Pre-Rifled Boolits

[Good Cheer]

Any you fellas ever use boolits pre-rifled in a die made from a piece of barrel?

[george1980]

well my first question is why a prerifled bullet ? only rifled bullets ive seen are shotgun slugs meant to shoot in a smoothbore barrel , but im open to new ideas , please tell your thoughts on why your thinkin about this

[corey012778]

I have done something like that with the hornady fpb conical, I just pushed the bullet all the way down an full length barrel, problem being making sure the groves lined up

[longbow]

My first muzzleloader was homemade from various bits bought individually before muzzleloading caught on where I lived so not what one would call traditional or standard.

The barrel was a standard 0.457" octagonal rifle barrel (not BP), the lock was off an old side by break action hammer shotgun, I can't recall what the trigger came off or any of the other bits.

I couldn't get a suitable boolit mould so used a hollow base .45 pistol boolit mould (light boolit with shallow hollow base). The boolits were too big to load easily so I pushed them through a short chunk of barrel to pre-engrave them then lined up the grooves in the boolit with barrel lands and down they went easy.

I certainly won't claim trophy winning accuracy but it shot pretty well.

These boolits were somewhat smaller than groove diameter and I don't recall fouling being a problem but a full groove diameter pre-engraved boolit might be tough to get down a fouled barrel.

What is your intention?

Longbow

[waksupi]

The only pre-rifled boolit is know of, are the ones that fit our club's 6 pounder ordinance rifle.

[Good Cheer]

Using a piece of barrel threaded on the outside 7/8 to fit the reloading press. The pre-rifled boolits index to the rifling and slide right in.

[Ajax]

The only ones i have ever heard of are the whitwirth rifles. They are hexagonal nor rifled though.

Andy

[twotoescharlie]

works well with T/C maxis and lee R.E.A.L's.

TTC

[camerl2009]

in the civil war thay and a cartridge gun that the barss and the powder chargeand thay had to ram the bullet down from the muzzle this was a snipers gun of the time dont ask me way thay did that this gun still had to have a cap on the nipple

[Nobade]

At the shop we have a Ruger #1 that has been turned into a muzzleloader. It uses a die to pre rifle the Barnes jacketed bullets, which are fired using 460 Weatherby loads and ignited by primers carried in cut off magnum case heads. This works well, but the die must be faced off and re-sharpened occasionally so it cuts the grooves smoothly. It is a fairly complicated contraption that uses a big arbor or hydraulic press to operate. The trick is supporting the bullets while you broach grooves into them, without extruding the cores out the front or swaging the diameter up enough to stick the bullet in the die.

[Good Cheer]

How does it shoot? Any good prairie dog stories to go with it?

[longbow]

I just gotta ask... why?

Why wouldn't you just re-chamber to .460 Weatherby?

How do you seat the bullet so it doesn't drop into the chamber ~ stop on the ramrod?

Now that you have brought this up I guess I gotta ask another question. Why not load it like the 1863 paper cartridge Sharps? Open the breech, seat the bullet into the throat or rifling then pour in powder (nitrated paper cartridges full of smokeless might work fine too), push in the primed case head, close up the breech, hold onto your socks and pull the trigger.

That I have thought about myself though not to .460 levels of poop. Boys do need their toys!

I always liked the paper cartridge Sharps and figured it might work for smokeless in a modern style gun. I guess you have proved it does!

Hmmm, I guess I have drifted off the "pre-rifled" topic. Sorry about that.

Longbow

[hickstick_10]

its ALL been tried hundreds of years ago.

Belted balls, whitworth bullets, or the early rifles which were forced down the rifled bore with no patch, which is basically what your doing. Your piece of barrel is a glorified (or denigrated im not sure) false muzzle.

They were all discarded in favor of patched RB's, conicals or expanding base bullets.

Or go see what the guys do who shoot BP slug guns do, if your in a quest for accuracy. And I dont mean slugs as in from a shot gun, I mean fellas who use 50-100 lb ultra heavy barreled under hammer cap locks for shooting long range.

[Good Cheer]

Pre-rifling allows the soft lead to completely fill the barrel with the minimum of expansion and distortion. With a fast twist target load the projectile is usually bore diameter and expands to fill the rifling grooves. Pre-rifling in essense just minimizes the amount of expansion needed to do the same thing because the rifling grooves are already partially filled with lead.
Depending upon the chosen mold design and bore diameter this translates into starting out with full length engagement on the casting before ignition.
So, if you get a die made along with your barrel it is an added dimension that can be explored along with the usual bore diameter and paper patched.

[longbow]

Good Cheer:

I have often wondered why this isn't more common practice myself. When I look at false muzzles and some of the other cumbersome methods of loading it seems that pre-engraving gives a perfect sized boolit already form fitted to the barrel. This assumes that the rifling grooves are even enough that the boolit just has to be indexed to any land/groove before sliding down.

Since the boolit will bump up anyway it will wind up totally filling grooves even if there are little gaps.

I have to assume that for extreme accuracy it isn't as good as the methods commonly in use because it isn't a new idea.

Also, if the barrel has any significant fouling if may be quite difficult to load due to exact boolit fit.

I used to have a replica Remington Zouave that had a tendency to foul and even minies would jam. I had to pound more than one down with a mallet because it got stuck about 3/4 the way down. Not a lot of fun! It was an intermittent problem and was probably due to some rough machining catching fouling.

Point being that if the barrel gets fouled a close fitting boolit WILL jam. A boolit jammed half way down the barrel has to be seated or removed. You will most likely bulge the barrel or worse if shot that way.

Keeping the barrel clean by wiping between shots and/or using lubed felt wads under the boolit may keep fouling soft enough. Another thought is to use a scoop of cornmeal or COW between powder and boolit. The cereal seems to scrub the bore and help keep fouling down.

Having said all that, I can't see any difference in loading between this method and paper patching for muzzleloaders (no personal experience though). Either way, a fouled barrel is a problem so whatever they do should work for this method. I am thinking the paper patch guys wipe between shots.

Longbow

[Good Cheer]

Hey Longbow.
The best procedure I've found is to seat a card wad over the powder and to then follow up with a lubed patch, then seat the boolit. The card wad is again cleaning the barrel on it's way down. The lubed patch again squeegies the barrel and preps the barrel for the close fitting bullet.
It's like loading a tight fitting REAL only more so.

[Bullshop]

I think the idea of muzzle loading or breach loading to pre engrave a boolit favored the ML because in this way the boolit metal displaced by land engraving would cause the fining if any to be forward on the drive bands for ML as opposed to on the boolit base for breach loading. It is well known that the base is the steering end so the ML would keep a more perfect base.
Both ways had the boolit completely in the barrel and pre engraved.

[longbow]

Now that we have gotten to talking about this and Bullshop mentions fins to the nose, I am reminded of Pope loading which was using a cartridge pre-loaded with BP and an over powder card inserted into the breech then muzzleloading a boolit and ramming down onto the loaded cartridge.

As Bullshop mentions, the idea was to displace metal forward during engraving leaving a perfect base.

Not sure what the old guys did for fouling control but it looks like you have that part handled anyway. I'm guessing they would have grease cookies and then the card wad. Well, with GG boolit maybe no need for grease cookie.

From your first post I thought you were asking if it would work but it looks like you have this all sorted out and working for you so that's great!

What kind of accuracy are you getting?

Longbow

[Good Cheer]

Accuracy...
Various results. This is a 16" twist 32" long barrel. 330 grains, real good. 400 grains mighty good. The Lee 41 mag 240 grain round nose that I really, really want to make work is just not. Lyman 41 mag hollow based wadcutter doesn't work. 0.392" diameter 250 grain with paper patch is showing promise.
If I get the chance to deer hunt with it this year the 330 grain will probably the best choice. The mold was altered by Erik to add a forward drive band, flat point it and add a small hollow point to facilitate alignment in sizing. So, it's a 330 grain SWC kinda hammer.

[Good Cheer]

A note about barrels made with pre-rifling in mind. It's a trade off. You want narrow lands to minimize the amount of lead you have to move in engraving the rifling on the bullet. If you do it that way it means that the barrel is less well suited to boolits sized to bore diameter. And, it's better also for boolits that engrave at loading.
So, something that has yet to be experimented with is sizing the rear portion of the bullet and engraving the forward part at loading somewhat as with a Lee REAL. That could end up being the best system for field use.

[FL-Flinter]

Pre-rifling allows the soft lead to completely fill the barrel with the minimum of expansion and distortion.

Depending upon the chosen mold design and bore diameter this translates into starting out with full length engagement on the casting before ignition.

Just wondering, did you get to copy & paste all the data from my website before I pulled that page down for the updates I'm doing?

Perhaps if you'd have paid a little more attention to the work that I have many years and untold thousands of dollars invested in, maybe you could figure out how to get 135yd groups like this one printed with 490gr FN's in 45cal...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/markkw/ballistics/UH_45c_18t_490gr_135yds.jpg


For those who think I'm coming off a little, or a lot, snotty here, you're dang tootin' I am. I don't mind people talking about my work and my products but it jerks my chain to no end when I see copy & paste without the credit going to the rightful owner of it. So if anyone is interested in my work, please pardon the delays while I get my website updated, would have been done already but when my clients are waiting, the shop work comes first. If you would like to inquire now, feel free to email me mark@fire-iron.biz

Mark Kisenwether
Custom Muzzleloaders & Accoutrements
http://www.fire-iron.biz

[hickstick_10]

your saying you originated the concept of pre engraved bullets?

[Good Cheer]

Just wondering, did you get to copy & paste all the data from my website before I pulled that page down for the updates I'm doing?

Perhaps if you'd have paid a little more attention to the work that I have many years and untold thousands of dollars invested in, maybe you could figure out how to get 135yd groups like this one printed with 490gr FN's in 45cal...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/markkw/ballistics/UH_45c_18t_490gr_135yds.jpg


For those who think I'm coming off a little, or a lot, snotty here, you're dang tootin' I am. I don't mind people talking about my work and my products but it jerks my chain to no end when I see copy & paste without the credit going to the rightful owner of it. So if anyone is interested in my work, please pardon the delays while I get my website updated, would have been done already but when my clients are waiting, the shop work comes first. If you would like to inquire now, feel free to email me mark@fire-iron.biz

Mark Kisenwether
Custom Muzzleloaders & Accoutrements
http://www.fire-iron.biz

Mark Kisenwether,
Never heard of you 'til now.
You're accusation is false.
There is no "cut and paste".
Sorry you're having a bad day.
And while we're not supposed to get religious on forums in this land of the free, the prayer is on it's way.

[Nobade]

On the subject of the #1 muzzleloader, it doesn't have a chamber for the bullet to drop into. Just a breech plug in the back, which takes the 3/4 inch long magnum case heads carrying primers.

The reason this gun was built is a customer wanted a smokeless powder muzzleloader. We ended up with it after he hunted with it for several years and needed to sell it for some reason. Since we built it, he gave us first rights to buy it back. Its other cool feature is the claw mounts for the scope. Back a long time ago, you couldn't have a scope on a muzzleloader. So he carried the scope around in his backpack and used it for a spotting scope that could be attached to the rifle "if the need arose".

As for accuracy, it is quite good. But the recoil does very bad things to your body, and I for one won't shoot it anymore. (500gr. at 2600 fps) It is not nearly as accurate with lighter loads, and the breech setup does not seal properly at lower pressures. If I were to build another like it, I would do some things differently like use 45 acp cases or somesuch to seal better. But in this case, the customer wanted to be able to load it to stupid speeds so it needed to be able to handle the pressure. Luckily, Savage is filling the market for smokeless powder muzzleloaders now so I can steer people to those and not have to do this any more.

[george1980]

thanks good cheer an the rest of you , i have learned a lot reading this and having always been a roundball shooter the concept didnt make much sense untill the explanations came in

[longbow]

Nobade:

Interesting idea.

I can believe you when you say it does bad things to your body!

FL-Flinter:

Nice group!

Longbow

[FL-Flinter]

Good Cheer,

Below is a portion of the text that was on my website until a few days ago, read it then go back and read what you wrote and tell me what conclusion you would draw if you were in my shoes.

If, as you claim, what you wrote are your own thoughts, then I offer an apology with the addendum “great minds think alike”. Understand, I’ve been experimenting and testing all sorts of gun & ammo designs including conicals in ML’s for three decades. Earlier this year some schmuck copy & pasted the data on my Ultra-RVC bedding compound changing nothing more than the product name and editing out the mixing formulas. I was informed of this when he made the mistake of trying to sell plain old kitchen & bath caulk at $50/tube to one of my clients who just happens to be a long-term user of my bedding compound. A few years ago I went through a similar incident with another of my proprietary products that not only cost me a lot of time but also a substantial income loss. Because of my physical issues, I rely on this business to support my family and I will defend my physical and intellectual property accordingly.

Deus vobiscum!
Mark



Pre-Rifled & Rifled On Loading
For those who aren’t into patching bullets with cloth or paper, may I introduce my alternative. While I can’t claim pre-rifling as being “new”, it’s been done before, the difference is in making it work. Pickett bullets are notorious for leading bores and producing heavy cake fowling which means spending more time cleaning than shooting. False muzzles were one answer to issues created by the Pickett bullets but there’s a lot of baggage that comes along with them. False muzzles mean considerably higher start-up costs and having to lug around the false muzzle with you all the time, it also means having to deal with the hassles of using the false muzzle every time you reload and if it gets damaged, you’ve got very costly problems. I did tests with rebated crowns many years before the “QLA” hype hit the gun rags, the method was dismissed as worthless for the same problems that plague the design today and in the past. Rebated crowns will effectively strip a paper patch and makes loading PRB’s without a mallet pretty much impossible. On shooting, gas-cutting of the projectile/patch is quite common and the projectile drags on the un-rifled portion of the bore, both serving only to wreak havoc on accuracy.

Undersize bullets present not only the danger of sliding away from the powder and becoming a bore obstruction but also they also require heavy powder charges to obtrude the bullet into the rifling. Thus, the alternative is pre-rifling by pushing the bullet through a die that is made from a section of the barrel. The die is threaded 7/8”-9 on the outside for use in any standard metallic cartridge reloading press. Die comes with adjustment nut and a special insert for the shell holder slot in the reloading press ram. The second alternative is rifling on loading by utilizing my proprietary rebated base bullets that allow for full bearing surface engagement of the rifling making them a good choice for field use.

Loading a pre-rifled bullet is much the same as a Pickett bullet, index to align the rifling and seat as normal. Pre-rifling allows soft lead bullets to completely fill the grooves with a minimum of expansion and distortion on firing. Excellent accuracy can be obtained even when using light target loads since obtrusion of the bullet isn’t required to engage the rifling. Depending on the chosen bullet mold design and bore diameter this translates into starting out with full engagement of the rifling before ignition of the main charge takes place. Because the lead or paper patch is already filling the rifling grooves, stripping and leading issues common to undersize bullets are eliminated.

Type “M” bores have slightly wider rifling lands to improve patch bearing surface area and are sized to be compatible with both my proprietary molds and components as well as molds and components already being used in ML bores. Type “R” bores have slightly narrower rifling lands that allow for pre-rifling or rifling at the muzzle. Type “R” bores are sized to be compatible with both my molds and components as well as existing BPCR molds and components. (If you see a pattern here that’s because I’m in the gun business, not the gimmick business. If you’re looking for a whole new bullet shooting set-up, I’ll be happy to oblige but if you’re already set-up for shooting ML or BPCR bullets, why should you have to totally re-tool?)

[Good Cheer]

Wow! You've got it all.
I understand your becoming concerned and I am sorry to have been the source.

So, I've been thinking about this project...
by any chance have you worked with making maybe a .47" bore barrel to use paper patched .46" diameter and to load .48" molds pre-rifled?

[hickstick_10]

FL-Flinter.

What concept of your pre-rifled bullet do you exactly claim as proprietary?

Or is it your swaging die thats proprietary?

[ironhead7544]

Years ago someone made a single shot pistol that had a grip resembling the Remington 1858. Had a 38 cal barrel that used hollowbased wadcutters. Came with a rifling tool for the bullets that was a small section of barrel with a lever to push the bullet through. Was very accurate. Havent seen one in many years.

[DIRT Farmer]

Zoli built pistols simular to free pistols that used hollow based wad cutters. I used a piece of barrel to pre rifle regular wad cutters and used card wads under the bullet. It shot better targets than I could hald. This was in the early 70s

[curator]

Wow! Great minds do think alike. I think I would have written this almost exactly word for word:

"Pre-rifling allows soft lead bullets to completely fill the grooves with a minimum of expansion and distortion on firing. Excellent accuracy can be obtained even when using light target loads since obtrusion of the bullet isn’t required to engage the rifling."

Of course I would have written "obturation" instead of "obtrusion." But this is what I experienced using pre-rifled conical bullets in my muzzle loading rifles. I wrote an article on shooting conical bullets in Muzzle Blasts saying this in 1992.

[FL-Flinter]

FL-Flinter.

What concept of your pre-rifled bullet do you exactly claim as proprietary?

Or is it your swaging die thats proprietary?

My barrel spec's and my bullet designs.

[FL-Flinter]

Wow! Great minds do think alike. I think I would have written this almost exactly word for word:

"Pre-rifling allows soft lead bullets to completely fill the grooves with a minimum of expansion and distortion on firing. Excellent accuracy can be obtained even when using light target loads since obtrusion of the bullet isn’t required to engage the rifling."

Of course I would have written "obturation" instead of "obtrusion." But this is what I experienced using pre-rifled conical bullets in my muzzle loading rifles. I wrote an article on shooting conical bullets in Muzzle Blasts saying this in 1992.

Yep. That was part of the reason for updating the page, putting in 12-18 hours a day in the shop before getting to the computer puts a hurting on writing & proof reading. :oops: But thanks for pointing out that gammatical error, if you look closer there's plenty more to point out as well. Like I said, the pre-rifling concept isn't new, it worked pretty good when I was busting woodchucks with a 30cal I built back in '83

[FL-Flinter]

Wow!
So, I've been thinking about this project...
by any chance have you worked with making maybe a .47" bore barrel to use paper patched .46" diameter and to load .48" molds pre-rifled?

Not yet, staying with the primary ones for now until I get things settled with the new u/h actions and some other projects.

[Good Cheer]

Not yet, staying with the primary ones for now until I get things settled with the new u/h actions and some other projects.

Oh, OK. It's just something I've been plotting on...thinking a .47 bore would work with a lot of off the shelf 45-70 type molds for paper patch and maybe the 476-480 type molds for either pre-rifling or sizing the back ends to use as maxi's. Maybe use an L&R replacement drop-in flinter to fit a Renegade. Still haven't figured out the best twist to try.