How did the bore diameters like say .54 become established ?

M. De Land said:

I was pondering this question and wondering how these what seems like random bore diameters became established. Was .54 established from freshing out original bore diameters in 50 cal. a time or two ? I would think original calibers would have started life in even tenths as in 30 cal bore becoming .32 and .36 when freshed out, 40s becoming .42 and.44 and .50s becoming .53 and .54, 60s becoming .62 and etc.
I've read original Hawkens were often made in .52 and .53 when measured but this too could have been freshed out measurements taken of original guns in modern times.
The freshing out process does not require a rifling machine as one is reaming out the corroded/eroded bore and using whats left of original grooves to track the scraper in making them deeper into fresh metal. As most rifling was originally quite deep (.012 and deeper) by modern standards, it is conceivable/ likely that these new calibers would be established and when advantage was experienced in their usage of power, efficiency and accuracy they could have became established sought after calibers cut in new/original barrels.
As a side note it must be remembered that as far as Hawken rifles go many were made in calibers smaller than .50 before the brothers moved to St. Louis.

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I think you are right there.54 barrels just seem to happen when the reamer refreshed a .5 worn out note Or moulds got bigger so it was either make a new mould or ream the bore. I don’t suppose the average gunsmilth used a micrometer just a pair of callipers , and what is 040” between friends

The only case of legislation was when the .45 rifle and bullet were banned in India, The result was the British etc. made them .470

In later years the British developed the 14 g martini shotgun for Egypt , but it was clearly to stop locals using illegal 12 bore cartridges

It’s just history. I’ll go with refreshed warn out .500 barrels. No such thing as .54 this side of the pond . And not a continental calibre like 10.4 mm

There’s just no reason to make a .54 bore

Interesting thought

Warm fay

I have a Sharps 1859 conversion carbine with original paper patch barrel. They were listed as .52 cal. but when the breech blocks were replaced with the 50-70 breech blocks, they became 50 Govt. Bore is .515". Reproduction guns in 50-70 Govt tend to run .510 bores.

32 balls to the pound for .32 cal then 50 balls to the pound for .50 would mean the 50 cal bore is much smaller then the 32??

Yes, I always thought that it was based on the number of balls to the pound too. When they studied numerous different calibers the popular calibers came out in whole bullet number increments no fractional numbers.

Reference: https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=30212.0

M. De Land said:

Does Hoyt consider breech plug diameter as a limiting factor or only barrel diameter when boring and re-rifling to a new caliber ?

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Yes, I recently had a customer who wanted his .40 smoothbore original into a .50 rifled barrel but the breech plug was just barely large enough to allow it taken out to .45. There was plenty of barrel thickness but would have had to make and fit a whole new patten breech.

Many originals were provided a ball mold specifically sized for that rifle and outside of military arms there was little standardization. Even today I have 6 commercially produced .54's that range from .530 to .558 but all are marked .54 and made by leading suppliers.

Get yourself a Dixie Gun Works catalog. The back section has all kinds of interesting charts in it.
Hours and hours of good reading.
It has charts of balls per pound and the corresponding bore size for smoothbore and rifles.
It's always good to have reference material like that on hand.

yellowhammer said:

Like Tumbledown said.

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Thanks for straightening that out. Gauge, not caliber. I was scratching my head. The 50 balls cast from a pound of lead would necessarily be smaller than 30 balls cast from a pound of lead, yet a .30 cal bore is much smaller than a .50 cal bore. I was scratching my head and with as little hair as I have left, that's never a good thing.

M. De Land said:

Does Hoyt consider breech plug diameter as a limiting factor or only barrel diameter when boring and re-rifling to a new caliber ?

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Mulemauler said:

Yes, I recently had a customer who wanted his .40 smoothbore original into a .50 rifled barrel but the breech plug was just barely large enough to allow it taken out to .45. There was plenty of barrel thickness but would have had to make and fit a whole new patten breech.

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I was wondering if these random bore diameters did not become standardized in modern times more from the repair end than from the mass production end of the chain. I was guessing that caliber genius would have begun in even tenths because of our (imperial) measuring system in thousands of an inch rather than Millimeters.
I would think one would want to re- use an already bored barrel that is re-breeched , bored out and rifled on the frontier rather than order a brand new tube if it was salvageable. I know for sure that would be my approach.
The mills of course would be driven by and responding to customer demand then as now.
The mold end of the equation was also an ingredient in the mix I had not considered as they are not particularly and easy proposition even when boring conicals in a lathe and lapping them out.
Making a ball cherry is much more envolved than turning a conical nose cutter and boring out the body and grease grooves.

M. De Land said:

I was wondering if these random bore diameters did not become standardized in modern times more from the repair end than from the mass production end of the chain. I was guessing that caliber genius would have begun in even tenths because of our (imperial) measuring system in thousands of an inch rather than Millimeters.
I would think one would want to re- use an already bored barrel that is re-breeched , bored out and rifled on the frontier rather than order a brand new tube if it was salvageable. I know for sure that would be my approach.
The mills of course would be driven by and responding to customer demand then as now.
The mold end of the equation was also an ingredient in the mix I had not considered as they are not particularly and easy proposition even when boring conicals in a lathe and lapping them out.
Making a ball cherry is much more envolved than turning a conical nose cutter and boring out the body and grease grooves.

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Coffee in morning sun. We all left one thing out . That is what period in history are we talking about. I guess 1775. As by 1855 bores were becoming military standardised like 577 and the brown Bess pointed to standardisation around 1790’to 1820. However local USA town gunsmiths had to make barrels by hand beating and coiling a strip of iron . Then making a reamer around .5” or there abouts to smooth out the bore . Long as the patched lead ball fitted that’s all that mattered. Can you really believe a client in 1870 would be discussing .5 or .540. .357 magnum. Etc. He would day I want a small bore for animals or a big one for bear. Most of us have seen the utube on gun making at Williamsberg ??!? Not once did he measure the bore or even mention it , he made reamers that often broke and were reforged and filed to clean up bore

Just droning on and enjoying conversation from across the pond

Gordoncourtney said:

Coffee in morning sun. We all left one thing out . That is what period in history are we talking about. I guess 1775. As by 1855 bores were becoming military standardised like 577 and the brown Bess pointed to standardisation around 1790’to 1820. However local USA town gunsmiths had to make barrels by hand beating and coiling a strip of iron . Then making a reamer around .5” or there abouts to smooth out the bore . Long as the patched lead ball fitted that’s all that mattered. Can you really believe a client in 1870 would be discussing .5 or .540. .357 magnum. Etc. He would day I want a small bore for animals or a big one for bear. Most of us have seen the utube on gun making at Williamsberg ??!? Not once did he measure the bore or even mention it , he made reamers that often broke and were reforged and filed to clean up bore

Just droning on and enjoying conversation from across the pond

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Should read a client in 1770

Sonny from Vincennes said:

A few months ago I made several posts about the balls per pound bore measurement method. I wanted to take this step farther by asking how this ball is made. I told the NRA that I was interested in a time period of 18th and 19th century. The person would be a back woods gunsmith with little to NO formal education. The back woods gunsmiths would have limited measuring tools to work with. I was interested a 10 gauge or 10 ball barrel. I think the gunsmith would not be able to calculate the bore diameter but would use a chart supplied by the master gunsmith during the gunsmith's apprenticeship. The return letter was very interesting and I am attaching a copy with my personal information blacked out. I had seen barrels made at the gunsmith shop in Colonial Williamsburg using a mandrel and forge welding. The bore was enlarged using reamers. I think we can appreciate the precision in our modern guns. Like the letter said, it is a shot in the dark.

EnjoyView attachment 271296

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As you can see, the calibers we know today actually evolved over time and measuring devices. I am sure the back woods gunsmith had trouble maintaining a good bore diameter. As the bench mounted and hand held micrometer were invented, the accuracy was greatly improved. A person would find these tools in the arsenals at the start. The personnel in arsenals would certainly be much better educated. These tools and education would eventually move to the back woods gunsmith after several years. Of course the modern measuring tools produces barrels that our forefathers could only dream about.

Gordoncourtney said:

Coffee in morning sun. We all left one thing out . That is what period in history are we talking about. I guess 1775. As by 1855 bores were becoming military standardised like 577 and the brown Bess pointed to standardisation around 1790’to 1820. However local USA town gunsmiths had to make barrels by hand beating and coiling a strip of iron . Then making a reamer around .5” or there abouts to smooth out the bore . Long as the patched lead ball fitted that’s all that mattered. Can you really believe a client in 1870 would be discussing .5 or .540. .357 magnum. Etc. He would day I want a small bore for animals or a big one for bear. Most of us have seen the utube on gun making at Williamsberg ??!? Not once did he measure the bore or even mention it , he made reamers that often broke and were reforged and filed to clean up bore

Just droning on and enjoying conversation from across the pond

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There were gun cranks even back then. You can bet the guys like Berdan's Sharpshooters were pretty demanding. By the 1870's with Creedmore Matches and such being very popular, you can bet they knew what they were doing.

I’ve also been curious about this topic as well. I procured my first (only so far) flintlock on GB; looked good, has some engraving/wire inlays, etc and was priced very reasonable (relative I know), and 56 caliber. Didn’t really realize until I started looking for components to shoot it. While can still get RB etc, I learned that most 56 cal are smoothbores… not too many rifles.

bpd303 said:

That was always my understanding that it was how many balls to the pound. I.E. 32 caliber was 32 balls to the pound, 50 caliber was 50 balls to the pound and so on.

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Actually it is the term "gauge" that is associated with balls of lead per pound. This is usually associated with smooth bore muskets, fowlers, or shotguns.
Caliber is the measurement in inches across the bore ( land to land ?) in a rifle.
50 caliber for instance is .50 or 1/2 inch.

Many orders for trade rifles specified the balls per pound. Including 28 balls per pound. For Trade and Treaty is a good resource. But of course, speculation is fun too.

It does get confusing. Balls per pound is "gauge". A 12 gauge shotgun will have a bore diameter of approximately .729" and balls of that diameter will equal 12 balls per pound. Where things can get really confusing is that the "gauge" is also referred to as the "bore". This was more common in days gone by but is still used today in some places, as in a "12 bore rifle". The Europeans used the term in referring to large bore rifles and guns for hunting dangerous game in Africa and India. Fred Selous in his writings said that he used a 4 bore muzzle loader for elephant hunting. That would be 4 balls to the pound or 4 ounces. He said the recoil really beat him up and caused him to have a terrible flinch. It makes me flinch just thinking about it!

rich pierce said:

Many orders for trade rifles specified the balls per pound. Including 28 balls per pound. For Trade and Treaty is a good resource. But of course, speculation is fun too.

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I looked up and listed the coming uk Holts auction on flintlocks , one must remember in the old uk country and Europe engineering was taking off in every direction. Locks were made in Birmingham and shipped to the new lands, I have one. Although we made barrels the Dutch and Belgium’s became very skilled at making Damascus barrels.which you can find on English guns. Indeed one great English maker unearthed hundreds of 200 year Damascus barrels blanks they are now building into modern guns They must have use measuring plugs, as we do today, to gauge the bore Most of the flintlock guns coming up at auction are measured in bore 12,14,16,8,20 whilst rifles .750,.750, .750,.750, & 38 bore,

But the new world was far from engineering tools and machinery , so you just had very skilled blacksmiths , they had to make their own tool files etc not to mention barrels
Non of these blacksmith rifle came up in my San Francisco auction catalogs , all these we more military others undated but were over .54. Not what I was looking for.

Oh well an interesting hour of research

My eBay .49 ball mould arrived today , a happy man £28 but 40 yard archery not so good using cheap arrows 12/£14 eBay uk China

That’s it. God bless you are , or may your God be with you

The Crisco Kid said:

It does get confusing. Balls per pound is "gauge". A 12 gauge shotgun will have a bore diameter of approximately .729" and balls of that diameter will equal 12 balls per pound. Where things can get really confusing is that the "gauge" is also referred to as the "bore". This was more common in days gone by but is still used today in some places, as in a "12 bore rifle". The Europeans used the term in referring to large bore rifles and guns for hunting dangerous game in Africa and India. Fred Selous in his writings said that he used a 4 bore muzzle loader for elephant hunting. That would be 4 balls to the pound or 4 ounces. He said the recoil really beat him up and caused him to have a terrible flinch. It makes me flinch just thinking about it!

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Ha ha I saw utube guy try a 4 or 8 bore rifle blasted into the side of an elephant , poor thing ,!it just bellowed and trotted of. It took several more shots at 30 ft to bring the poor beast to its needs I would have loved to have shot the hunter. Ha ha

bpd303 said:

32 balls to the pound, 50 caliber was 50 balls to the pound and so on.

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so the larger the balls the more you get?? dont figure.