1/66 twist

[Pioneer flinter]

hey lawman I have used the hornady pa hunter bullets in my cva 50 cal mountain rifle which has a 1 in 66 twist with the pa hunter's or round balls I have shot a number of groups in the 3/4" range.at the time I was shooting at 75 yards and my eyes were better then. shoot straight.

 

[oldgunshooter]

I very successfully shot several different conicals from slow-twist barrels, though they both have shallow, square grooves. My Pedersoli Rocky Mountain Hawken with 1-65 twist in 54 cal shoots Hornady Great Plains 435 gr conicals very well with perfectly round holes cut into the target at 100 yards. My Pedersoli Frontier in .54 could shoot the GP conicals or the short Buffalo Ball-ets very well. Neither of them liked the TC Hunters. So net, you'd have to experiment to see if your gun would shoot any given conical well....

Hello Spikebuck! I just bought the Rocky MTN Hawken 54C just like yours yesterday. I noticed in your post that you shot the Hornady Great Plains 435gr conicals with good accuracy. What powder and grains did you use? The recommendations on the website for this gun is 80 grains of 2F with a .530 round ball and a .015 patch. I just bought some Olde Epnsford 2F. Just wondering if you had any more recommendations/tips/bullets for shooting this gun for accuracy at 100 yards.
I shoot and reload for 45-70, 32-20, 38-55 with smokeless. This is my first time shooting BP. My goal it to shoot with accuracy on target then shoot at my gongs like I do with my other guns. I just ordered my 54 yesterday. They look outstanding on the website.
Thx for you time.
oldgunshooter

 

[smoothshooter]

simple questions for you experts.Can u shoot any other bullet in 1/66 twist or is strickly RB? :hmm:

A bullet might work okay if it is relatively short in proportion to it’s diameter.

 

[nhmoose]

From this I would think Minnie balls should work.

1861 Springfield Rifle-Musket - CivilWarWiki

Bore	.58 inch Caliber 3 progressive depth rifle grooves Rifle twist: 1 rotation in 78 inches

 

[Bad Karma]

Longer bullets may stabilize well out to 100 yards or so. But your best chance of success will be with shorter bullets like the PA Hunter, Maxiball or the like. Internet discussions are fine but the best way, the only way to know, is by doing. You might find a surprisingly accurate bullet for your rifle.

 

[hanshi]

I have a .54 with a 1-66" twist. It shoots spectacularly with ball but still does fairly good with T/C Maxi hunters to at least 50 yards..

 

[Johnny Tremain]

I have a 1/60 twist Rice barrel, it spins 45 cal round ball out the muzzle @ 2033fps.
Never tired anything else.
In the ole 54 cal, it had shallow riffing, it shoot conicals and round ball. It was 1/48.

 

[oldgunshooter]

Hello Spikebuck! I just bought the Rocky MTN Hawken 54C just like yours yesterday. I noticed in your post that you shot the Hornady Great Plains 435gr conicals with good accuracy. What powder and grains did you use? The recommendations on the website for this gun is 80 grains of 2F with a .530 round ball and a .015 patch. I just bought some Olde Epnsford 2F. Just wondering if you had any more recommendations/tips/bullets for shooting this gun for accuracy at 100 yards.
I shoot and reload for 45-70, 32-20, 38-55 with smokeless. This is my first time shooting BP. My goal it to shoot with accuracy on target then shoot at my gongs like I do with my other guns. I just ordered my 54 yesterday. They look outstanding on the website.
Thx for you time.
oldgunshooter

Sorry about this post, I think I jumped in on a previous conversation.

 

[Sparkitoff]

I second the PA Conical from Hornady. I have one .50 with a rough bore. It tears up patches and doesn't seal well with ball. The PA Conical's will shoot a very nice group out of it. It's 1:66.

 

[Howie1968]

I just tried this myself in my TC Hawken with 32 inch green mountain 1-66 twist in .54. My shot distance was 50 yards off of sandbags. My rifle has a set of lyman 57 sml sights with a white bead front all bullets had a wonder wad over powder.. i tried hornady great plains 425. Tc maxiball 430 gr cva deerslayer 375 lee real 300 gr lee real 380 gr. The rifling on this barrel is deep. I settled on a 70 gr charge of pyrodex rs and 70 gr OE 2F the hornady put 3 shots into 3.5 inches the maxiball was horrible the cva 375 shot about 3 inches the lee real 380 back to around 3.5 to 4 inch But! The lee reall 300 shot great i had a couple groups under 2 inches and think if i experimented more i could get it shooting better

 

[The Crisco Kid]

I found a chart on the correct twist a while back by doing a forum search. I tried to post it here but it won't work. It's interesting that the smaller the ball the faster the twist needs to be. It explains why my old Douglas 32 cal. 66 twist barrel has to be driven pretty fast to be accurate. It's also been a very fussy barrel. Douglas made a special run of 32 barrel for Dixie Gun Works years ago that were a lot easier to get to shoot accurately at lower velocity.

 

[The Crisco Kid]

Here it is.

If there is a general rule of " thumb " for determine the best Rate of Twist for round balls, it would be 1.5 times caliber:

.32= 1:48
.36= 1:54
.40= 1:60
.45= 1:67.5
.50= 1:75
.54= 1:81
.58= 1:87
.62= 1:93
.69= 1:103.5
.72= 1:108

These are the optimum ROT for these caliber RBs. You cannot overspin a Round ball. However, using a ROT that is faster than optimum tends to affect the size of variation in powder charge used that will still send the ball to the same POI.

For instance, My brother has several .40 caliber rifles that have a 1:48 ROT, and they shoot just fine. But even that ROT is much slower than the 1:16 ROT used in his friend's conical bullet .40 caliber rifle. He can still shoot RB in the gun but the powder charge is about 35 grains, instead of the 50 grain charge used for accuracy in the other .40 caliber rifle barrels made to shoot RBs with the 1:48 ROT.

The slower ROTs(shown) are much more forgiving to small variations in powder charges- as occurs when you use a volume measure to measure the powder, vs. using a powder scale to WEIGH the powder charge. The faster the ROT, the more likely you are going to need to both reduce the powder charge, AND weigh the charges to get small groups.

This is the reason we don't recommend buying a fast twist barrel designed to shoot conicals and sabots. Its not that you can't shoot RB out of these barrels: instead, its just more difficult to get good groups out of such barrels with RBs.

Now, KEEP in MIND that when we are describing group performance, we are usually talking about shooting a rifle off a bench rest, not off-hand. And, we are talking about shooting at distances of 50 yards and further. Many BP shooters never shoot at distances further than 50 yards, and sometimes not even that far, either in practice, or when hunting, since they are shooting off-hand mostly.

 

[griffiga]

simple questions for you experts.Can u shoot any other bullet in 1/66 twist or is strickly RB? :hmm:

You might could shoot some of those stubby, smaller Maxi balls with a moderate to lighter charge. Heavier, longer projectiles won't stabilize. Some I tried went through the target sideways with a wicked sounding whurr.