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Thread: Minie bullets hollow base question?

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy
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    Minie bullets hollow base question?

    Hi Guys,

    One of the fellows at the range has a new muzzle loader. A Enfield three band copy-Chrome bore?- using real 3 fff black powder.

    He mentioned he is filling the hollow base with Vaseline! (prevent leading & make cleaning faster?)

    The grooves on the bullet are filled with Crisco! I watched him fire a few rounds with the rifle.
    Every shot sounded different! Accuracy is non- existent at 25 & 50 feet! At 75 cents a bullet for store bought Buffalo bullets- it's not a cheap project.

    He had pre-loaded the charges in the little red plastic container they use & also carry's the bullet for faster loading! I think he is melting the Vaseline in a warm barrel & it's fouling his powder charge.
    His percussion nipple is always clogged up after a few shots.

    What if anything is he doing wrong. I'm not a black powder shooter, so I'm not in a place where I can try to help him out!

    Thanks for any help,
    broom

  2. #2
    Boolit Master
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    Personally,I wouldnt interfere with the guy.And non existent accuracy is common.Cap blast and flame causing a monumental flinch.One guy at the range never sights,hes looking at the blast and smoke.It makes him happy.Lectures dont.If they ask,answer the question.They never ask.

  3. #3
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    RogerDat's Avatar
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    I am the opposite of an authority but it does seem to me Crisco and Vaseline are too thin and would melt too easy. Unless it is really, really cold there. Normal recipe repeated all over as a basic BP lube and what I use is 50/50 unsalted Crisco and Bees Wax melted and mixed. For hotter climate a bit more bees wax, for colder more Crisco. Some use Olive oil as opposed to Crisco or use some combination of the three.

    I would think both the lubes you mention would start to melt out just from the barrel heat after the first shot. The lubes I have seen are either dip bullet when melted and it stiffens when cooled or smeared on and stiffen once they dry out a bit.

    As I said a whole lot of more knowledgeable people around on this subject. Maybe they can suggest a store bought product and you can take him some to try? If it shoots better for him that would be the best way to clarify the better lube choice.
    Scrap.... because all the really pithy and emphatic four letter words were taken and we had to describe this source of casting material somehow so we added an "S" to what non casters and wives call what we collect.

    Kind of hard to claim to love America while one is hating half the Americans that disagree with you. One nation indivisible requires work.

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  4. #4
    Boolit Master
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    I stood beside a guy hammering bare minie slugs down a genuine 1853 Enfield,including a jug of powder directly beside his firing point.He lodged a complaint with the range committee for interference.Now,I just move away. Well away.

  5. #5
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    I do see this lube offered for sale By LsStuff makers of white label lubes. http://lsstuff.com/store/index.php?m...products_id=42

    Never tried it, but their other lubes are good so.... is your friends not hitting the target worth $17 + shipping to address?
    Scrap.... because all the really pithy and emphatic four letter words were taken and we had to describe this source of casting material somehow so we added an "S" to what non casters and wives call what we collect.

    Kind of hard to claim to love America while one is hating half the Americans that disagree with you. One nation indivisible requires work.

    Feedback page http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...light=RogerDat

  6. #6
    Boolit Grand Master


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    MCM bullet lube from North East Trading Company.
    Old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway!

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  7. #7
    Boolit Grand Master Good Cheer's Avatar
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    broomhandle,
    Results with lube in the base depend upon the barrel, the size of the hole in the nipple, geometry of the ignition channel and how much back flow it's getting, how much powder, how much the skirts may be bent from shipping or handling... not to mention the lube used and how much.
    Once that fellow finds out what works for him and wants to tell you how you need to do it then the thing to do is smile and thank him for sharing.

  8. #8
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    The grease is supposed to be in the grease grooves of the bullet. The hollow base is for the base to swell up and engage the rifling.
    you should not have grease in direct contact with the powder. a really greasy bullet like you describe would have a dry card wad over the powder.
    In my own experiments with any kind of hollow base bullet (I got 45cal) they dont like the hollow base to be tampered with.
    I wanted to tighten up the bullet in the bore at loading, I used a light cloth patch which tighten up loading just fine, but it wouldnt shoot worth a darn.
    Vaseline is a good grease for black powder, heck, any kind of grease is good for black powder, lard, crisco, tallow, they all work.
    It does sound as though he is using a great deal of it on top of the powder charge.
    I believe it feasible that the too much grease is interfering with a good powder burn and assisting with fouling the nipple.

    You say the nipple is fouled after a few shots, is it a wet cheesy fouling, or a dry hard fouling?
    Last edited by kens; 11-27-2017 at 08:59 AM.

  9. #9
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    Have him try it without the Vaseline.

  10. #10
    Boolit Master
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    Mini ball's were the biggest pain for me to experiment with. Always problematic.
    Your friend may be better off shooting solid bullets (Hornady Great Plains) with a felt button pad between the bullets base and the charge. As far as a B/P bullet lube. Crisco and Vaseline are not bullet lubes nor patch lubes and are likely to be more troublesome than their worth.
    As far as I know the center of a Mini ball is never filled with anything other than the burning gasses from the propellant used which intentionally expands the pure lead mini's skirt so to make contact with the bores side wall and rifling.
    A store bought patch lube like OxYoke Wonder lube is smeared into the grease groves on the >side< of a mini maxi or bullet only. And done so with moderation in mind.
    If your friends bore caliber is larger than 50 cal? He should be charging his rifle with 2FF-g_ Not 3FFF-g

  11. #11
    Boolit Grand Master bedbugbilly's Avatar
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    Lubing minie ball bases with crisco is a common practice and has been used for years and years. I personally have done it for 55 years and shot tens of thousands of rounds with excellent accuracy.

    There are a number of things that come in to play when shooting a rifled musket. First and foremost is the minie ball fit to bore - I have always liked to have one .002 undersize of the bore. The rings do not have to be lubed - a quick smear of crisco with your finger in the base of the minie provides all the lube needed to keep fouling soft for many loads.

    Using petroleum jelly is not the wisest thing to do. If shooting in hot weather, then stiffen the crisco with a little bit of beeswax melted in.

    If the minie is too small for the barrel bore, you are going to get poor accuracy and very likely "key holing". Crisco in the base of a properly sized minie will allow for good skirt expansion and enough lube to keep the fouling soft. A standard service charge of 60 - 65 gr. of 2F is plenty adequate for accurate shooting of a "old style" or "new style" 575-213s minie out of a standard .58 caliber rifled musket. The enfield probably has a .577 bore so he needs to find a correct fitting minie to fit it.

    I shot N-SSA for many many years and while the "new kids on the block" may have other things they use now, we never had any problems with clearing a pigeon board or breaking clay pots with a crisco lubed minie and a service load of 2F. I have participated in long range shoots out to 1,000 meters with rifled muskets - original 1861, 1863 Remington Zouave repro, Mississippi Rifle and 3 band Enfield. We were shooting at 2' X 4' pop down/pop up targets at Camp Grayling on the machine gun range. No, at long distances you aren't going to put the into "one hole", but out to 500 meters, we had no problems with nailing and taking down the targets which would be akin to shooting at a person. At 1,000 meters, they had a full size cut out of a man on a horse out of 3/8 steel plate. I wasn't able to hit it but my shooting partner/spotter hit it several tines one he got the elevation figured out with his 3 band Enfield.

    Shooting a rifled musket is no different than shooting any muzzleloader. If you flinch, you are going to miss. You have to "learn" your rifle and how it shoots - just like any rifle. As far as nipple hole size3 and all of that "bunk" - the size of the hole in a rifled musket nipple is not going to affect accuracy. Think about it. The purpose of the hole in the nipple is for a flame channel for the cap discharge to get to the main powder charge. One that hammer falls on the cap, things are underway and the back pressure on the spent cap/hammer is minimal at best. If it were something to worry about and that much back pressure was taking place, the hammer would be blown back to at least half cock. When the powder charge goes off, the gasses expand the skirt and the minie is on the way down the barrel. Too much powder and you can "blow" the skirt. A poorly fitting minie will not allow for proper skirt expansion into the traditional military 3 groove rifling and yes, gasses will go around the minie as it is being forced down the barrel - and that WILL affect accuracy.

    Advise your friend to go back to the basics. Lube the base with crisco, make sure the minie ball fits his barrel properly and if he is shooting a heavy minie - use a standard service load of 60 to65 gr of 2F. If he is using one of the lighter hollow base semi wad cutter boolits, do the same. Grease the base with crisco and finger - but use a lighter weight charge of 2F - in the 40 to 45 Gr range. It is not necessary to lube the rings on any of the minie balls or lighter weight SWC if the base is lubed.

    The "vaseline"? Loose it. As far as cleaning, it isn't necessary to buy all the hyped up cleaning products and other stuff that gets marketed. Hot soapy water will clean the bore of any muzzleloader followed by a thorough drying and an olled patch.

    The accuracy of a rifled musket - whether it be an Enfield, a Springfield, etc. - is plenty accurate for normal range shooting and certainly for most hunting range distances. But, it is only as accurate as the guy behind it. You need to learn the sight picture for the various distances, where the point of impact is for the point of aim . . . and then relax and top flinching and worrying about the recoil - it's going to be there whether you anticipate it or not.

    Good luck!

  12. #12
    Boolit Buddy
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    Bedbugbilly pretty much nailed it.

    In period, expanding ball bullets ("Minie") were lubricated in two ways. Either they had grease grooves which were filled with lube, or they were paper patched, and the paper carried the lube. The British style of Enfield cartridge was a smooth-sided bullet with a hollow base - the "Pritchett" bullet. Originally, they had iron cups in the hollow base. The idea was the cup would be blown into the bullet cavity, forcing it to expand. Sometimes, however, the iron cup was blown through the bullet, leaving the bullet behind. Other times the iron cup would drop free from the bullet in flight, posing a risk to friendly troops being fired over. Eventually they switched to a wooden plug, and lastly to a fired clay plug. The bullet was paper patched as part of the cartridge, and was dipped into lube made from tallow and beeswax. Ultimately the British switched entirely to beeswax. But the paper carried the lube.

    The Americans did not think the plug was necessary, as the charge itself would inflate the bullet causing it to take up the rifling. And they did not use a paper-patched cartridge like the British. They used a grooved bullet and the grease was initially made of 1:3 tallow:beeswax and later 1:8 by the 1855 and 1862 Ordnance Manuals.

    At no time was lube inserted into the base of the bullet.

    Like Billy, I shoot N-SSA competition. I have made up bullets using the period 1:8 recipe, and well as 50/50 Crisco/Beeswax, and I can pretty much shoot indefinitely. I routinely shoot 9-12 rounds in a 5-minute course of fire and I have fired many more than that between cleanings at the range.

    There are as many recipes for lube as there are people shooting them. But I have always been told to avoid petroleum products for lube with black powder as they make tough fouling. Some proportion of beeswax and Crisco is used by countless folks.

    Steve

  13. #13
    Boolit Grand Master Outpost75's Avatar
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    BedbugBilley and Steve nailed it.

    I've nothing to add, except that at our range the yahoo with an open can of black on the shooting bench would be given a stern tongue-lashing, and directed to the covered loading area BEHIND the line! Loading at the bench using pre-measured charges in individual cartridge tubes is OK, but not pouring from a flask or having any open powder around.
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  14. #14
    Boolit Buddy
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    He may also need a larger diameter minie bullet, my Enfield replica needs a .580 diameter minie to be happy.

  15. #15
    Boolit Grand Master

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    On top of all everyone said his bore could be leaded also.
    Aim small, miss small!

  16. #16
    Boolit Master
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    Well first we shouldn't neglect the possibility that he wasn't pointing the thing in the right direction...

    Other than that, Crisco may not be ideal but should be all right. The Snider used pure beeswax, and I can't see anything wrong with at least an admixture of it to the Crisco. All barrels are in a hot climate when they heat up, and the muzzle-loader bullet is in contact with it longer than the Snider one.

    With the Snider cartridge, and possibly in the late muzzle-loader bullets, they filled the cavity with a mixture of clay and beeswax. When I picked it out (a century or more after manufacture), I found it hard but friable, and I think it would have collapsed to powder immediately pressure built up. That seems like a good replacement for the wooden plug or steel thimble, enabling a thin skirted bullet to expand well, without the skirt being torn off.

  17. #17
    Boolit Grand Master Good Cheer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by broomhandle View Post
    Hi Guys,

    One of the fellows at the range has a new muzzle loader. A Enfield three band copy-Chrome bore?- using real 3 fff black powder.

    He mentioned he is filling the hollow base with Vaseline! (prevent leading & make cleaning faster?)

    The grooves on the bullet are filled with Crisco! I watched him fire a few rounds with the rifle.
    Every shot sounded different! Accuracy is non- existent at 25 & 50 feet! At 75 cents a bullet for store bought Buffalo bullets- it's not a cheap project.

    He had pre-loaded the charges in the little red plastic container they use & also carry's the bullet for faster loading! I think he is melting the Vaseline in a warm barrel & it's fouling his powder charge.
    His percussion nipple is always clogged up after a few shots.

    What if anything is he doing wrong. I'm not a black powder shooter, so I'm not in a place where I can try to help him out!

    Thanks for any help,
    broom


    Once had a Zouave that did that when putting lube in the skirt. It made for a hard seam of greasy coal beneath the nipple, filling the ignition channel with stuff that you had to chip out. On that piece it was simply a matter of the geometry of the ignition channel. Too much lube made it a problem. It was as bad as putting American Pioneer Powder in the 1842 and every third shot being a clogged up no boomer.

  18. #18
    Boolit Master
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    lose the Vaseline use Crisco only. also change out the nipple for one with the small hole like a hot shot. this combo works for me and all the others on the team.

  19. #19
    Boolit Master
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    Certainly Vaseline to fill the cavity is a bad idea. Besides possibly degrading the powder, it is liable to be irregularly distributed on exiting the muzzle, harming the weight distribution of the bullet. An undersized bullet, brittle alloy or excessively thin skirt might result in the skirt cracking, and a one-sided jet effect as the bullet emerges from the muzzle.

    Some people fill the cavity with hot-melt glue of the kind that stays rubbery, or silicon sealer.

  20. #20
    Boolit Buddy
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    Hi all ,

    Thanks for the reply's! If i see him I'll mention this site to him!

    broom

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BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
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