Modern Whitworth rifled musket accuracy

Good day all,

Was wondering what kind of accuracy Whitworth shooters shooting modern reproduction Whitworths have achieved? FWIW, I have read most/all of the historical data on the Whitworth. Looking for modern examples. Do you see differences in the Whitworths made by Parker Hale, Euroarms, Pedersoli in accuracy? Quality? Do you find the elaborate loading rituals some describe (loading tubes, ramroad pressure when loading,various kinds of wads, etc.) make an substantial accuracy difference?

I think we have all heard of the Confederate sharpshooters using Whitworths. However, I wonder if they went through elaborate loading rituals in combat? Seems to me I read somewhere that the rifles came with some British made paper cartridges, somewhat similar to the P1853 Enfields.

Thanks

Here's a Whitworth cartridge. As to modern accuracy I can't help, I just like like shooting six side holes.

Watch papercartridges on YouTube. Brett Gibbons, who makes swaged hexagonal bullets, is a poster here. He makes the very special cartridges too. His excellent movies will answer many of your questions.

The general consensus is that nothing comes near the Parker-Hale version. Opinions and experiences with the Pedersoli versions differ widely.

I've had two Parker-Hales since 1986, the older is from 1980, and the workmanship is exemplary in every respect - particularly the barrel blacking which is almost matchless on a mass-produced firearm. Remember that this rifle is forty-six years old -



Friend Dungspreader, formerly of this site and late of British Columbia, had hair-raising and expensive experiences with his Pedersoli, and TBH the only one I've actually seen for real was a real run-away-now job, especially given the high cost here in UK. The Euroarms version, made for the most part with P-H barrels up about 14,000 seem reasonable enough. One I see at our range has beautiful wood but the owner struggles to hit the backstop. It worked fine for me, however. As ever, the 'nut behind the butt' needed some adjustment, that's all.

David Minshall here, from the Muzzleloading Association of Great Britain, and friends Fleener and dave951 are THE resident experts on this finicky shooter, but in general the Lyman 535gr multi-groove cylindro-conoidal bullet will shoot as well as the extremely costy-to-buy hexagonal items. This style of bullet acts like a compression bullet and bumps up into the hexagonal shape we know and love - mostly. Paper-patching works, too. More an art than pure science, that too may lead to much hair-tearing, but less cleaning, although the general advice is to wipe the bore AFTER loading, but before shooting to offer the bullet the cleanest route out. As ever, opinions on that differ from shooter to shooter. The best results are obtained via long experimentation with your particular rifle - which WILL be different to mine, and his, and his and his.

Mine likes 70 - 80gr of Swiss #4 - 1.5Fg - for plinking. You can happily shoot 900 yards with a 90gr load and the issue sights, but whether or not you can hit anything out there is moot. Most people fit spiffy tang sights, like those from Soule or Montana Vintage Arms - figure on $600 -700 on top of the basic cost for them.

Try and find a REAL Parker-Hale version with a serial number less than 10,000. They will generally be well-looked after and little shot, mainly for the reasons you've noted. P-H never actually MADE 10,000 - that is the extent of the full range of P-H repros and the Whitworths will all be in there somewhere - my current rifle is 420 from 1980.

After 10,000 or so, and the sale of all the P-H assets to Euroarms in Iddly, things got complicated, as all the P-H-made parts ran out. The genuine P-H barrels of all kinds ran out at around 14,000, but may be found marked Parker-Hale Birmingham, but with Italian proof stamps and breech plugs. Confusingly, even a few of Pedersoli's early rifles are like that.

And after that they are totally Italian-made, lock, stock and barrel. In my experience the Euroarms versions - all-Italian-made - are very nicely put together and can work well. I've never seen a Pedersoli WW in action, but from reading comments here it seems that the QC can vary alarmingly on a >$2000 rifle. The example that I saw here in UK brought a whole new world of meaning to the description 'plain as a pikestaff', and I was substantially less than impressed. In all my seventy-one years of shooting, I've never seen a less-figured piece of wood on a rifle at any price, let alone that demanded by the dealer for this example. It really did look like the wood on my Red Ryder of blesséd memory, but with less figure. So if you are buying, then you'd really HAVE to handle ANY rifle you intend to own.

And please read the archive back-numbers here - they ARE extensive, to say the least.

I'll no doubt be reminded that the replications to NOT copy the Whitworth rifles that went to the CSA during the Civil War. The real things were only two banders, similar in length to the P58 rifle. None were ever smoothbore, so they were never described as muskets.

And if you get a minute, take a look at this post from the archive - it's me and my latest and oldest P-W rifle with a few useful posts and lots of comments from stage left - Parker-Hale Whitworth - 1st shot and lookie-round...

Here's a 200m group shot a while back with 80gr of 2Fg, and as dave951 notes, the bullet holes are clearly hexagonal - this from what started off as a round bullet.

Way back when I had a ph I used a long brass drop tube to ensure all of the powder was at the breech. I used a round over powder card (formed around a .40 dowel to start it) a thick wool greased patch and the hexagonal bullet. It was a bit of a pain in the butt but man, did it shoot well. It’s no different really from loading long range centerfire target loads. If you want the rifle to perform, you have to be ultra precise and consistent in loading and, of course, shooting. It had Lyman blocks silversoldered and used a 20x targetspot (heresy, I know) but at the 600m range I was using, my best group ( still air, warm afternoon so no thermal loft) was 7 1/4 inches. Always less than 10” unless it got breezy ( and we won’t talk about those groups…). The Parker hale was a fine shooter if you did your part.

I remember reading somewhere, that the Parker Hale rifled muskets had an inletting issue, and some folks did some work to the barrel channel to improve the fit. Has anyone had to do this with your Whitworths (any brand)?

Another question; Do the repro Whitworths have patent breeches? That is, is the breech area smaller in diameter that the bore itself? If so, have you found special ways to clean that area?

1. They are NOT 'muskets', they are rifles. A musket is a smooth-bore military long arm for the rank and file soldiery et al.

2. Some Parker-Hale barrel channels were less than round, due to the design of the cutters used to rout them out. A few minutes work with a piece of broom handle and suitable grade of sandpaper will fix that.

3. Most of us here understand the term 'patent breech', and Parker-Hale adopted an unusual multi-part breech design, but in general you could say that the form was that of a high-pressure patent breech.




It needs a GOOD cleaning after shooting, that's for sure, but then any high-quality target rifle deserves to be coddled. However, I know nothing of the breech design of any Italian version.

TFoley said:

1. They are NOT 'muskets', they are rifles. A musket is a smooth-bore military long arm for the rank and file soldiery et al.

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I think you are perhaps being a bit over prescriptive here Tag! The term "Rifle Musket" was in official use in UK and I don't think it was ever that specific...

I believe Parker Hale had access to a set of original Woolwich guages for their initial production of P53 and other reproductions. I do know that original PH parts do fit the guage set now at the Royal Armouries at Leeds, although they use modern threads rather than the notorious Enfield threads (apart from the one on the end of the ramrod). PH adopted the Enfield P53 ramrod thread for their range of cleaning rods and accessories. Getting taps and dies for this thread is almost impossible unless you make your own!

Making taps is not that difficult, but making dies (and heat treating them) is hard core!

I have never seen a Whitworth rifle described as a 'musket' - perhaps somebody more erudite than I can confirm it or not. To me, the label from the maker says it all -



Parker-Hale 'borrowed' the original set of jigs and gauges used to built the tooling for the Pattern 53 back in the late 1970s'. They were in a fitted chest. I was actually paying a visit to the MoD Pattern Room, as it was then called, at ROF Nottingham when they were very grudgingly returned. For some reason, Parker-Hale were VERY reticent about handing them back, in spite of them tottering on the brink of dissolution, and increasingly urgent requests were finalised by threats, and a stern reminder that the sealed pattern parts were NOT in the public commercial domain, but were the property of HM Government. Herbie Woodend, the much-missed curator and saviour of the collection, and I, sat down together and counted all the parts against the lists to make sure nothing was missing. Checking them off against the original hand-written pages was a real privilege, never to be repeated.

The gauges were made in the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock. Woolwich Arsenal was the home of the Royal Artillery, not the infantry.

I have PH Whitworth #191 made in 1978. I love it but it frustrates me no end.

I think the Whitworth legends are just that; legends. There’s a good reason why it wasn’t adopted into British military service…because it’s too fiddly. It has to be loaded so carefully and cleaned very thoroughly between every shot to get the “legendary“ accuracy from it.

I won’t give up on it, but for almost 2 years now I’ve been struggling to develop a load and get it to shoot.

TFoley said:

I have never seen a Whitworth rifle described as a 'musket' - perhaps somebody more erudite than I can confirm it or not. To me, the label from the maker says it all -

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Parker-Hale 'borrowed' the original set of jigs and gauges used to built the tooling for the Pattern 53 back in the late 1970s'. They were in a fitted chest. I was actually paying a visit to the MoD Pattern Room, as it was then called, at ROF Nottingham when they were very grudgingly returned. For some reason, Parker-Hale were VERY reticent about handing them back, in spite of them tottering on the brink of dissolution, and increasingly urgent requests were finalised by threats, and a stern reminder that the sealed pattern parts were NOT in the public commercial domain, but were the property of HM Government. Herbie Woodend, the much-missed curator and saviour of the collection, and I, sat down together and counted all the parts against the lists to make sure nothing was missing. Checking them off against the original hand-written pages was a real privilege, never to be repeated.

The gauges were made in the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock. Woolwich Arsenal was the home of the Royal Artillery, not the infantry.

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Not suggesting for a moment that you should refer to a Whitworth as a musket, but to say that the term musket should only be used to describe a smoothbore I do contest...!

Ah.. Sackville Street! I did my first degree at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology which occupies the site of Whitworth's factory. I also met my wife in the "Swinging Sporran" which was a pub in Sackville St! (...and the world gets smaller!)

Herb is certainly missed and would, I suspect, not be impressed with the current location and access to his beloved collection! There is a guage set on show in the main museum at Leeds, but I'm not sure if it is the same set that PH had. I referred to the set as a "Woolwich Set" not because they were made there, but because all weapon guages were certified by Woolwich, which is where the Master General of Ordnance was based and from where all the guage sets were managed by what became the QA branch of the Board of Ordnance. I used to have to send all my Ammuntion Guages there for inspection and certification after they had been used a specified number of times. Nothing to do with the RA depot at Woolwich, which is on the other side of the road from the Arsenal..

Felix the Cat said:

Not suggesting for a moment that you should refer to a Whitworth as a musket, but to say that the term musket should only be used to describe a smoothbore I do contest...!

Ah.. Sackville Street! I did my first degree at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology which occupies the site of Whitworth's factory. I also met my wife in the "Swinging Sporran" which was a pub in Sackville St! (...and the world gets smaller!)

Herb is certainly missed and would, I suspect, not be impressed with the current location and access to his beloved collection! There is a guage set on show in the main museum at Leeds, but I'm not sure if it is the same set that PH had. I referred to the set as a "Woolwich Set" not because they were made there, but because all weapon guages were certified by Woolwich, which is where the Master General of Ordnance was based and from where all the guage sets were managed by what became the QA branch of the Board of Ordnance. I used to have to send all my Ammuntion Guages there for inspection and certification after they had been used a specified number of times. Nothing to do with the RA depot at Woolwich, which is on the other side of the road from the Arsenal..

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Thank for the elucidacement! Herbie loathed officialdom of any hue, and left them in no doubt of it. I 'found' a couple of very interesting pieces for him in the near-chaos that took place after the great betrayal in 1996/7, and he was kind enough to take two of my more interesting pistols, too, both of which are accessible thanks to Messrs Murray-Flutter and Jonathan Ferguson. I might go and visit with them one day, who knows?

I still wanta know how big a musk was.

Thinking out loud about military use of small bore muzzleloaders such as the Whitworth rifles, could prefabbed paper cartridges have included sufficient lubed wads as to delay stoppages during battles?
I shoot a .458" bored (.470" groove diameter, 24" twist) TC New Englander percussion rifle set up for loading as-cast from medium weight 45-70 molds in the 400 to 450 range. It has more in common with an 1873 Springfield than the 1861.

Something I never tried was to see how long I could keep shooting without cleaning, like maybe card wads followed by a couple of thick felts full of beeswax based lube under the bullets. It could be an interesting field experiment to explore the practicality of such a short but powerful arm in a military application. If it could have worked I think it's something that got passed up in the arms races.

nkbj said:

I still wanta know how big a musk was.

Thinking out loud about military use of small bore muzzleloaders such as the Whitworth rifles, could prefabbed paper cartridges have included sufficient lubed wads as to delay stoppages during battles?
I shoot a .458" bored (.470" groove diameter, 24" twist) TC New Englander percussion rifle set up for loading as-cast from medium weight 45-70 molds in the 400 to 450 range. It has more in common with an 1873 Springfield than the 1861.
View attachment 217372
Something I never tried was to see how long I could keep shooting without cleaning, like maybe card wads followed by a couple of thick felts full of beeswax based lube under the bullets. It could be an interesting field experiment to explore the practicality of such a short but powerful arm in a military application. If it could have worked I think it's something that got passed up in the arms races.

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The Whitworth rifle was never reallyenvisaged as a battle rifle. In trial with the British Army it proved to be too slow to load and finicky for use in the same way as an ordinary muzzleloading longarm. Instead, it was only used in combat during your civil war and by selected marksman, in slow time, as befits a sharpshooter about his craft.

At the time that the Whitworth was in use in conflict, most everybody else was shooting a .58cal or .577cal bullet of the Burton design. The Whitworth paper cartridges, if you watch Brett Gibbons' fascinating Youtube movie, are amazingly complex and time-consuming to produce, but nevertheless seem to have been VERY practical.

Yes, the Whitworth system wasn't revised to make it viable for a battle rifle. Like I said, if it could have worked I think it's something that got passed up in the arms races. Some day perhaps I'll explore those possibilities with cards and lube wads in my own muzzleloading analog to a 1873 Springfield carbine, the .458" bored (.470" groove diameter, 24" twist) TC New Englander percussion rifle. Also there's a .520" bore flintlock with 28" twist that I'd like to test out with a smooth sided paper patch mold.

Frod733 said:

Do you find the elaborate loading rituals some describe (loading tubes, ramroad pressure when loading,various kinds of wads, etc.) make an substantial accuracy difference?

. . . Seems to me I read somewhere that the rifles came with some British made paper cartridges, somewhat similar to the P1853 Enfields.

Click to expand...

In regards to long range muzzle loading target rifles, I seldom see the loading tube used. It's another step in the process that can go wrong unless care is taken (clog up and not let all/any powder through). Loading pressure, just be consistent with what you do. In fact the more elaborate you make the loading process the harder it will be to maintain consistency and the more likely errors in loading will occur.

The Whitworth cartridges similar to those of the P.53 Enfield were associated with the Government troop trials of the mid-1860s. Whitworth had his own Patent Cartridge. I have original loading instructions on my web site.

TFoley said:

Watch papercartridges on YouTube. Brett Gibbons, who makes swaged hexagonal bullets, is a poster here. . .

Most people fit spiffy tang sights, like those from Soule or Montana Vintage Arms. . .

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Brett makes swaged cylindrical Whitworth bullets of the form made for the British troop trials.

If 'spirit of the original' / period correct is of concern, then the American Soule sight post-dates the British Whitworth rifle by two decades.

Widows Son said:

I think the Whitworth legends are just that; legends. There’s a good reason why it wasn’t adopted into British military service…because it’s too fiddly. It has to be loaded so carefully and cleaned very thoroughly between every shot to get the “legendary“ accuracy from it.

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Much of today's legends weren't borne out by British troop trials - one regiment reporting from India in 1866 wrote "At conclusion of fouling trial rifles examined, and on sponging out accumulation of fouling was very trifling.” Another from South Africa wrote "Throughout the trial no difficulty was experienced in loading, there being no more fouling in the rifle on the last day than on the first." From Ireland "These rifles I consider superior to the ordinary Enfield, and well suited to the British soldier." Of course, there were other Regiments that found issue.

Irrespective of any consensus of opinion being reached at the time, the decision was finally settled by the universal adoption of breech loaders.

David

Been away with an accident. If the Confederate sharpshooters were so legendary with their accuracy, surely they did not do the meticulous loading procedures we often do today. So then, how much does what we do in such detail make that amount of difference? I am not a long range shooter, max 200 yards. As someone mentioned, Whitworth developed a paper cartridge of his own, so given Bretts experience with loading a .577 paper cartridge, would the Whitworth paper cartridge be that much different?

Frod733 said:

As someone mentioned, Whitworth developed a paper cartridge of his own, so given Bretts experience with loading a .577 paper cartridge, would the Whitworth paper cartridge be that much different?

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One of Whitworth’s cartridges is shown in the 2nd post of this discussion (although pictured upside down). When placed at the muzzle, the tab is pulled to release the powder, then the bullet and wad, that are contained within the card tube, are simply pushed through. No reversing the cartridge as the .577 Enfield. The British Govt. issued Whitworth rifles for trial broadly 1864-67 - the Royal Laboratory cartridges were similar to those of the .577 Enfield arms.

David

Thanks. I guess what I was wondering if our present methods for meticulous loading provides substantially improved accuracy over the Whitworth designed paper cartridge.

I think the careful loading of individual component parts will have benefits in performance over the military expedient of cartridges. I don’t have any empirical data to back that up. Cartridges don’t feature in UK muzzle loading rifle competition - either at short range or extended ranges, .577 or .451.

Whether you’re muzzle loading, loading black powder cartridge rifle or smokeless centre fire rifle, meticulous loading practices will bring benefits in eliminating variables. They needn’t be onerous and in terms of muzzle loading aren’t doing anything different from riflemen on the range in the 19thC.

You can spend time meticulously making cartridges before heading to the range, perhaps for no gain, or load carefully on the range. Entirely depends how you want to enjoy your shooting.

David