Barrel For Plain Base Minies

[Good Cheer]

There are three different Lyman minie molds I use. 575213, 577611 and 575494.
The different style hollow base plugs are all the same diameter and are interchangeable.
Looking forward to quite a bit of experimentation.
And I got to thinking about something... an adjustable length plain base plug could be used in all three with card wads.
This has me cogitating on rifling style and rate of twist.
What do you think would work?

[carbine]

That might defeat the ability of the minie to leave the gun "one shot dirty " after each shot. The idea behind it is that you can shoot innumerable follow up shots without cleaning

[Nobade]

Just pick whatever length you want and run it with the Greenhill formula. It will be quite a bit faster than the regular 1:72", since once the bullets are flat base they can't fly like a shuttlecock anymore.

I have contemplated trying something similar; shooting my Enfield with paper patched slicks just to see how accurate I can get it to be. But haven't made the mould yet to find out.

And carbine does make a good point - those plain base bullets are going to have to be pretty much right at bore diameter and you'll have to load them pretty hot to get them to seal, so you are going to have to wipe between shots.

-Nobade

[Good Cheer]

Oh no doubt on the cleaning between shoots. That's the drill for lubed lead or paper patched.
The adjustable length plain base plug would be for converting the minie designs to plain base boolits.
The boolit diameter to bore diameter match needs be very close. The seating jag will need to closely match the bore and ogive.
Something there's no way of telling before trying this is, will the plain base be better or worse than a thickened skirt with heavy powder charges. At least the thick skirt lets you use slower twists. The plain base might need a patch work. And still, a very shallow cup base with a patch might still be better.

[longbow]

I used to get good results with heavy charges and my 577611. Never blew a skirt on one of those and they shot well from my guns.

If you go plain base you will likely need a faster that standard rifling twist as Nobade says.

Longbow

[Good Cheer]

Yeah, you know, with an adjustable length plug it might need a pretty darn fast twist.