.41 Colt Muzzleloader

[Good Cheer]

OK, yeah, that's a contradiction if there ever was one.
I'm waiting on a barrel being reworked to come back home, a project I've been threatening on for some years now. Found a used left hand light weight Spanish half stock rifle for a nice price and sent that baby off.
The rifling is gonna be for shooting the Ideal / Lyman #386178 hollow base, the NEI #198-388 big lube groove semi-wadcutter (to use like a maxiball) and patched round ball. It'll be my new front yard plinker, bean can, coon, possum garden pest control fun gun.

[Nueces]

Oh, boy, please post photos when you get it all put together. I like little yard guns like that.

[Good Cheer]

Opened up the box with the returned rifle. The Lyman / Ideal #386178 hollow base is a perfect fit.
Reckon I'll be doing some casting. And need to make a cleaning jag.

[Good Cheer]

The hang is just right. Feels really good.
Need to file down a .40 caliber jag to fit. Will finish the brass work ( it's still factory). Probably brown the barrel and fixed rear sight. Got to refinish the stock and get rid of the lacquer on it and the brass work. Will have to shoot lots of .375 and .380 round ball to slick up the rifling.

[kens]

What is that?
Did you take a .41colt pistol barrel blank (unchambered), and breech it for a muzzleloader?
so, its got the .41 pistol twist rate and bore/groove of the .41colt???

[smkummer]

I have a rapine version of that mold. 386185 I believe is the mold number. In a real 41 colt bisley, I have to make sure the hollow cavity doesn’t have any imperfections or I’ll blow part of the bullet skirt off. What charge are you trying to achieve? What groove diameter?

[Good Cheer]

With round ball, the maxis (semi-wadcutter) and minies (the hollow base) it's gonna be whatever granulation and volume shoots the most accurate.

[koger]

I have a TC Hawken and Renegade, with custom Green Mtn. barrels, .40 with a 1-48 twist to shoot conicals or PRB. Is this about the same thing?

[Good Cheer]

No sir. I've worked with a couple of GM forties, 28" (still have it) and 38" so I know what you're talking about.
This barrel has the rifling designed to use the boolits listed. The GM deep rifling geometry and twist are engineered for excellent accuracy with round ball.
I did a lot of experimentation with the .40 caliber GM barrels with hollow base, plain base, lube lead and paper patched. And, I had a lot of promising results. No way what the rifles would do with round ball but if I was to take that 28" Renegade (with a heavy charge and 200 grain boolit) deer hunting it could out perform a '73 Winchester chambered for 38-40. The problem I ran into was that I couldn't quite get them to always be really dependable accurate for small groups. Plenty good enough for deer hunting if I'd wanted to kill one.

What I'm hoping for with this piece now is a very accurate front yard gun, in essence a plinker that doesn't require heavy charges to get the RPM. The plain base SWC will no doubt require stronger charges to expand into the grooves but that too is part of the plan, to provide a wider range of capabilities. So if it works out as hoped, there will be low power ball, medium minie and higher power plain base.
No tomato can shall be safe.