Who's Tried 60" Twist .50 GPR Minies And Plain Bases?

[Good Cheer]

I've got a brand spanking new replacement .50 GPR barrel that's been sitting on the shelf for over ten years. Looking at it I'm thinking about trying it out. While I'm at it there's the REAL molds, the minie molds and maybe even something that could stand in as a sugar loaf mold if I paper patch it. So it has me wondering who else has tried out the 60" twist fifty caliber Lyman barrels with a variety of boolit designs.
Anybody?

[charlie b]

If you do use a REAL I'd recommend a good tight fitting card wad behind it. You have some fairly deep rifling to fill. Based on that the real probably will not fill to groove dia unless "bumped" by a heavier charge of powder. The card wad will help with that.

[Good Cheer]

Yo charlie b.
Yep, I'm thinking the same thing. Plus there's the ol' booger bear with REAL's of the bore diameter. I don't recommember what the bore on this one is (been way too long since looking at it). But I have a batch of fifty REAL's around here somewhere and can try the base ring fit in the bore to see how my barrel and my particular mold go together. Also, the Lee minies have relatively thin skirts so they might be hard to bump up into the rifling without over powering the skirt strength when exiting the bore. 3F can help with that but only a little. It'll take some finagling.
Hope somebody chimes in on how they did what.

[indian joe]

Yo charlie b.
Yep, I'm thinking the same thing. Plus there's the ol' booger bear with REAL's of the bore diameter. I don't recommember what the bore on this one is (been way too long since looking at it). But I have a batch of fifty REAL's around here somewhere and can try the base ring fit in the bore to see how my barrel and my particular mold go together. Also, the Lee minies have relatively thin skirts so they might be hard to bump up into the rifling without over powering the skirt strength when exiting the bore. 3F can help with that but only a little. It'll take some finagling.
Hope somebody chimes in on how they did what.

Shot LEE minies in a 45 CVA years ago - good strong charge it shot ok - blew an occasional skirt we thought - turned a tad off of the base plug in the mold to thicken up the skirt still shot ok - tried the same idea in a 54 CVA (5/16th barrel) good strong charge + 6.5 pound gun - thought I might dislodge a tooth if I kept doin that!
Round ball with 120 grains of FFg seems like enough to flatten any thing I might want to and I dont see good enough to try open sight shots past about 75 yards anyway - round ball gets it done !

[pietro]

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YMMV, but I wouldn't trade the accuracy of a PRB in a 60" twist barrel, for the slightly better oomph of a conical in the same barrel, for all the tea in China.


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[charlie b]

I would agree that it is just about perfect for a patched round ball, complete with deep rifling.

[indian joe]

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YMMV, but I wouldn't trade the accuracy of a PRB in a 60" twist barrel, for the slightly better oomph of a conical in the same barrel, for all the tea in China.


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me neither!!!

[indian joe]

I would agree that it is just about perfect for a patched round ball, complete with deep rifling.

I'll pass on the deep rifling -- thats a myth --CVA had it right 30 years ago

[pietro]

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Didn't CVA use Bergara barrels from Spain ?

If so, they were pretty good barrels...…….


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[longbow]

Not a GPR but I have an old CVA .50 with 1:66" twist I believe... definitely round ball twist anyway. Shoots patched round balls quite nicely but I tried a Maxi ball and that was a no go! Terrible accuracy and keyholing.

The short .50 REAL might be okay but the long one will likely not stabilize.

If you have a mould there's certainly no harm in trying some solids in it but if you are going to buy it might be best to see if you can buy both REAL weights to test them out before buying a mould, though Lee moulds aren't very costly.

I stick with PRB in my gun because of the slow twist.

Longbow

[indian joe]

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Didn't CVA use Bergara barrels from Spain ?

If so, they were pretty good barrels...…….


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couple of mine are branded "Dikar Spain" others "CVA"
The locks were a bit cheap and the style of many of the models was kinda basic/amateurish but I never saw a CVA barrel wouldnt shoot at the top level 1987manufacture on all the ones I had
I believe one Aussie importer bought a container lot of assembly line / quality control reject stuff for cheap resale out here - no evidence for that except that every one i got hold of had something wrong - bits missing from kits, a barrel crown burred up, end cap screwholes punctured the barrel, (had three of those !) but once that was sorted they shot as good as the best imported barrels GM - Getz - Douglas.