LEE Minie Ball .578 dia .58cal 478 results

[Brokenbear]

I'm shooting a 26" Zoli Navy Arms 1 in 48" .58 whose bore is .5792" (#90478)

So I am looking for anyone who has worked up with this bullet a working accuracy load ..like 100 yard 5" or less maybe?

Hints n tricks appreciated!

Bear

[carbine]

Cant help except to suggest you contact folks on N-SSA.org Bulletin board as thay have a lot of experience with minies. I thought all Zoli had a slower twist than that. Mine did.

[Brokenbear]

Cant help except to suggest you contact folks on N-SSA.org Bulletin board as thay have a lot of experience with minies. I thought all Zoli had a slower twist than that. Mine did.

Carbine I would surely love to be able to converse with those folks but it is $105 to join plus you have to have a set of period clothing and if you have not joined a "regiment" at the end of a year you are ..if I read it correctly..not eligible to renew

I did inquire about a senior or some other sort of membership that did not entail skirmishing as being in SE Missouri I am sure to be many many miles from active events ..but maybe not.. their website does not list regimental locations

A nice fellow did answer me back but the only bullets he had were the membership info already laid out on the web site

I am not knocking N-SSA in the least as I am sure they have had to deal with folks not dedicated to the sport (skirmishing or otherwise) and are just trying to keep it safe for their membership

So a good idea but execution is tuff

As far as the twist rate it is supposed to be one of the few "musketoon" built and supposed to have the 1/48

Thanks
Bear

[indian joe]

I'm shooting a 26" Zoli Navy Arms 1 in 48" .58 whose bore is .5792" (#90478)

So I am looking for anyone who has worked up with this bullet a working accuracy load ..like 100 yard 5" or less maybe?

Hints n tricks appreciated!

Bear

I thought all the shortys were 48 twist ? the ones I have seen are (parker hale, navy arms) 2 banders too ....the long guns are slow twist (usually)

am working on a Zoli now - (mississippi rifle) with a 72 twist
it shoot round ball real nice - minies I have to try are a Trevor Bugg mold and that LEE you have. Had some to and fro conversations with a couple blokes on another thread here
suggestions were neat fitting minie to bore, FFFg powder and a good strong musket primer to open the skirt to the rifling properly (kinda makes sense) dip lube the minie rather than pan, other suggestion was throw the LEE mold in the bin - we have a 48twist two band enfield (navy arms) - its been easy to load for, you should be ok. The slow twist guns are way more pernickity to get right. The skirmish dudes come across a tad arrogant but IF they doin the kind of shooting they claim, they entitled to be a bit cheeky.
If I get that Zoli going with minies I will post back here .

[GregLaROCHE]

I bought a mold Lee mold for my Enfield and the mini balls it cast were too small for the gun’s bore.

[dave951]

I'm N-SSA as is Carbine.

I know Lee molds are made at a price that many will find irresistable BUT, remember it's made to a price point. From my experience with Lee minie molds, they are marginal at best and only one Lee minie design shoots well in any of my muskets and that design is discontinued. If you are serious about getting your "Zouave" to shoot well, get a sampler of bullets from Lodgewood-
https://www.lodgewood.com/Bullets_c_7.html
This is the ONLY commercial source I trust for minies. They are cast for Lodgewood by a N-SSA member who knows what he's doing.

FWIW- the RCBS Hogdon and the Moose version of the same bullet shoot extremely well in a "Zouave".

[carbine]

I believe you can just log onto the Bulletin Board as a Visitor. I sent you a contact via PM.
Yes there are non-shooting Memberships available. Reach out to the contact , he should be helpful

[Brokenbear]

Carbine:I have contacted the regimental commander and awaiting his reply ..my comment about "few musketoon" to have 1/48" ..what I was trying to say was Navy Arms brought in very few 2 band musketoon's as compared with the full length rifle but I was told it was 1/48 ..I have bought the front suffer sight unseen but from poor pictures and the sellers word on bore and twist

Indian Joe: (A) do you know the actual diameter the mold is casting?
(B) If it is working well in your 2 band Navy do you know your bore diameter?
(C) are you sizing it or shooting it out of the mold?
(D) powder kind n amount
Looking forward to following you on your Mississippi work up

Dave951:I followed up on your Lodgewood suggestion but struck out at their website with no bullets listed (my error?? maybe) ..BUT a direct link to the fellow you referred to was listed on LW's site as the go to for bullets ..so I emailed him bore dia., twist etc and asked for suggestions.. he answered back simply which two bullet styles were his best sellers and price per hundred ..
I'm not knocking that because I professionally carve competition revolver grips that I ship world wide and I understand no time to plaver
I think ultimately the old style Lyman sized and lubed, pure lead and around 60 grains poof will end up being the money bet.. but until I figure out sizing dies and find the mold (and a pair of Lyman handles) for the LEE $29.95 I can at least go bang ..and maybe get stupid lucky to boot! Thanks for your input

Thanks everyone who has contributed so far

Bear

[indian joe]

Carbine:I have contacted the regimental commander and awaiting his reply ..my comment about "few musketoon" to have 1/48" ..what I was trying to say was Navy Arms brought in very few 2 band musketoon's as compared with the full length rifle but I was told it was 1/48 ..I have bought the front suffer sight unseen but from poor pictures and the sellers word on bore and twist

Indian Joe: (A) do you know the actual diameter the mold is casting?

The Bugg mold drops at 609 grains - it seems to have a slight taper.
ahead of the top groove is .575, first proper band is .576, next band .5775, third band .580, base of skirt same. I dipped lubed these and cleaned any grease out of the base cavity, put them through a cookie cutter to firm the lube in the grooves (cookie cutter is not quite a sizer its .583) These are a nice slick fit in the Zoli muzzle - pretty much impossible to measure the three groove rifling without making a plug gauge.

(B) If it is working well in your 2 band Navy do you know your bore diameter? no but with the 48twist its an easier deal anyway
(C) are you sizing it or shooting it out of the mold? out of the mold
(D) powder kind n amount 90 grains Fg
When we (its my son's gun) first got this gun all the advice was shoot 40 grains - there were several in the club - they never said FFFg - just use 40 grains - we had some Fg grade chinese fireworks powder that burnt about like Curtiss and Harvey (slow but clean) had a 45 grain measure cut for his little 45 cal CVA, that 45 grain load was hopeless, a pattern the size of your hat brim with a couple sideways, dissapointed ! we went straight to the 90 grain charge (easy just use two measures full) - bingo nice group - later days he took that rifle to a long range shoot and it shot spot on the barrel sights out to 600 yards - he's stuck with that 90 grain Fg load ever since -

somewhere along the way hes changed from the LEE pointy traditional mold (the discontinued one Dave mentioned I think was a 500+ grain boolit) to the H T Bugg mold. Son is a bit haphazard at times and mostly shoots offhand but I've benched it a couple times - the thing shoots ok.
Looking forward to following you on your Mississippi work up

Dave951:I followed up on your Lodgewood suggestion but struck out at their website with no bullets listed (my error?? maybe) ..BUT a direct link to the fellow you referred to was listed on LW's site as the go to for bullets ..so I emailed him bore dia., twist etc and asked for suggestions.. he answered back simply which two bullet styles were his best sellers and price per hundred ..
I'm not knocking that because I professionally carve competition revolver grips that I ship world wide and I understand no time to plaver
I think ultimately the old style Lyman sized and lubed, pure lead and around 60 grains poof will end up being the money bet.. but until I figure out sizing dies and find the mold (and a pair of Lyman handles) for the LEE $29.95 I can at least go bang ..and maybe get stupid lucky to boot! Thanks for your input

my little LEE mold drops 468 grains and measures .575

Thanks everyone who has contributed so far

Bear
......

[dave951]

The link to the "bullet" page on Lodgewood is active and works. It will give you a graphic for Pat aka CWBulletman and shows a range of bullets he makes. The reason he probably didn't respond on the twist rate is minies are different. Twist rates don't seem to be quite as important. Many of the originals have twists in the 1:72 range but shoot extremely well. A 1:48 will probably stabilize a heavier bullet a bit better but with the minie having it's C/G forward and a hollow base, it doesn't behave like a conventional bullet. Too much powder and accuracy suffers, too little and same thing. It has a distinct "sweet spot" for any given bullet weight and twist assuming the diameter is suitable for the bore size.

[Brokenbear]

......
Thanks Joe and good info!

Bear

[Brokenbear]

The link to the "bullet" page on Lodgewood is active and works. It will give you a graphic for Pat aka CWBulletman and shows a range of bullets he makes. The reason he probably didn't respond on the twist rate is minies are different. Twist rates don't seem to be quite as important. Many of the originals have twists in the 1:72 range but shoot extremely well. A 1:48 will probably stabilize a heavier bullet a bit better but with the minie having it's C/G forward and a hollow base, it doesn't behave like a conventional bullet. Too much powder and accuracy suffers, too little and same thing. It has a distinct "sweet spot" for any given bullet weight and twist assuming the diameter is suitable for the bore size.

ThanksDave ..I will take another shot at their website and see if I can get an assortment ..good info

Bear

[bedbugbilly]

If your minie actually drops at .578 and your bore is .579 - should work OK - bit remember that you'll be getting fouling built up so be prepared to run a cleaning patch down the tube - your rifle will let you know.

As far as working up a load - shouldn't be that hard. I'm assuming you are using 2F - service load was 60 grains to begin with and I believe it was upped to 65 by war's end IIRC. You are shooting a thin skirted minie - go too high and you'll blow the skirt.

Make some measured loads up - start at 50 and work up to 60 in 2 grain increments - your rifle/carbine will tell you what it likes.

Zoli barrels have always been all oner the place. I started shooting N-SSA in the earlier 60s when the only repro was the Zouave. I have seen their barrels ranging from .575 to .585. Many of us shot originals.

I agree with the above - if your mold doesn't drop a minie you carbine likes - Lodgewood is an excellent source for samples you can buy to try. They also usually carry sizing dies should you need one to size a minie to fit your bore.

My Zouave that I bought in 1963 required a .580 minie and I had a friend that had a Lyman 580-213 mold. I found a used Zoli that had a barrel that took a 575 minie as dropped by my 575-213 mold. I bought it, swapped the barrel for mine (kept my original barrel - just never got around to having Hoyt reline jt) and I parted out the rest of the rifle that I took the 575 barrel off of - got more for the parts than what the rifle cost me.

Ideal made the 575-213 in two styles - the "new" and the "old" styles. They also made a 580-213 and a 585-213 minie mold for oversize bores such as many Zoli made rifles had. You just sizes them down. There is nothing wrong with a Zoli and they will shoot just fine. If it is going to be a regular thing though, and you are going to be casting a lot of monies - I echo the advice of getting a good mold as they will outlast a Lee and you'll never wear it out. I've been using the Lyman 575-213 mold that I bought new in the early 60s all of my life and 60 + years later it is going strong after casting thousands and thousands of Minie Balls.

Good luck with your Zoli and have fun.

[indian joe]

LEE apparently made that squat "Traditional" minie mold in a .578 size as well as the normal .575 (saw a website last night with some .578 stock) - the traditional style (pointy nose) LEE 500 + grain mold appears discontinued (as Dave Says)

[indian joe]

heres an old post from this forum I stumbled onto (by Southron - no longer active posting)
48 twist ?

In 1862 the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia conducted a series of experiments of all the arms in use by the ANV. What was discovered was that while most American and European Mini Rifles were accurate out to 400-500 yards, the British Enfield Naval Rifles and the P-60 Army Short Rifles [both models used the short, heavy barrel with the 5 Land & Groove Rifling with the 1 in 48" Twist] were accurate out to 800-900 yards!

The proviso was that optimum accuracy with the Naval and Army Short Rifles required the use of British made ammunition utilizing the paper patched Pritchett Ball. The Confederacy imported millions of such rounds made by the Eley company.

Hence, the Enfield Naval Rifles and Enfield Army Short Rifles became of the "weapon of choice" to be issued to Confederate Sharpshooters. When supplies of these arms ran short, Sharpshooters were issued regular P-53 Enfields.

Fred Ray has written an excellent book, Shock Troops of the Confederacy, about these Confederate Sharpshooter Battalions and the arms they used, I highly recommend the book:

Buckshot added this comment,
The P58 will handle a heavier then normal Minie' with aplomb. If you have the Lyman 575611 mould, it is a simple matter to drop the base cavity pin to create a heavier Minie'.

I have not shot it at extended ranges, but when I did shoot it, it performed very well.

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

[59sharps]

Try 42 gr of 3 fffg that’s what works in the one I had and in my friends. With the Hodgen by RCBS

[Brokenbear]

Well fellas I was hoping to see a "tend" sticking it's head out but other than the consensus that a quality mold is a better starting place than the .578 short minie I have on the way

The good news it was $30 and not $100

The other good news is these old smoke poles seem pretty forgiving no matter which minie you stuff it with along with reasonable amounts of powder

Thanks to all who have responded and keep'em coming

Bear

[roverboy]

I bought a mold Lee mold for my Enfield and the mini balls it cast were too small for the gun’s bore.

Same with my H&R Huntsman .58 caliber. Not accurate at all. I think I could throw them about as accurate. Shoots patched round balls good though.