Remember as the bore diameter grows you need a slower twist to accomplish the same thing. A 1-48 in a 32 is a slow round ball twist. In a 54 you want a 1-70 to accomplish the same. That's really where the accuracy tales come from for the 40. 1-48 is very slow in the 32, a little slow in the 36 and about perfect for the 40. The caliber isn't any more accurate than any other just the popular twist rate matches it perfectly. For the TC fans that own multiple calibers in the 1-48 twist, with a prb the 45 is going to be more accurate than the 50, the 50 more accurate than the 54. It's just the nature of things.
If you fellas want a little history on the 40 from a Southern boy where they are passed down along with the stories then read on. If not then don't waste your time any further reading this post it's a little lengthy.
In the East the big game was pretty much hunted out to near extinction. It was a rare occurrence to see any big game at one time. No game laws and a whole lot of immigrants did them in. Most people were not wealthy enough to own multiple guns. They had no use for their big game rifles. They were either sold and taken out west or bored to smooth bores for small game. By the way 55 was the most popular caliber back then in the East.
In the mean time target shooting also became wildly popular. The wife, the kids, grandma, everyone shot. They were social gatherings. The small game rifles put food on the table and also allowed the family to participate in the social events. The shutzen rifle came along and killed the target shooting events as it was so much more accurate. So matches dwindled out and became spectator events.
Meanwhile big game animals made a comeback. Now you have all these people with squirrel rifles and they find out deer and bear don't respond favorably to them. (Don't tell the TN boys that though.)
They also can't shoot it in the matches anymore since the rich folks are the only ones that can afford the fancy new guns. So you want it bored out. The fella tells you he can only bore it out so much, not enough metal there to turn it into a big game rifle. He makes you an intermediate twist rifle that is the biggest he can safely bore it to. Now you can shoot bullets and balls. So odds are every very old 40 with a 1-36 twist you run into, at one time was any number of 20 or 30 calibers, not just a 32 or 36. (Don't tell the die hard traditionalist that bullets were used in muzzle loaders commonly. Boy we'd never get past the meltdowns from that one.) :grin:
