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The Pritchett bullet
The Pritchett bullet, as used in the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musket, is said to be the epitome of the perfect bullet for the muzzle loading combat arm of the time. Wow! Sounds like something awesome. I have looked at the NOE mold for the bullet and plug and was thinking about swaging it like the original was. However, after contacting Dave Corbin, the lead time is now 12 months. Which is pretty much forever. This bullet, as cast by the NOE mold, is plain-sided, has no lube grooves, is a hollow base, is .566 and 674 grains. Dave says this can be done in one die but would take the Mega-Mite press at $1,400.00 and the die would be $678.00
I really don't have a problem with the price of either. But I have an older RCE Walnut Hill press and I'm wondering if that would work. It is threaded for 1-1/2x12, which I think the Corbin dies are threaded for. I believe they are "H" dies. I can always check this. What I really would like to out there is....
Is there anyone else out there capable of making the Pritchett .566, 674gr NLG, hollow base bullet die? And...I'm wondering if the Walnut Hill is enough press to handle the job?
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In case you would like to shoot some before buying dies, Paper Cartridges has bought the swaging setup and is going to offer them for sale as soon as he gets home from being deployed overseas next month.
https://www.papercartridges.com/pritchett-bullets.html
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Given the cost of a the tools to make them it seem smart to just order them. You have to shoot a couple thousand of them to be cost effective.
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The “H” dies will not fit the Walnut Hill press. The “H” die specs are different.
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I've been in contact with the author of the books and the website about the "English Bullet". I'm probably going down the rabbit hole and ordering the Corbin setup. I'm not doing this for economic sense. Weirdly enough I'm a trained historian that also happens to have had firearms as a hobby since my father first told me about them.
The Pattern 1851 Enfield barrel had 3-grooves in a 1-72" twist and progressive depth rifling. I've heard of progressive or gain twist rifling, which was quite common in the 19th century, but I was unfamiliar with "progressive depth" rifling. Apparently, progressive depth rifling is deeper at the breach of the barrel and gets shallower at the muzzle. It was said to give superior accuracy at higher powder charges/velocities as well as being easier to clean. This seems to hold true when both custom reproduction barrels and original P53 Enfields, were tested against modern reproduction examples with constant depth rifling. There could be many other factors to explain this but that is one of them.
The combination of this .550 paper patched projectile in a .577 diameter bore rifle, with the above-described rifling, worked so well it's almost a pity the metallic cartridge came along so quickly on its heels.
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Its been a while since I found an interesting thread. This one is great!!!, thanks for sharing the video and all the info
