correct weight for 1 in 48 twist

[nekshot]

I started working loads up for my 50/80 mauser and I think I am going to get a Lee 459-405-HB and try paper patching to get it up to inside cartridge diameter of .503 . What weight would be most practical for the 1 in 48 twist. I will plane the mold off to get as close to the best weight as possible while still retaining a flat base. Is this mold even practical for my concoction of a gun? I want to stay on the lighter side if possible.

[country gent]

If the mold drops .459 and barrel is .510 then your looking at .0255 of paper on a side, Not sure this would be cut and come off at the muzzle like it should. Most paper used for Paper Patches is around .002 thick and a double wrap adds .010 to dia. You would need paper .012 - .012 to accomplish this with a double wrap. Getting the fold over on the base tight and square is going to be tricky. Not saying it cant be done but its going to be diffrent. What you may try is the sabots for muzzleloaders to shoot 45 cal bullets in 50 cal barrels.

[Chill Wills]

oooops.

[Chill Wills]

You will need more than twice that twist to keep that bullet from tumbling. A 225 - 240 grain bullet would work. Then As country gent said, use a ML sabot.

And rap that sabot around a pistol bullet maybe. Not the 500gr rifle bullet. You need to go that short with a 48 twist to have a chance.

[Don McDowell]

Maybe just get the Lee 50 cal 250 gr. real bullet and load it as cast. Many moons ago I shot that bullet in a TC Hawken with fair accuracy.

[John Boy]

nekshot - this article may be of some help with your reloads for the mauser ...
http://www.prbullet.com/k45.htm

[nekshot]

John Boy, that is an interesting read. I got his H&R replacement system from him and all his info then was good and solid. I was using 2f Goex and switched to unique with 13 gr and fillers and finally realized the scope has issues. The chambering and shooting is a breeze. My son shot it and he liked it so all is good.

[Motor]

I use the Lee 250 (or 255 what ever) REAL bullet. Mine drop at about .505 give or take a couple. I size them down to .501" for a .500 S&W pistol.

My T/C ML is 1 in 48 and it will shoot 400gr boolits just fine. I never tried anything heavier.

Motor

[nekshot]

Here is my assortment of projectiles. All come from 2 lee molds, the 250 real and I reamed out one of the cavites for the trashcan looking boolit that weighs 340 gr. I have 250, 320, and 340 boolits plus if I can close the bolt on the round ball that could be sent down the pipe also. This thing is way more fun than some folk think I should have! I am still blown away that I actually did the whole project from my shop with out help. My son said when I touched off the bp loads the windows in the house rattled.

[Motor]

They almost look like a .500 S&W

I first tried the REAL boolit without sizing but the seat die is only .503" inside. This made seating the .505ish boolits kind of weird. They shot VERY accuratly though. Then a got the .501 Lee push through size die and loaded the next batch and thankfully the accuracy remained excellent. It's a light load, I'm fairly sure its sub-sonic. I havn't run it over the chroney yet.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I think that is far too much to increase the diameter of a bullet by patching. I doubt if you could do it consistently enough to keep the bullet central in the bore. Remember, Newton's laws state that an object remains at rest or in a state of uniform straight-line motion unless it is acted upon by an external force. If the bullet mass is off-center, even a couple of thousandths, it travels in a spiral till it leaves the bore. Then it heads off in the direction that spiral was last pointing at the time. If I wanted to do something of the kind, I would see what diameter I reached by shrinking Teflon heat-shrink electrical tubing onto the bullet. Why aren't we all doing that? Because the stuff isn't consistent enough in thickness for really good results, or at least what I bought on eBay isn't.

There is another disadvantage. I have before me a Martini-Henry bullet I picked up on a battlefield of 1929 in Saudi Arabia - one of those forgotten places where a great deal of world history got decided. The rifling is deeply incised into the bullet, as is normal with good paper patching. If you overdo the thickness, that will not be the case. The lands will simply grip paper.

This might simply produce stripping of the rifling, and tumbling of an inadequately spun bullet. If there is the slightest imbalance in the bullet itself (and they are all unbalanced to some extent), centrifugal force might cause it to compress paper and end up off-center even if it didn't start out that way. See previous paragraph. It is even possible that the bullet will be pushed out of its patch, with extreme inaccuracy, and possibly leaving its patch to cause bullet mutilation or perhaps even a ring-bulge when the next bullet catches up with it.

It is the length, not the weight of the bullet, that is critical. I don't think you will go far wrong with the simple version of Greenhill's Formula. Twist in calibres multiplied by bullet length in calibres should equal 150 or less, although 200 will often stabilize a bullet. As 48in. is almost exactly 100 calibres, that leaves you with a bullet 1.06in long if you are really lucky, or 0.765 if you aren't.