paper patching for Snider with .578 minnie?

[justashooter]

so I am unable to find a forward weighted .590 mold for my egyptian sniders, both of which have .590 smooth bores.

a .600 round ball in a cut back plastic Fiocchi 24 gauge case is too big to go into the chamber, so I am looking at using Lee .578-478 minnie bullets, paper patched to .590 or thereabouts.
https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1010207668/lee-1-cavity-improved-minie-ball-bullet-mold-578-478m-578-diameter-478-grain

any one have experience with this?
felt grease cookies?
https://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/174/1
your thoughts on getting functional accuracy in these smooth bore guns with conicals?

[toot]

i use felt grease cookies if i am going to the range to shoot but not for long term storage. for that i use the dry ones. i for one think they are the cats meow! when i used a 600. dia. rb. in FIOCCHI. plastic hulls they would not chamber so i took the de capping pin out of the die and ran them into the die several times and viola! they chambered. i can see no difference using them be hind conical's, never found them driven into the base after recovery.

[Gunor]

I used .595 balls - track of the wolf - in plastic hulls.

[toot]

i cast my own .600 dia. RB'S be cause i shoot them in my FUZEE FIN, red stocked CHIEF'S SPECIAL trade musket.

[elk hunter]

Hope the patched Minnie's work for you, I tried it and got minute of wash tub groups. I went to a 515 grain, .585 diameter solid base bullet patched to .585 that shoots 2" or so groups at 25 yards. I'm going to patch them up to as big as will go in an un-sized case and try them hoping for smaller groups.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Magtech brass cases, at .010in., are probably thinner in the neck than plastic, and might accommodate a .600 ball. If not, I don't see why a ball couldn't be sized down to give it a narrow cylindrical waist - perhaps an improvement, in fact. Pushing it through a 15mm. bushing, at .5905in. with a vice or mallet should do nicely.

I have some Magtech cases, headstamped CBC, for about the most unusual use anyone puts them to nowadays - my Pieper 24ga shotgun. Anyone outside the USA may be interested in knowing that Buffalo Arms at least, though currently out of stock, are aware that they can export these, being shotgun cases, despite the current restrictions on rifle and pistol cases.

The trouble with ordinary wads or grease cookies with a round ball or minié is that they go dish-shaped and leave a gap around the edges with the former, and may lodge in the base cavity of the latter. One way around this with round ball is to make grease cookies flat on one side and concave to match the ball on the other. I wouldn't use the attractively easy method of dumping the balls into a tray of melted lube and cutting them out with a tube when it is hard. The cookies would sometimes stick to the ball in flight, and sometimes not. But pressing the balls, lightly oiled, into nearly hard lube should work. I would put a piece of tissue between them in the cartridge, though.

[justashooter]

for reference, i measured the plastic hulls at .635" OD, with wall thickness of .025".

with the original snider case tapering from .660" base to .605" neck diameter I guess most chambers are a bit sloppy if people are getting .600 round balls in either case chambered. this won't work in my egyptians, at all.

[john.k]

I see how minies can work in a smoothbore,but will tumble.......however ,if you made a much larger HB plug ,to produce a shotgun slug type cast,then you have the "shuttlecock" effect keeping the bullet head on......I made a Starr carbine replica,and so far it has a smooth 54 bore,and minies are side on at 25 feet......with roundballs ,accuracy aint good either ,because of the "belt" effect.

[Mgvande]

I had problems seating .60 cal balls in plastic hulls. Do the magtech brass thing. That's all I use now that I'm done experimenting and making good ammo. I now am using .598 grease grooved bullets.