Slow twist enfield

[bigted]

Hey there. Recently trying to get some kinda accuracy from my Pedersoli 1861 Enfield .577. Shooting pure lead minies from both Lee and Lyman. Ordered .577, .578, .579, from TOW for experimentation and no luck with anything. Powder is Ol E 2F and 3F, from 50 to 65 grain loads.

Instant ignition with both number 11's and musket caps with their respective nipples.

The twist is high 60's to low 70's rifling twist. Definetly not the 48 inch twist.

Grooves are lubed with SPG lube and others with home brew bee wax/Vaseline. No difference.

Something I am missing with this slow twist barrel?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Ted

[Red River Rick]

With that slow twist rate, patched round balls will probably give you the best accuracy. A 1 - 48" twist does work well for Minie's and Conical's.

[bigted]

I do have a few hundred .570 balls on hand. They were my next step. Is that what they fired in the slow twist "TOWER" enfields with this slow twist?

[missionary5155]

Our Navy Arm's Zouave .58 as a 1-60 twist. We tried Mine's in every type and style. 6" at 100 yds was about all we could count on.
Then tried RB ! Bingo... 2.5" at 100 with 3F Goex 65-85 grains.
A .570 RB with 80 grains 3F Goex will go through two does standing side by side at 23 yards with 3 feet between them on a foggy morning.

[Nobade]

Have you measured the bore with pin gauges? It is important that your bullets be no more than .001" smaller than the bore. Those Pedersoli barrels can vary quite a bit.

I would also suggest getting some of the correct Enfield ammo from Brett Gibbons at papercartridges.com to try, since that is what those rifles are made to shoot. The twist rate is not the problem, they will work if fed the right ammo.

[varsity07840]

Is your Enfield is a P1861? If so, it's a two band carbine with 5 grooves. Correct? If correct, it has a 1:48 twist with constant depth rifling, unlike the originals that had progressive depth. A pure lead minie sized .001-.002 under the correctly measured bore size should work fine. I would start with 40 gr of 3F and slowly work your way up. Stick with musket caps. Paper patched Pritchett bullets are very expensive and don't really offer any advantage over a minie other than ease of loading after a long string of shots. Pose your question on the N-SSA website forum. They all shoot typical minies or compression type bulletsin their Enfields and Springfields. There's plenty of info there. www.n-ssa.net.

[dave951]

Hey there. Recently trying to get some kinda accuracy from my Pedersoli 1861 Enfield .577. Shooting pure lead minies from both Lee and Lyman. Ordered .577, .578, .579, from TOW for experimentation and no luck with anything. Powder is Ol E 2F and 3F, from 50 to 65 grain loads.

First off, I'm in the N-SSA as is Carbine.

Never, ever order commercial minies from anybody other than- https://www.lodgewood.com/Bullets_c_7.html The guy who casts for them is a N-SSA member and knows how to cast a quality minie and has a range of types and sizes and the guys at Lodgewood are very knowledgeable on minies as well.

Track is a great round ball company but I've seen far to many problems with their minies to ever trust them on this subject. Whoever is casting for them doesn't know spit about what it takes to cast a good one. I've seen some that were cast from some kind of alloy for "fill out" and while they looked great, they didn't shoot well at all.

Second, never assume your rifle is what the spaghetti manufacturer says it is. You have to have it measured. I've seen them run as large as .584

Third, a slow twist rate is NOT a "round ball" only proposition. Minies can shoot surprisingly well even with a twist as slow as 1:72.

Fourth- Lube? Forget SPG, that's designed for cartridge guns. I use beeswax/lard with added lanolin and dip lube the rings ONLY. Nothing in the base unless you just want to get frustrated chasing random fliers. Vasoline is a petroleum product and a sure fire way to have problems with minies.

Powder is Ol E 2F and 3F, from 50 to 65 grain loads.

Instant ignition with both number 11's and musket caps with their respective nipples.

Old E is a great powder and I used to use it before going over to Swiss. Caps- I'd stick with quality musket caps. RWS or Schuetzen are great. Current production CCI are designed for reenactors shooting blanks and are garbage if you care about consistency and accuracy.

For your next foray, get some good minies from Lodgewood AFTER you measure your barrel. Use 3f and cut the charge to the low 40s and start working up looking for best accuracy. You'll probably find that 3f has the fewest fouling problems v 2f.

The minie was designed as a system. Powder, lube and caps all make a difference as does bullet type and design. Get them right and it's a wonderful thing and that's where the problem lies. There is lots of internet misinformation on these guns.

But what would us N-SSA guys know-

[Jackrabbit1957]

That really sounds like a round ball barrel, I would start with 65 grains of powder and see what it does, work your way up in powder charge until you get best accuracy. That slow twist may not work so well with a heavy bullet. Good example is an old trapdoor Springfield I have, doesn't like the 405 gr bullets, it likes a 250 gr pistol bullet. It has a slower twist than my rolling block that loves anything above 350 grns.

[bigted]

Thanks fella's. Gives me some food for thought/experimentation. Love the rifle.

I am determined to discover its needs. Guess I have never "slugged" the bore. Took it for correct in the stamped "577" on the barrel. Guess I better slug it to insure exactly what I have here.

Nother thing I guess I am surprised at is hearing that TOW does not sell quality minies.

Any rate thanks fella's for your suggestions experience and support. Like I said lots to consider and try out.

[varsity07840]

Thanks fella's. Gives me some food for thought/experimentation. Love the rifle.

I am determined to discover its needs. Guess I have never "slugged" the bore. Took it for correct in the stamped "577" on the barrel. Guess I better slug it to insure exactly what I have here.

Nother thing I guess I am surprised at is hearing that TOW does not sell quality minies.

Any rate thanks fella's for your suggestions experience and support. Like I said lots to consider and try out.

You don't need to slug the bore. Take it to a machine shop that has a pin gauge set and have them measure it. Or you can buy individual ones within the expected diameter range and measure it yourself. I agree about the quality of store bought minies.

[dave951]

You can get pin gauges on Amazon for about $5ea and you only need .575 .577 .579 .581

[dave951]

then theres blokes like Dave pop their head up and show us one hole groups shot at 100yards with minies in these slow twist barrels - they must know something cuz they keep doin it - so I would pick his brain till it bleeds for the right info and follow it to the letter cuz for every Dave thats done it I can find you four or five that sent their 72 twist gun down the road at a loss out of utter frustration at their lack of success. There must be something special with the design of minies that got lost in the translation.

There's no real magic to this and I haven't been hiding how it's done and yes, there are many designs and weights of minies available. You have to experiment and there is no "magic" mold that will work in all guns. I can't tell you the number of people that will defend a cheap Lee mold and then say their minie gun won't shoot. There are other mold makers that make molds that cast minie designs that work. The other thing I find odd is the resistance to measuring a bore size. This is a critical part of getting this right. Past that, many muskets found on the open market are ones abused by reenactors. Constant blank firing in reenactments is very bad for the rifling down in the chamber area and many reenactors are sloppy about cleaning.

So for those who think we shoot "light" loads, yup, 42g 3f sounds light compared to 60g 2f service charge BUT 3f is burned quicker than 2f yielding more power per measured "grain" and often less fouling. Think about why 4f isn't used in many rifles. So a 42g charge of 3f Swiss is about the same as a 55g charge of 2f Goex. A 450g minie will exit the barrel at about 1k fps. If you want to get wrapped up in the kinetic energy numbers, it's about double a 44mag.

But back to powder and burn rates. Unlike smokeless, quality black powder like Swiss or Old E has ONE burn rate. The variable that is controlled is the size of the individual granules of powder and that changes the amount of surface area available upon ignition. Less surface area exposed on ignition (ie 2f v 3f) means longer to burn the amount of powder in the chamber. The only other variable here is the percussion cap. A quality musket cap like RWS will have much better ignition qualities than CCI reenactor caps due to pressure and power. Similarly, a musket cap will always have better ignition power than a #11. The very ignition qualities of 3f v 2f can affect the sealing ability of the skirt on the minie. With a quicker pressure rise of 3f, the minie skirt will seat almost before the gas overcomes the inertia of the bullet.

[carbine]

I'm late to this thread. Yes, I agree with Dave on how to achieve accuracy with these guns. FWIW I picked up two Pedersoli Muskets this year for teammates. Both measured 0.582. One feller who had it was using .574 minies and complaining of a 20 inch group. That was an Easy fix. Havent worked up the other yet. My experience is that they will all shoot but you have to find out what each one likes

[varsity07840]

ok theres a few tips to get me back to work on it
1) previous owner converted to no 11 caps - I am in process of making a conversion nipple to use 209 primers so some extra impetus for that (musket caps unobtanium here at the moment - an issue of transportation rather than lack of supply)
2) 40 grains of FFF huh ? been shooting 65 to 90 grains FF thats an easy try
3) definitely NOT a stuffed up re-enactor gun - this n is in top condition (Zoli mississippi rifle)
4) no have not measured it

When I first went to work with it - tried the minie mold that came with it (LEE I think) then a couple of (expensive) traditional style minies that work fine in my sons 2 band Enfield - got tired of that and tried some roundball - Bingo!! we have a shooter - 562 ball + 2 inch drill patch + moose milk lube - easy peasy
Did I need another round ball gun - not really - Got a mob of those already - but I tapped the tang for a peep sight and wrung that thing out as good as I could - in the end parked it half inclined to put a decent front sight on and shoot it open class - still might happen, the gun is good enough to bring home the bacon, depends if I can learn to shoot it better .

All that said I will stick with my original premise that the 48 twist guns are about 100 times easier to get going with minies at least for most shooters - not saying the 1:72 wont do it just ....its not near as easy -- if it was only me I would give in but plenty more blokes have the same headaches and dont have em with the two bander .

I will get it sorted but proly be back to annoy you again
cheers
joe

You're shooting a 2 band rifle with a shorter barrel than a rifle musket with a 1:72 twist. The shorter barrel needs a faster twist for the projectile to get enough spin in the shorter time in the barrel. Dan Whitacre makes great rifle musket barrels. His barrels are highly sought after by serious shooters including countless N-SSA skirmishers. He makes them one way. 3 lands and grooves, progressive depth rifling. 1:72 twist. Bob Hoyt will make just about any twist rate you want but 1:72 is the predominate one in rifle musket length barrels. Years ago, I built a Richmond carbine from original parts and sent him the 25" barrel for a reline. He strongly suggested a 1:48 twist for such a short barrel and he was right. That's for a short barreled gun. My original .58 cal Mississippi has the same barrel length as you Zoli but it's 1:56. It shoots one big hole at 50 yards with the RCBS Hodgdon minie. Longer barrel than the Richmond, slower twist.

[dave951]

One other mistake armchair ballisticians make is to use the Greenhill formula as gospel. It's not. Lots of folks get wrapped up over "paper ballistics" but there is this thing called reality that often shows something completely different. I was reading a forum post on the Billy Dixon shot where a group of techie types decided to conduct an experiment after finishing their official work with a gov radar. They were tracking various projectiles in flight and after the official stuff, they broke out some historic stuff. Well, the nerds calculated there was no way a 45/70 could reach as far as Dixon's shot. Much to their amazement, not only could it reach, it could go much further and the radar provided proof.

[varsity07840]

ahhhhh can we do some of this again
--- spin (speed of rotation) is a product of exit velocity and twist rate - yes?
--- so the only effect that barrel length has here is in changing velocity - right?
--- have a chrono have not tested

my Zoli is a 72 twist - or as close as I can measure thats it - 32" barrel

If Dave and co were shooting 100grain loads in these slow guns the whole twist rate thing would make sense to me - we played that game years ago shooting LEE minies in 66 twist CVA barrels - if you could push them hard enough and not blow the skirt they would shoot fine - but soft loads failed because we didnt get sufficient rotation (spin was too slow to stabilise) ----but these guys are shooting soft loads that puts twist theory on its head so there is something else

so that all points to something in the inflight dynamics of the minies that work that is not well understood ? would not be the first time those old timers fooled us. I am not the one to shine a scientifc light on this - the minute I find a combo that works I will quit experimenting and go shoot !

Bottom line, targets don't lie.

[dave951]

Quit trying to overthink this and accept that we might be on to something-






And from a "paper cutter" Sharps 1863

[Nobade]

C'mon guys, the failure of light 2f loads isn't the twist rate it's the failure to generate enough pressure to seal the bore. That's why N-SSA guys use 3f. It's burn rate most closely approximates RFG, the standard musket powder in use then. They have this stuff figured out as Dave's targets attest to. And Burton type bullets (Minie' to everybody else) have the center of gravity way ahead of the center of pressure so they fly like a shuttlecock. That's why they don't need a super fast twist. If you fired a solid bullet of the same length in a 1:72 barrel it wouldn't be accurate. You can bet the top arms designers at the time knew what they were doing and were not going to equip their armies with something that didn't work. They still work if they are fed the proper ammunition. Just take the time to learn how to manage your rifles.

[Good Cheer]

From the US government study done in the 1850's the slower twists were found to provide more accurate shooting than faster twists because the rifling imprints on the exterior of the spinning bullet created a sideways thrust. As if to say a counter-clockwise spin pushed the descending bullet to the left. The longer the range and the more the forward momentum of the bullet slowed then the greater the effect. Slower twist meant less side push as did fewer rifling grooves, hence the use of the lowest odd number of grooves.

About minie designs, something else they figured out in the study was that the lube grooves themselves lended as assist in keeping the hollow based bullets flying straight due to imparted drag. As was touched upon up-thread a ways, it's a weapons system, designed for each part to correctly interact within the system. Some of the minie guns were designed to use rifling grooves of tapered depth that initially provided efficient cutting of paper jackets and then swage the bullet down until exiting the bore to ward off gas cutting from more powerful powder charges behind a heavy bullet.

Another finding was that the 700 plus grain .69 caliber minies were more accurate than the .58's.

My hats off to the long range marksmen who proved that!

[dave951]

not overthinking Dave
I found a bloke with a proper mold and got some good minies to try - they a slick fit in my clean bore maybe a tad too neat but think we can handle it
plenty FFFg powder so thats easy
just need a break in the weather so we can set down and try it

Dave you blokes that know this stuff think because its simple (to you) the fellers that dont have it figured are dumb ....I have fell into the same way of thinking around guys that struggle with round ball guns, cant imagine why such a simple thing could cause them trouble

I don't think that folks who don't have this figured out are dumb, BUT what many are is hard headed and don't (or refuse to) listen to sound advice from those of us who have extensive experience with these guns. These same hard headed people then pop back onto the net with their negative experiences and promulgate erroneous information and that keeps the misinformation machine going.

While the North South Skirmish Association is about 70yr old, many do not know about us. We've been competing with Civil War arms and since competition is a crucible for accuracy, we take the time to find out what works. Our loads are not "light" nor "mouse farts". There is a pressure window where the minie system shines and just like modern arms, it's often not at the top end but a bit below it. In a minie system, a light load is actually inaccurate as the bullet doesn't sufficiently expand to grip the rifling before it starts moving. But back to the "light" load thing, 3f uses about 10% less powder than 2f and while the pressure is essentially the same, it reaches that point more quickly meaning the bullet is sealed to the rifling quicker ie before it starts moving forward. In the world of black powder, just as back in the day, not all powder is created equal. The top shooters of minies will almost always be found to be using Swiss or Old E. Cheaper grades of powder don't reach pressure as fast nor do they burn "cleaner". In fact, cheaper powders are less energetic and have more fouling, both undesirable characteristics for shooting minies. Caps have an effect on this so switching to lower pressure #11s or using weak CCI reenactor caps are both detrimental to the system working as designed. While they will ignite a powder charge, you won't find anyone who is a serious competition shooter using them for a reason.

So while it may seem we think some are "dumb" when it comes to minies. The reality is we've been there, done that, got medals and know what we're about and while we have no problems sharing what works, many of us have grown weary of not being listened to or dismissed as not being "historic".