Minie bullets hollow base question?

[dave951]

Vaseline in the base VERY bad idea.

Where to start.......
First off, for anything resembling accuracy, the minies will have to be dead soft pure lead AND sized to within .001-2 of bore. Second, don't get hung up on the charge weight. Most minies shoot very well with about 75% of listed service charge weight and NO pyrodex, just the Holy Black. Third, lube is critical. Try using a 50/50 crisco/beeswax for lube. Start out with NOTHING in the base. Observe accuracy and fouling. If fouling is building in the chamber area with each shot, try adding a TINY bit of crisco to the base, meaning a spot smaller than a pea wiped in with your finger. Fourth, caps, CCI Reenactor caps are designed for blanks, good luck getting any accuracy out of them. Go with RWS or Schutzen.

In case you're wondering about what kind of accuracy can be gotten from these Civil War guns, I have 2 Colt Contract Springfields that will both dump 10 shots into one big hole at 50yds and a Parker Hale Enfield that will do it as well. I also have an Enfield musketoon that can do it. It took a while of experimenting to find the right combination but it is possible and while the Colts shoot the same load, it's different for the Enfields, not much but different.

If you're really serious about learning how to shoot the Civil War guns well, to over to the North South Skirmish Association board for more info. We're a competition shooting org that shoots only Civil War weapons, up to and including artillery (yes cannons), for score. I don't think you'll find a more concentrated place with knowledge on how to shoot these guns anywhere on the net. I've read other boards with folks spouting off about these guns but most of it is tripe gotten second hand from a cousin's friend or something. There are a couple on this board in the NSSA and if they offer advice and mention they're NSSA, you'd do well to listen.

n-ssa.net

[quail4jake]

Good job, Dave 951! I've been fooling with rifle muskets for 40 years and made alot of mistakes (like casting Minie balls out of wheelweights) but the most pleasure I've derived is doing it right and watching the problems go away. Many years ago I listened to N-SSAers and changed what I was doing which made my musket shoot so well that I started using it for deer..that was 1979 and I've killed well over 2 dozen through the years with it. Within the last 10 years I read the ordinance manual and learned how to make lube and paper cartridges true to 1855 standards which made things work even better. Now I have 10 different repro US muskets that all perform very well. All the things I learned can be found on the N-SSA board which is the best source that you'll find on this topic. Now that we have this "internet fad" you don't need to reinvent the wheel, just ask these ol' boys and please share with others!

[Pavia]

Lots of good info here. I’ll concur that the accuracy was most likely due to the lube in the base preventing expansion. Especially with an undersized ball or one with a heavy skirt. Just lube the outside and you’re good to go.

[Buckshot]

...............I firmly believe that you should try to please the firearm (rifle in this case). I have a Parker Hale P58 Enfield 2 band Naval pattern rifled musket. It has 5 lands and grooves, with the grooves being of progressive depth. The grooves are deeper at the breech with a constant taper to the muzzle. The lands are the same ID breech to muzzle. Having owned a Zoli Zouave for umpteen years (like every other American shooter I know ) I started out treating the Enfield the same. Didn't work too well. I used Crisco for lube and smeared it into the lube grooves. I could get maybe 5 increasingly difficult to load minie'e to seat. The accuracy was nothing noteworthy.

To cut to the chase, with the 5 groove Enfield, it wanted it's lube in the HB, and Crisco simply wasn't it. It HAD to have Bore Butter. I've also found a couple others that work almost as well. However with the Bore Butter I could shoot almost all day. Trying over and over with ANY lube in the grooves, it's groups would NEVER be as tight as lube in the base cavity only. Also as long as the slug was a reasonable fit, it shot exceedingly well. It shot everything from the Lee REAL slug to a 580gr Pritchit, and including a Lyman 575611 that weighed 632 grs after dropping the core pin in the mould.

One of my shooting buddies showed up one day at the range with a new muzzle loader. Being a former Marine he was a bit odd. His handle was "3 band Bob' as he always shot a M1842 .69 caliber Springfield. The new front stuffer was a 3 Band Enfield. I do not recall who made it but it had been imported by Lyman. It was very well made and an attractive rifle. My P58 was superbly accurate but 'Picky'. This rifle of Bob's was also nicely accurate but exceedingly eclectic in it's requirements.

I fondly recall that on one very nice late summer afternoon at the range, Bob and I sat on opposite sides of a bench shooting at the 200 meter plate. Taking turns and handing that rifle back and forth. On the bench was a coffee can of Minie bullets, a can of powder, measure, cap tin, and a plastic butter dish of Crisco. I do not at this late date recall what we ran out of first to cause us to stop shooting his new musket. In any event we treated that gong unmercifully, and that Enfield repro got vary warm Several months later muzzle loaders happened to come up in conversation. I asked Bob about that wondrous Enfield? He said he'd sold it to Leonard (a mutual friend). I asked incredulous, why in God's name would ANYONE sell such a magnificent piece? Bob replied that it wasn't much of a challenge, and besides the Marines were never issued Enfields! I said he was odd, AND a Marine didn't I?



Fired at 50 yards, benched. Notice the lube test on the right. Slugs are 540gr Challangers, from a mould I bought from Maven years ago.



Left, 500 gr 'Target Minie' from NEI. RIGHT, modified and stock Lyman 575611.



LEFT, Right slug is a 580gr Pritchit from a Raphine mould. Left slug is the Pritchit after being swaged to produce a heavier skirt for heavier charges, along with a hollow point. Right Photo is the swage die I made to re-work the Pritchit.



The P58 2 Band Enfield. A completely delightful rifle.

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

[Col4570]

I fill the Bullet canelures with 50/50 Beeswax and Tallow,I make sure that there is nothing in the cavity.I believe that Grease in the Hollow acts as a cushion and interferes with the Bullet expansion at ignition.

[carbine]

Only one question. You said he is paying $ 0.75 per minie? He needs to start making his own boolits

[dave951]

needs a correctly sized patched bullet with plug.

I'll be impolite and point out we're talking about minie balls which do not get patched unless shooting the Pritchet design. That's the original load designed for the Enfield. Bullet was swaged from lead rod, smooth sided and designed to be loaded as is into the gun too speed up the loading process with cartridge paper still around the projectile.

Lots of cool stuff from that time period where they experimented with a number of ways of speeding up reloading.

[dave951]

In actual practice, the Enfield round was designed as a paper patch bullet. While I'm sure some of the domestically made stuff got loaded the same way, that's not according to regs, but somebody probably did it in the heat of action. As a current practice, I don't know of anyone who shoots minies accurately with a paper patch. One of the guys on my team shoots a Shiloh Sharps 45/110 and he uses paper patches and that rifle is extremely accurate, but it's a different system of getting the lead down the bore.

In the OP I'd bet a dozen doughnuts he just went out and bought some minies from some source that cast them from questionable alloy that didn't size them at all. If his bore is actually 580 (like my Colts) then a 575 might even keyhole at 25yds. Most of the repops do run big. I had a couple Euroarms that were supposed to be 575 but measured 581 and I've seen others as large as 584. So, I'd also bet he's just doing what he read on a gun forum somewhere from somebody's cousin's friend's uncle posting doubious info he heard somewhere.

I cast my minies from pure lead and they're right at 580 so they do have to be sized to 579 achieve both consistency in diameter and size so they will go down the bore. I weigh each minie and have a tolerance I use for match (skirmish) ammo and a much tighter one I use for individual target and testing ammo. After a pass through the sizer, each minie shows evidence on a couple places where the sizer smoothed it out. In the Colts, I use 44.5gr 3fg Old Eynsford with Lens Lube (available at NSSA Nationals) and RWS caps. That load will shoot into 1in out of both muskets.

[Eddie Southgate]

I run mine through a sizing die that is of a size that does not change the as cast size of the minnie . All i want it to do is make sure the skirt is truly round and add a little of the old original black Ideal lube to the grooves . As I load them I will add either some Crisco or a dab of some very old Lithium tube grease that I have a good supply of . All my Minnie's are cast in as near pure lead as I can find . Been doing it that way for over 50 years and my old Zoli Zouave will shoot groups as good as anybodys rifle .

Eddie

[Outpost75]

Lacking a source of sheep tallow, use what we call "Confederate Army Lube", equal parts by melted volume of Goya Manteca (unsalted, filtered lard) and beeswax. I use it in cap& ball revolvets, as patch lube, for Minies and BP cartridge cowboy loads. Also OK with smokeless. Cheap and it works