might find that the harder minies work with higher charges. That is, the skirt might not expand with light charges but will with heavy charges. The opposite is true for the softer minies: they shoot well with light charges and poorly with heavy charges that flare out the skirt. So I'd say double the minies to 10 each and try both a light and heavy charge for each type, say 50 grs and 90 grs and see what shoots best. I use heavy skirted soft minies for hunting loads (90grs FFF or FF BP). I'm sure the thin skirted minies would open up and shoot poorly with the heavier loads.

[Grump]

Just took another look and those "hard" ones are only SAECO 4, supposed to be BHN 7. I don't think that's very hard at all. One box from an earlier pour was SAECO zero and a third box of 'em didn't even make zero. I guess "7" below the scale = -3? Makes me wonder if the thing needs calibrated.

Have some charge tubes made up and marked and ready to go testing. It's originally a round ball rifle but some 1855 report shows it did well with a 390-gr Minie ball in one test, and a 417-gr one in another, and 50 gr. of powder. Using the Lee "Improved Minie" with a big ol' meplat and a cavity more like the 1855 Carbine Harper's Ferry "new bullet" (the rifle version had a thicker wall and cone to a point inside shaped cavity).

Sometime between now and New Year's, will throw some over the chronograph and at targets at 50 and 100. Really wish this one had the long range sights on it, but...not everything the Army did was perfect from the beginning.

[Zouave 58]

Actually, Hellgate's point about relative hardness is well taken. I found thin skirt minie designs like the old Lyman 575213 would tend to over expand the base skirts over 70 grains or so in a musket, the thicker skirt 575213os would not . These minies were 1% tin, 99% lead and fired into a sand embankment. I had a repro English stalking rifle in .58 with a 1-66 twist that shot well with the Lyman 575213os cast 1-16 tin and with a load of 85grs of 3F. I think the bullet diameter is more of an issue than the base expansion, a solid slug of near bore diameter would shoot as well or better than a hollow base design.

[OverMax]

will I need a 2x2 foot target backer or a 6x6 foot one? Think Barn door size. Just don't kill the cow still inside.

[Grump]

Think Barn door size. Just don't kill the cow still inside.

If only you looked like Jessica Rabbit. You make me laugh.

[3leggedturtle]

When I was shooting a 45 T/C Hawken in the 80's and 90's I cast round balls and Lee REAL boolits out wheel weights. Never really noticed any difference and they shot just as well as the pure lead ones. Always regret not getting the Lee target minie to try with ww"s. Hope to see your results.

[725]

Soft lead obturates upon firing and fills out to the rifling, thus aiding in accuracy. Harder leads in various boolit configurations all fall out the end of the barrel with varying degrees of accuracy. You could shoot marbles if you wanted to, just don't look forward to any accuracy.

[varsity07840]

I know the recommendation is to use dead-soft lead, but in a bit if youthful misguided "helping" my Dad mucho long ago (my first season of casting, BTW), I poured a few HUNDRED of them that are BHN 11 or so.

We fired a few and loved not having to use patches, but never really checked for group size.

So when I finally get all scientific and test 'em at 50 and 100 yards, will I need a 2x2 foot target backer or a 6x6 foot one?

Less than pure lead minies do not expand fully in the grooves especially in barrels with progerssive depth rifling. That produces hard powder fouling from the blow by. Continued firing will make reloading difficult and produce lead fouling as well.

Duane

[Grump]

Well, at 50 yards the soft Lee Minies shot a 1-foot or so group with obvious signs of keyholing.

The former rusty spot in the barrel (I'll spare you the story except that it was reportedly found in the wilderness with two charges of powder and gravel in the barrel) fouled so fast I almost couldn't get the 4th Minie down. That was the 9th shot in the session. A not so snug dry patch swab kept things going. The 315-gr or so Minies over what I thought was the standard load of 50 gr Ffg (or Fffg?) went 1010 fps.

The round balls (Hornady swaged) with a thin patch and 75 gr clocked at 1311. The first shot was not counted in the average because it was not patched--I accidentally pulled on the patch and the ball fell straight down the barrel. All the rest were shove and whack with the ram, so I'm considering either smaller balls or somehow sizing them down--requiring "alignment" like we do with sprues.

Recoil on both loads was mild, a softer push than even a 14-lb .308. Both the RBs and the Minies wanted to group but each threw an uncalled flyer low and right.

I'm inclined to size the Minies down a bit and try heavier charges to see if more speed will help.

[mac266]

You could always melt them down again and cast some pistol bullets.

[Grump]

You could always melt them down again and cast some pistol bullets.
Well, if further testing with the soft ones (haven't shot a single "hard" one to compare) gives similar results, they might ALL get thrown into the melt.

I'm pretty sure from some 1855 or so Army report that they did get good results from that rifle with Minie' Balls ranging from 290 or so to 315 grains, to at least 500 yards, and with a 50-gr charge. I somewhat doubt that the pointy nose on the Harper's Ferry boolit design would make any real difference compared to the big flat meplat on the Lee I'm using.

[Grump]

double

[fouronesix]

I've tried a couple of the Lee "Improved" Miniés and never could get them to shoot very well at all. The RCBS N-S design and some of the Lyman more traditional designs have always shot well for me. I use very soft lead for Miniés. I cast and shoot Miniés in 54, 577, 58 and 69 cal carbines, rifles and muskets. I don't exceed the normal "service" loads in them and usually load even lighter charges. They all have very good plus to excellent plus bores. With Miniés, all of them are capable of shooting 2" 50 yard groups and a few of them capable of 1/2" 50 yard groups.

Plus, after reading through this thread again I can't figure out exactly which rifle/musket you have, what the bore condition is and what the lead hardness is. I assume it may be an M1855 58 cal with a bore condition ranging from questionable to trashed?? Soft lead is soft lead and the exact BHN may not be the primary concern here. Even though I've had poor luck with the Lee "Improved", that may not be primary reason for the poor results of a 1 ft pattern at 50 yards with keyholes. I think a discussion of 500 yard shooting is academic and moot unless the gun is capable of some kind of accuracy.

I think I'd inspect the bore first with a bore light and feel for rough spots with a tight patch. The 3 groove rifling in most muskets of that era aren't that deep to begin with and if compromised by corrosion and pitting can't be expected to do much- no matter the bullet design, alloy, lube, load or whatever. I don't think increasing the charge will fix what may be many other problems.

At this point a patched roundball might work better- but it's hard to say.

[Geezer in NH]

I know the recommendation is to use dead-soft lead, but in a bit if youthful misguided "helping" my Dad mucho long ago (my first season of casting, BTW), I poured a few HUNDRED of them that are BHN 11 or so.

We fired a few and loved not having to use patches, but never really checked for group size.

So when I finally get all scientific and test 'em at 50 and 100 yards, will I need a 2x2 foot target backer or a 6x6 foot one? I'll bite Keyholes and wide Patterns not groups.

Up The pressure but it may or not may help.

[longbow]

I am going to say it probably depends on the minie design and skirt thickness. Some have deep cavities and thin skirts others have quite shallow cavities and thin skirts then there is the Lyman 577611 which has a very thick skirt. I doubt you would get a 577611 to fill the grooves if hard lead. I used to shoot a lot of those in dead soft lead over heavy charges that would blow out skirts of a 575213.

A deep cavity and thin skirt may obturate to fill the grooves but it may also crack in doing so in harder lead. Even ACWW is not really malleable.

Like the man said... it is an easy test to do then you can report back and educate all of us.

Good luck!

Longbow

[leeggen]

Sjoot them but just move back a few yds. at a time and see where they are going?

[59sharps]

Well, at 50 yards the soft Lee Minies shot a 1-foot or so group with obvious signs of keyholing.

The former rusty spot in the barrel (I'll spare you the story except that it was reportedly found in the wilderness with two charges of powder and gravel in the barrel) fouled so fast I almost couldn't get the 4th Minie down. That was the 9th shot in the session. A not so snug dry patch swab kept things going. The 315-gr or so Minies over what I thought was the standard load of 50 gr Ffg (or Fffg?) went 1010 fps.

The round balls (Hornady swaged) with a thin patch and 75 gr clocked at 1311. The first shot was not counted in the average because it was not patched--I accidentally pulled on the patch and the ball fell straight down the barrel. All the rest were shove and whack with the ram, so I'm considering either smaller balls or somehow sizing them down--requiring "alignment" like we do with sprues.

Recoil on both loads was mild, a softer push than even a 14-lb .308. Both the RBs and the Minies wanted to group but each threw an uncalled flyer low and right.

I'm inclined to size the Minies down a bit and try heavier charges to see if more speed will help.
you need to step back you have so much going on.
1 your barrel my be the main problem. if you have a loss spot tight spot then loss it will never shoot right. and can cause keyholes too.
2 bullet dia. it needs tobe no more than.002 under bore.
3 lead nees to be soft. dont play w/ anything else until you get that to work.
4 powder charge. something between 38 -50 3ffg is the range to work in. start low work up 2 grn at a time. group will close then open again. then work between the 2 charges to find what you need.
If the bore is bad send it to dan whitcher or bobby hoyt for a reline. if barrel turns out not to be relinable they can make you a new one using yor breach plug if you wish or a complete barrel.you may also want to talk to the guys on the N-SSA board

[Grump]

1841 in the original .54.

As stated above, a rough spot/spots deep in the bore from exposure to weather while charged with gravel.

Firing that first bare ball that fell in when I accidentally tugged on the patch while reaching for the ramrod was probably a mistake. Got lead flakes out when I cleaned it. That might have started lead build-up more than powder fouling, shot #9 (the 4th Minie') took some rather persistent ramming to get it atop the powder charge. A medium tight dry patch swab let me get another 4 shots off before the short session was over and the range closed.

But I am also thinking that only 1,000 fps with the Minie' Balls is a bit slow...???

Will aggressively clean the bore before the next session.

[Zouave 58]

Original Mississippi's and seven groove Remington Zouaves are superb round ball guns but the twist and the rifling (about 1-60" with round bottom shallow grooves and rounded lands) make them mediocre minie ball guns. Years ago there was a group of custom molds made by Henry Beverage from Maine that were of a design supposedly sketched on a napkin by the founder of Barnes Bullets that looked a bit like the Lyman wadcutter design but with a pointed ogive nose and a round profile base cavity. The Barnes bullets were tight enough in the bore of a seven groove Zouave to require a short starter. That bullet shot fairly well in some rifles at 50 yards with very light charges of about 40grs of 3FG but to my knowlege the accuracy never matched that of a patched ball. The point of the experiment was to design a naked bullet as close to the sectional density of a ball as possible specifically to be shot in rifles designed for round balls- it never worked out. My gut feeling is that the bore in your Mississippi has enough damage to rule out a minie but may still perform with a round ball given the right powder and patch combination. I have a question, however, how good is the bore condition at the muzzle as if the rifling is not sharp and the crown intact you may not be able to get much accuracy. A note on accuracy by the way, back in the 1960's I knew several men who could shoot their Zouaves well enough bench rest to keep a 5 shot group within the x ring of a 100 yard small bore rifle target at 50 yards and within the 10 ring at 100. By any standard that is superb accuracy and they all used round ball. Sorry- old men like me love to preach.

[varsity07840]

You may be better off holding off on shooting it more until you establish the condition of the bore.
Everything else in the process of working up a load is secondary. Have you looked at it with a bore light? That's usually all it takes to decide on a reline job. I'd suggest pulling the breech plug and slugging the bore to find tight/loose spots, but given your description of its condition when found, leaving that to a professional may be the way to go. I do agree with the poster remarks
that .54 1841s shot better with round balls than minies. That's why many were rebored to 3 groove .58.

Duane

[fouronesix]

Grump,

OK, M1841 Mississippi 54 cal- got it.

I think everyone is giving pretty good advice. Those were a hold over from the Mexican War and pressed into service during the Civil War. They are one of the less common and more valuable rifle muskets of the era... well worth working on for better shooting.

I'm guessing the bore is not the best. As you posted, it's time to get serious about cleaning the bore. I'd try some 320 grit lapping compound on a tight jagged flannel patch and scrub the $!*^ out of it. Follow that by 600 grit lapping compound. Clean all that out with something like common Hoppes 9.

Then try shooting either a patched roundball or soft lead Minié. I have one with the 7 groove bore and it is one of the most accurate rifle muskets I have. It shoots both a patched roundball and a Minié extremely well and to same POI at 50 yds.

My roundball load is .520 soft lead roundball with about .012-.014 cotton patch lubed with moose milk over 54 gr of FFF black. My Minié load is the Lyman 533476 soft lead Minié lubed with Crisco over 54 gr of FFF black. I don't know the current availability of that Lyman mold. I've had mine since the late 70s. I also don't know how well the Lee will shoot as I've never had any luck with the Lee Improved design.

Of course, if the bore is rough you'll need to clean more often or even clean between shots. But, the more you shoot and clean the smoother the bore will get and may require less frequent cleaning while shooting.

[Grump]

Meh, looked at the muzzle and there's almost no rifling on one half for the last inch...

[Maven]

"My gut feeling is that the bore in your Mississippi has enough damage to rule out a minie but may still perform with a round ball given the right powder and patch combination. I have a question, however, how good is the bore condition at the muzzle as if the rifling is not sharp and the crown intact you may not be able to get much accuracy." ...Zouave 58

Grump, Given the "almost no rifling on 1/2....", I'm inclined to agree with Zouave 58's view. You may want to work on the crown (320 grit emery paper and the ball of your thumb), and then test fire with a tightly fitted round ball/patch combination.

[Zouave 58]

It really sounds as if the bore has gone by and a sleeve may be the best solution; that way you'd have a pristine bore to work with. But, on the other hand, you never know how well a rifle will shoot until you work up a good load for it. Over the years I've owned a number of rifle muskets with less than perfect bores that shot well. Speaking as a gunsmith I would recommend you take your rifle to someone who can pull the breech plug and the nipple to see what the condition of the threads are and how really bad the bore is. There is no sense in risking injury.

[fouronesix]

First, I would make every effort to work the bore over, even including some fire lapping. Just smear some 330 grit lapping compound into the Minié grooves and fire with a light charge. Repeat a few times- cleaning between shots. Then see if it will shoot better. The gun has value as is right now if it is unmolested/unmodified/not cut/rebarreled, etc. Cleaning, smoothing or lapping the bore won't affect value.

If the bore is toast, you might consider having it bored and rifled to standard .577. That will give you lots of options for types of loads. The barrel (wall) should be thick enough to allow for a re-bore/re-rifle.

Another option would be to call Lodgewood Mfg to see if they have an M1841 barrel with a decent and better bore.
http://www.lodgewood.com

[varsity07840]

You could also keep the old barrel in case you want to eventually sell the rifle as all original, and get a replacement from Whitacre or Hoyt. I don't know what Bob gets for a new barrel but Dan Whitacre gets around $350.00 without sights and his turn around time may be better than Bob's.
you can't go wrong with either. My Whitney built 1841 has a Hoyt reline in .577.

Duane

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I'd concur on the likelihood that round ball would work best in the pre-Minié rifles, and on the condition of the bore. But getting back to the question of alloy and the Minié ball, I don't believe anybody raised the question of what the bullet could be hardened with.

If it is tin alone, a certain amount (not very much) may stop the bullet skirt expanding properly, but if it does expand, all should be well. If there is much antimony in the mix, the skirt may crack. A detached skirt can't be a dangerous (very dangerous) bore obstruction as it could with a hollow-base breech-loader bullet. But it alters the volumetric density of the charge, and makes the rear of the barrel much more likely to harbor destructive fouling and moisture. A longitudinal crack in the skirt won't leave anything behind, but is likely to be very harmful to accuracy, with the jet effect giving the rear of the bullet a little kick sideways as it leaves the muzzle.

[fouronesix]

A skirt casting flaw or powder overcharge could even cause a "whistler".

[Zouave 58]

In regard to Ballistics in Scotland's comment on temper, I've always added a small amount of tin to the mix to improve castability; I've found about 1% tin, a very hot mold and a very slow pour to be the key to uniformity in casting Minie' balls. I've also found that some toughening of the skirt to be advantageous with heavy powder charges; at one time I owned a .58 sporting rifle with a 1-66 twist that shot the Lyman 580213os and a charge of 80grs 3FG very well. The bullet temper was 1-16 tin and softer tempers did not shoot as well. My belief is that pure lead is probably mandatory with powder charges in the 40grn range, some toughening is allowable with the service loads of 60grns, and moderate toughening may be advantageous with very heavy loads. I would think that tin is acceptable as an additive because it remains plastic while antimony does not. Of course, every rifle is idiosyncratic so what I found to be true may not be universal.

[Grump]

Never mind, I've just been too discouraged with the results and didn't observe closely enough.

1. The group was less horrible than I though--7.5 inches at 50 yards. But I'm pretty sure that a smoothbore could do that well.

2. The rifling really IS there, now that I have all the rust gone. The bore was almost as dark as the outside of the barrel even after lots of scrubbing with two bore cleaners after lots of hot soapy water. All 7 lands and grooves actually appear pretty much the same all the way to the last 1/8-inch of the bore. The scalloped-looking wear on the lands is pretty even looking. Makes me tempted to deface the antique by a counterbore crown job.

3. My can of Holy Black is 2-F g, not 3F...so the round balls are going only 1450 fps...where's that note....

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am leaning towards lapping the barrel oh so slightly before testing again.

And I think the .530 round balls are just too big. Really didn't know what I needed when I saw them at the LGS and did the impulse buy. VERY expensive for slingshot ammo but that is just about the perfect size and weight for me.

[Zouave 58]

Grump, one of my original 1841's likes a .535 RB and .15" pillow ticking, the other likes a .530 ball with .20" ticking. You might find your .530's will work with a bit of experimenting with patch material/patch lubes. Your 2fg should be fine for the moment and when you've shot it up then you can try 3f. In the short term you might try lubing the patch with plain old Colgate tooth paste. Its mildly abrasive and works well as a finish lapping compound and it cleans up with water. Be sure to swab between shots with a water based cleaner, you can even use Windex. I think it is probably better to "shoot the barrel in" rather than to lap it too much since you want to clean out the corrosion and leave as much good metal as possible. I would shoot for accuracy not for velocity. I would try to standardize my loads and only vary one component at a time, so you might initially settle on your .530 balls and a .15" patch lubed with a standardized patch lube (even Palmolive dish washing liquid 2oz to a pint of water will work) and begin your powder charges at 40grns and work up to 80 in 5grn increments. I'd be looking for two things; one would be the sweet spot for the powder charge and the other would be the last of the rust coming off on the cleaning patches. Later of course, you can go back and vary the other components to see what works best. Rust is water soluble with abrasion. Forgive me if I'm repeating what others have said or what you already know, and good luck with the project.

[Good Cheer]

Just a suggestion concerning fire lapping a muzzleloader. Do so with light powder charges to have the lapping extend below the point where you expect the ball to rest later on.

[Zouave 58]

Grump, I forgot to mention above the possibility of using white vinegar to clean the bore. We use vinegar at the shop as a mild acidic stripper to remove rust and old bluing and the like. You could plug the nipple and fill the bore to the muzzle and let it sit for an hour or so then pore it off and scrub the bore with hot soapy water. You can repeat as necessary. Vinegar is blended to be only mildly acidic and it will attack the rust without measurably affecting the sound base metal. One word of warning however, if you spill it on the outside clean it up right away as it will remove the patina from the metal. Just a trick you might try to lighten the work.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Never mind, I've just been too discouraged with the results and didn't observe closely enough.

1. The group was less horrible than I though--7.5 inches at 50 yards. But I'm pretty sure that a smoothbore could do that well.

2. The rifling really IS there, now that I have all the rust gone. The bore was almost as dark as the outside of the barrel even after lots of scrubbing with two bore cleaners after lots of hot soapy water. All 7 lands and grooves actually appear pretty much the same all the way to the last 1/8-inch of the bore. The scalloped-looking wear on the lands is pretty even looking. Makes me tempted to deface the antique by a counterbore crown job.

3. My can of Holy Black is 2-F g, not 3F...so the round balls are going only 1450 fps...where's that note....

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am leaning towards lapping the barrel oh so slightly before testing again.

And I think the .530 round balls are just too big. Really didn't know what I needed when I saw them at the LGS and did the impulse buy. VERY expensive for slingshot ammo but that is just about the perfect size and weight for me.

With the sort of bore you describe, although it is hard to say without seeing it, it may be rough enough to actually abrade the bullet skirt. Were the bullet-holes round, and were you able to recover any bullets? If they have rifling engraved on one side only, it would suggest that centrifugal force is causing them to become off-center in the bore. There are two effects that can br produced, and the first is unlikely to be produing that much deviation.

When the bullet's centre of mass is off centre, in a rifled firearm, it is actually describing a spiral. When it leaves the muzzle, it obeys Newton's laws by heading off in a straight line, pointing wherever that spiral was pointing. More likely it is causing the bullet to wobble or tumble.

For a noticeably pitted bore lapping is unlikely to be enough. The obvious alternative is relining the bore, but that isn't cheap, and whether you ought probably depends on how valuable it is as an antique. What might help is the use of a paper patched bullet.

It could indeed also be the muzzle wear, and it is difficult to tell whether that muzzle is evenly worn all round. If it isn't, the sideways jet action adds to the ill effects of a symmetrical bell-mouth.

A very slow rifling twist will require a larger base cavity to keep the bullet stable, but there is a way in which the situation might be improved. William Ellis Metford invented an explosive shell for the muzzle-loading Enfield and similar weapons, with the intention of exploding artillery ammunition. This came to nothing, possibly because it would be a rather unsettling thing to ram down a heavily fouled bore. But the large nose cavity, spun shut until invisible, was found just the thing for securing adequate stabilization in the Snider Long Rifle, with its 72in. twist. Metford suggested that he be paid royalties, and the government said "You patented an explosive bullet, and ours doesn't explode, so there." The significance is that this probably deterred him from submitting a barrel for the trials which produced the Martini-Henry. Henry won with a very inferior barrel, and it wasn't until the .402 Mk4 Enfield-Martini which was pre-empted by the Lee-Metford of 1888 (both with his rifling), that they got back to Metford.

[Grump]

The Minie' holes were round like wadcutters most of the way around (pretty good for only 1,000 fps) but with skirt marks equal to tipping at least 15 degrees off the direction of travel. Will get some pics some time...

Going off to buy some lapping compound and stuff to make that possible.

[Grump]

Well, here's what the dead-soft ones did with 50 gr of ffG.
125799125800125801125802125803125804

[fouronesix]

Any wobble (yaw) is usually around the bullet's axis as it spins in flight which leads to a random pattern of "keyholes". It looks like those bullets are hitting in a "tipped" attitude on a single axis which may mean they are flying with zero spin. Since Miniés are mostly aerodynamically stabilized, it's possible that is what's happening. To be honest though, I'm not sure and have never seen bullet orientations on a target like that- unless those single axis impacts are purely coincidental. Got me.

May be time for a new barrel, a re-lined barrel or a re-bore/re-rifle.

[dondiego]

Are you using a wad under the minnie and shooting at close range?

[Zouave 58]

It would be interesting to see how a round ball will work.

[varsity07840]

Meh, looked at the muzzle and there's almost no rifling on one half for the last inch...

I'd bet that's the cause of your keyhole problem.

Duane

[fouronesix]

Grump,
Here's a target- 4 shots @ 50 yards with my M1841 54 cal. No cleaning or swabbing between shots. It's an original US/Whitney 54 cal "Mississippi" with 7 groove bore and 1:48 twist. I know there is some debate as to the twist rate on these, but I have carefully measured and re-measured the twist and it is 48". The barrel is original and is not relined- so at least some, like this Whitney, do have the faster twist. The gun is all original including the sights.

As an FYI. The US Harper's Ferry Armory was originally charged with producing the M1841. As needs arose, 5 contractors were added by the US Ordnance Dept to supplement production. Those were: Remington, R.K.&L., R.&L., Tyron and Whitney. It's interesting to note that the specs for the contract M1841 included: 7 groove bore measuring .520" land to groove diameter, .020" deep grooves and a twist of 1:72". I don't know the exact bores specs of the Harper's Ferry or various contract M1841 rifles produced, but I wouldn't doubt quite a bit of variation. The land to groove diameter on mine is larger than .520", the twist is most assuredly 1:48" and the true bore diameter is close to .534". The Lyman Minié I shoot drops from the mold at about .534".

But given how well my Whitney shoots with the 7 groove 48" twist bore, I'd think something close to that would be ideal if you decide on relining. Even a more common 8 groove bore with the 48" twist should work as well.

The load is 54 gr of FFF Graf Wano (Schuetzen) under a Crisco lubed Lyman 533476 Minié of near pure lead. @ 50 yards, the point of impact is the same as point of aim. Just to show what these guns are capable of. And I'm well past social security age but do have decent eyesight- requiring only reading glasses for close-up stuff.

[Good Cheer]

Now that's some interesting results with deep grooves!
Uh, are they?

[fouronesix]

Contrary to a lot of "conventional wisdom" huh :)

Yes, the grooves are deep in this rifle so I assume pretty much follow the specs as originally laid out in the contract (probably the same specs that Harper's Ferry was building to). Also the land width is maybe 2-3x the groove width (wide lands/narrow grooves). Interesting also that the PRB results are similar and to same POI @50.

No wonder that Jefferson Davis routed a bunch of the Mississippi rifles to the South just before the Civil War. Problem was they were 54 cal, simple fixed rear sight, no bayonet lug and everything was (and needed to be) standardized to 577-58 with longer range sights and fitted for bayonet. Much the same held true for the 69 cal guns both smoothbore and those converted to rifle.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Yes indeed, there is real information in that picture, but it is partial information. That constant vertical orientation of the bullet yaw rules out the cause being something wrong with the bullet before firing. It has got to be the barrel, and it falls broadly into three possible categories. If you increase or reduce the range by half the twist length, you will probably see the holes elongated in the other direction.

I now don't think this can be a case of the bullet simply not being effectively spun, due to extreme roughness of the bore. That would cause the yaw to be distributed in all directions with successive shots.

Maybe the bore is somehow making the bullet badly off-center. This is a bit of a mystery, but all I can think of is that there might be a worse pit than you have described. This could cause one side of the skirt to be sheared off, or the opposite: one side of the skirt not expanding because high pressure gas is escaping on the other side.

If you are lucky there might be a lump of rust (which is larger than the steel it is made from) protruding obstinately into the bore. It doesn't sound much like a piece of luck, but it can be removed, and a pit can't. I would try really vigorous brushing, with a steel brush if you can get one, and perhaps a little oversized - not much, or the bristles will lie flat. You could also use naval jelly, the pink gooey rust remover which isn't advertised as leaving a protective coating. Neither of these are things I would suggest with a mostly bright bore, for even the naval jelly leaves a frosted surface which could be rather attractive elsewhere. But in this case it sounds like desperate measures are in order.


Most likely, I think, is that the muzzle wear is off centre, which can be hard to see sometimes. You could make a sort of reverse chamber cast there, or make a cast of part of the bore alone, and push it out from the breech till you see if there is any space around it at the muzzle, and if that space is even all the way around. Due to a flirtation with nineteenth century pocket watches I have a set of fine pin gauges, but you can try pushing a brush bristle into the gap.

It might also be instructive to recover fired bullets. The classic bullet trap for forensic ballesticians is a long box or pipe filled with tight packed oily sawdust, and I don't see why watered wouldn't be fine for one-time use. A large tank of water with a penetrable membrane on one side would also do, and sand or soft earth would yield useful information for this purpose.