.58 musket powder charge help?

[Fly]

My son inlaw & some of the family are going shooting today. My son inlaw brought his dads
ole .58 cal musket. It looks like a 1970,s navy arms copy of a Enfield. The barrel is a thin wall
shallow rifling. He has mini balls. What powder charge would you guy recommend. I have no clue?

Fly

[dondiego]

50 to 60 grains of 2F will work.

[Fly]

Well all I have is 3F so you think using 45 to 50 grains of it would be OK.

Fly

[10 ga]

From 35 to 60 grains. Over the 60 and those heavy boolits and heavy charges and recoil begins to get obnoxious. I'm not a reenactor but I think the standard charge for military applications was in the 40 grain range, perhaps even less. 10

[dondiego]

Well all I have is 3F so you think using 45 to 50 grains of it would be OK.

Fly

Sounds good.

[mooman76]

I have a 58. It's not a musket, it's a Hawken and when I shoot the 510gr minies I usually shoot about 60gr and my hunting charge is 80gr of 2f. I do see no problem with 3f, just drop the charge 5gr or so. Start off with about 60gr or even less and instead of working up, work down 5gr at a time until you find a load you like.

[bubba.50]

standard military loads for the muskets of the day were usually 60 grains.

[Standing Bear]

I use 40 gr FFg in my Parker Hale. Your gun might like 35 gr FFFg and it's much more pleasant.

[30calflash]

I had used 45-48 grains of FFF in my 3 band Enfield with good results with the Lyman old style Minie. 460 grains or thereabouts.

Loads in the mid 30 grain range with a Lyman 315 Gr w/c shot ok but were finicky depending on the weather.

The lightest was with an Ohaus 275 Gr w/c, about 28 grains. Didn't spend a lot of time with it but IIRC verticle stringing was an issue.

Typically used T/C bore butter mixed about half with beeswax for lube, Crisco to fill the base and RWS caps. (almost said primers!) Used these loads for NSSA shooting out to 50 yds. with all and 100 yards with the first load.

HTH, 30CF

[rfd]

if it has rifling, it's technically not a musket but a ... rifle.

50 grains of 3f will be just fine, enjoy.

[Ithaca Gunner]

The military charge for the Enfield P-53 riflemusket was 70gr. of musket powder, a smooth sided greased paper patched Pritchet bullet, 39" barrel with a 1:78" twist. Using a Lyman OS Minie, I've always started at 40gr of Goex FFFg and worked up, usually finding happiness between 45-55gr.

[varsity07840]

if it has rifling, it's technically not a musket but a ... rifle.

50 grains of 3f will be just fine, enjoy.

Technically, it's a rifle musket

[rfd]

varsity07840: Technically, it's a rifle musket

depends from which century vantage - in the 18th a musket is clearly a smoothbore, mid 19th is when it got bastardized to include rifled bores. hmm, considering the op sez it's an enfield i'd hafta agree with ya, it's a rifled musket!

[Rimfire]

Not to be picky but a rifled musket is a smoothbore that was later rifled. The 577 Enfields and 1855,1861,1863 & 1864 Springfields are rifle muskets.

[rfd]

the terms alone can get bafflingly picky ... i have what's called a "smooth rifle" that's a smoothbore barrel mounted on a rifle stock, with front and rear sights.

[Buckshot]

...............He probably has it handled by now, but in my P58 P-H Enfield, with the Lee 'Target Minie', which is a full wadcutter I used 40.0 grs of 3Fg. It'd drop'em in on top of each other at 50 yards.

.................Buckshot

[newrib]

Hi Fly, I also have a Zoli, shoot some groups from a bench with a starting powder charge of 36 grains FFFG and increase by 2 grains until you find the sweet spot. Dont forget to lube your bullets, I like 50/50 olive oil and beeswax. Good Luck

[KCSO]

The original paper ctgs that I have examined have been 60-65 grains of what now screens as 1 1/2F or a course FFg. For casual plinking with FFFg which some re-enactors prefer 40 grains will be about right. With real old time mini balls anything over about 75 grins of FFg will blow the skirts and accuracy goes south. A 562 round ball and a 15 thoupatch will shoot just as good at close rang as a mini and will 1/2 your lead cost.

[daschnoz]

Here is a bunch of data that I have gathered over the years.
http://kirbos.net/reload_data/
Look for the muzzle loading & black powder loading data.