58 cal bullet questions

[roundball62]

Couple years back I had NEI make me a bullet mold casting dia is .580 600 grain. It casts beautiful bullets however my 2, .58 cal rifles need a bullet closer to .582-.584 for a good engraving to rifling. The good news is both guns shoot this bullets really well less then 2" at 100 yards without engraving into rifling on the way down to powder. Being close to 100% pure lead I know when fired the lead fills out to rifling givng me a good shooting bullet, I would like to use these bullets for Elk and Deer this year. However with 4-5 taps on the barrel pointed down the bullet slides 4"-5" away from powder for a dangerous situation. I'm using T/C bore butter for lube.Also using swiss black 1.5f. My thought is to use a .62 caliber cardboard/ fiber wad/ seated on top of bullet to keep it from moving in the bore. Any one else hae any other ideas for keeping bullet in place? Yes I have tried other bullets that engrave better maxi-style, buffalo and hornaday unfortunately they all shoot 5"-6" groups at 100 yards. Thanks for your time GTC

 

[Semisane]

You might try rolling a few bullets in Lee's Liquid Alox and standing them on their base for a few days for the alox to dry. The layer of alox should increase the diameter enough to hold the bullet in place. If not, try two or three coats of alox. If it doesn't work you won't have a lot invested in the experiment.

 

[Kentuckywindage]

how does it do with a fouled bore? are they still loose?

could try paper patching them for a snugger fit.

 

[arquebus]

How about giving the ramrod a slight 'bounce' off the bullet when you seat it, that should bump it up enough to hold it in place.

 

[BrownBear]

Haven't tried it myself, but I keep hearing about wrapping bullets in teflon tape to increase diameter. Makes sense and sounds dead easy. Since it's usually match shooters who do it, I can't imagine it would hurt your accuracy.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Have you considered trying a 24 gauge OS card on top of the bullet to hold it in place? If you put one under the bullet you should get a better gas seal, and protect the base of that soft lead bullet from being burned or melted. That should make your accuracy at 100 yds, and further, OUTSTANDING, no?

 

[longcruise]

Have you considered trying a 24 gauge OS card on top of the bullet to hold it in place?

That should be a simple solution and easily tested at the range.

As far as the melting of the bullet goes, it just don't happen! I have fired and recovered many ml conicals and BPC projectiles that were seated on the powder and there is no evidence of melting.

I have used the teflon tape and it did not harm or improve accuracy. That or a paper patch as already suggested could be the solution as well. I do think that using a minimum of two wraps of the thinnest paper available may result in an over size bullet that may not start in the bore.

 

[nw_hunter]

I purchased some Lyman Shocker bullets in 50 cal, and I really liked the big heavy slugs in my 50, so I looked for some in 54 cal. At the time I couldn't find any, so I experimented with a thick cloth patch and used them in my 54. The results for accuracy were surprisingly good!

You might try a thin cloth patch with yours.It will hold the bullet in place and You never know!It could be deadly :wink:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Have you used a magnifying glass to examine the bottom edges of the conical bullets after firing them with heavy charges, and NO base wad??

I first noticed the problem shooting Smokeless power loads in a BP cartridge rifle. We all know that Smokeless powder burns at a higher Temp, and I still assume that is the origin of the problem when using Smokeless powder loads. But, I have also seen burned, or melted edges, and, sometimes, a melted center area in the base of the bullet, when shot with heavy charges of black powder, in long barreled rifles.

I didn't think much of it the first time I observed it, actually thinking I must have done a bad job of sorting bullets when I cast them. But, I began to really look at them closely when reloading after I saw several hollow based minie balls where the skirts broke off, or burned through when heavy powder charges were used. I even tried some gas check bullets in a gun to see if protecting that bottom edge made a difference.

It did.

So, I began protecting my lead cast bullets by using OP wads, or ' base wads', and the damage has seemed to stop. I also was amused to find that Steve Garbe and Mike Venturino's Black Powder Cartridge Reloading Manual, in its introduction, mentions using base wads to protect the lead bullet bases in the .40,.45, and .50 caliber rifles used in the Long Range Silhouette matches. Garbe explains in detail how he loads his cartridges and orients them to the chamber of his rifle to shoot winning scores, doing far more things in loading his guns than any MLer shooter has dreamed of doing, since Harry Pope!

In percussion rifles, burning bullet bases is much more of a concern if magnum, or musket caps are used to ignite the powder charges, IMHO.

 

[Stubert]

You might try knurling them. use two rasps, with the bullet between them and roll the bullet between the files with a little pressure. It will make them a little bigger and give you some more lube grooves. The old timers used to do that to tighten up pistons in old cars that burned oil.

 

[roundball62]

Many thanks for all your replies. I do generally shoot 58cal and 62cal roundballs because they are so easy to make shoot good with roundball diameter and patch combinations.I thought would be needed a conical shooter so here I am asking for further help. I will try to offer more info on this set up. Yes I'm using .58 cal 3/8" felt wad between powder and bullet. Gun shoots best from clean barrel that being having a light scwib load first. I have thought about also use paper patches. The swiss powder burns pretty clean, not much residue left behind to get additional traction or grab on bullet. I have also tried regular goex, did not get very good accuracy 4"-5" at 100 yards and velocity was down by 250fps. I did try some 24 gauge cardboard card on top of bullet just does not seem like a tight enough fit, that is why I asked about the possible 20 gauge fiberwad/ cardboard would work or would case additional pressure or safety concerns. I have looked at bases of the recovered bullets they look good being that I use the 3/8" felt wad. I never have looked under micro scope just naked eye. Will the Alox lube melt or run off if outside temperature get over 100 degrees F?.. I don't want to reinvent the wheel I just hate giving up an a accurat bullet at 100 yards. I know I did not answer all of your guys questions. Unfortunately I can think and talk 30 times faster then I can type. Thanks again for all your input. GTC

 

[paulvallandigham]

Have you actually measure the Bore Diameter, with calipers, so you know it is what it says it is??? To the thousandth of an inch? ( 3 digits right of the decimal point.)

You can't use just any Cardboard " wads" to seal the bore, or hold the wads in place. The Circle Fly wads sold by Track, and others, is made .010 oversized, so that they fit down into the grooves of the barrel. In Smoothbores, the edges turn out a bit, but then are trying to straighten out as the result of friction with the sides of the bore as the card and shot or bullet are moving out the barrel. The oversized dimension that allows part of the card to get down into the grooves is what makes the card so superior for this work than other wads.

Your Felt wad between the powder and PRB or bullet works well, particularly if you use the next caliber size wad larger than your bore diameter. The soft felt wad is then driven into the grooves to help seal gases to protect the patch or the base of a conical bullet from gas blow-by. ( Gas escaping through the grooves around the ball or bullet.) If you are shooting a .58 caliber rifle, use the 62 caliber felt wads between the powder and ball/bullet, for example.

See this page on info about wads and cards:
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/(S(d...s/tableList.aspx?catID=2&subID=37&styleID=118

For a couple of dollars you can buy 500 or 1000 cards.

 

[longcruise]

Have you used a magnifying glass to examine the bottom edges of the conical bullets after firing them with heavy charges, and NO base wad??

I've shot a ton of pure lead conicals in .50, .54 and .58 cal. Some solid base, some hollow base and some skirted. Also a bunch of pure lead and 40/1 .45 cal bullets in 45-70 ranging from 385 grains to 550 grains. All without over powder wads. No burning or melting ever observed. Sometimes the shapes of the powder grains can be seen impressed in the base of a solid base bullet fired with bp and smokeless, but no melting.

I have read the Garbe/Venturino loading manual (the first edition, not the second) and I'm well aware of their recommendation of over powder wads. OTOH, some top shooters don't use them, so go figger! Many "experts" who have won many matches are meticulously reloading and carefully following a regimen to the smallest detail every time they load a round. OTOH, some don't. :shocked2: Maybe they are just really good shots.

In any case, it's got nothing to do with melting bullet bases. Just can't agree with you cause I've studied the bases of many bullets I've dug from the berm and found no indication of melting.

Neither can I imagine the use of a magnum as opposed to standard cap making any difference. The cap sets off the powder charge. Once it's ignited It's going to burn at the same temp no matter what kind of cap ignited it. The use of magnum caps in bpc guns is mainly to break up and penetrate the compressed powder charge. Our ml loads are not compressed much at all if any.

I did an extensive test with the use of neco p wads under .50 caliber maxi balls about 12 years ago. A gun rag writer for Precision Shooting Magazine claimed that the use of the wads in his .50 caliber tc gave a much higher velocity that the same load without. I got some of the "P" wads and tested them for both accuracy and velocity with a 28" TC hawken 1/48 and 370 grain maxi balls. There was no difference in accuracy or velocity. :shocked2: Zippo. None. I also tried a butler creek "Maxi Patch" which was a plastic disc wad with a slight skirt meant to seal the bore. The plastic skirt on a Power Belt is supposed to do pretty much the same thing. Results? They shot with equal accuracy but less velocity. Not much less, but probably just about as much less as to be expected by the addition of the five or 10 grains of weight of the Maxi Patch.

Funny thing was, when I described these results to the writer, he harrumphed and guffawed up one side and down the other but in the end admitted that he had never chronoed his gun. He just thought he sensed a bit more recoil and a bit mor of a "crack" at the shot. :rotf: So much for experts! :rotf: Only thing he was an expert at was hawking for the advertisors. :rotf:

 

[paulvallandigham]

My experience testing plain base bullets, and using OP wads is the opposite of yours. I think we can agree to disagree. Unless we are both using the same materials, and similar guns, and watching each other load, there are simply too many variables to consider to talk out WHY our experiments reach different result here.

BTW, I was Not expecting to find what I did in either experiment. I probably had read some of your reports before trying the OP wads in my rifle over a Chronograph. My brother used his chronograph, shooting more than 800 miles away from me, down in Florida, to test the OP wads, with and without testing in his rifles, and he also got higher velocities, and lower SDV. He is the one who brought to my attention the Garbe material. I took that with a grain of salt, until I had a chance to test it in a .45-70 shooting black powder loads- with and without base wads. Groups size was reduced using the Base Wads. I was surprised. There was also an increase in velocity, that I simply did not expect, and still want to pursue more.

The result of all the Surprises I have had about shooting, is that I have become much less disagreeable, and more interested in actually watching someone else load and shoot their guns, particularly when they claim to be getting different results than I get from a particular technique. Our verbal and writing skills often are not up to our shooting skills. But, then, we are mostly MEN! :rotf: :rotf: :thumbsup:

 

[zimmerstutzen]

The Brit. War Department experimented with base plugs (not wads)to expand the skirts in hollow base Minnies in the Snider cartridges and I believe first tried them in muzzleloading guns. My worry in any wads or cards over the bullets is whether they could flip sideways and act as barrel obstructions. With a flatter nose it would be unlikely, but in a standard long ogee shape, could be dangerous.

 

[Dphar]

Couple years back I had NEI make me a bullet mold casting dia is .580 600 grain. It casts beautiful bullets however my 2, .58 cal rifles need a bullet closer to .582-.584 for a good engraving to rifling. The good news is both guns shoot this bullets really well less then 2" at 100 yards without engraving into rifling on the way down to powder. Being close to 100% pure lead I know when fired the lead fills out to rifling givng me a good shooting bullet, I would like to use these bullets for Elk and Deer this year. However with 4-5 taps on the barrel pointed down the bullet slides 4"-5" away from powder for a dangerous situation. I'm using T/C bore butter for lube.Also using swiss black 1.5f. My thought is to use a .62 caliber cardboard/ fiber wad/ seated on top of bullet to keep it from moving in the bore. Any one else hae any other ideas for keeping bullet in place? Yes I have tried other bullets that engrave better maxi-style, buffalo and hornaday unfortunately they all shoot 5"-6" groups at 100 yards. Thanks for your time GTC

Even if the bullets engrave at the muzzle its still loose at the breech. Its not like they swell up after getting to the breech. Once sized to the bore they are not longer tight. The heavier they are the more likely they are to move.
The disadvantages outweigh the advantages.
Getting a flat trajectory over normal hunting ranges with a 600 grain bullet of any diameter is near impossible unless the gun is pretty heavy.
A 400-500 grain patched round ball will do just as well and perhaps even better than the conicals and it won't move off the powder.

Do far as melted bases....
This is pretty unlikely. The gov't BP loads 50-70, 45-70 etc. Had no wads.
I use wads to protect the bullet base in BPCR ammo. I don't like the dimples the powder grains make in the bullet base. The time the bullet is in the barrel, the fact that lead transfers heat well all make melting the bullet base virtually impossible.

But base damage is poison to accuracy with lead bullets.

Dan

 

[roundball]

So much for experts! :rotf:

Totally agree...there's no shortage of "experts" with armchair theories and formulas...they simply don't understand and have no hands-on experience to back up their claims...if they did they'd realize their errors and stop making such claims. They read other people's posts & articles, think they understand what they read, then go repeat it as gospel. Worse, they use other people's information as if its their own...even cutting/pasting/editing other people's information into articles which they then publish under their name as if its all their own information. Those kind of people just "have to make claims" to appear to be knowledgeable or something...ironically it has the opposite result.

Oxyoke advertises smaller groups with a wad over the powder as a result of improved shot-to-shot pressure consistency by making a better bore seal...resulting in smaller SD and I've personally seen that in my chronograph tests. I enjoyed tighter groups using Oxyoke wads with higher power rifle hunting loads, both with various caliber PRBs plus .45cal maxi-hunters & Hornady GP bullets I used for a couple years. But I never associated improved accuracy to have anything to do with 'melting'...just reduced SD.

However, I also personally speculated that the same improvement in gas sealing would result in higher velocity but that was proven wrong in my chronograph tests...average muzzle velocity was actually an eyelash less...yes, standard deviation of MV did drop considerably from an average shot-to-shot variance of 25 fps to only 6 fps variance...but to my surprise the overall average MV fell a few fps as well. That was only one .62cal Flintlock on one day at the range but odds are the chrono results were accurate.

When I get my new longer barreled .58cal Virginia up to the range I want to run a series of velocity tests with Goex 2F & 3F, target & hunting loads, with & without Oxyoke wads for my own baseline but will share those results FWIW.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Gee, Bill, I missed you. I wondered how long it was going to take for you to crawl out from under your rock and fire a couple of cheap shots at things you have never tried, or examined. Marmotslayer and I have a simple disagreement, based on our own separate experiences. I STRESS the word, EXPERIENCES, because I DO HAVE Actual experience to back up what I am saying.

I HAVE examined recovered bullets (fired into water for that purpose) to find gas cutting, and Melting of the edges of the bases of the bullets. I have seen melted centers of the bases of cast bullets after they were fired- particularly in percussion guns. And, there is a world of people out there, BILL, who have done similar tests, and made similar observations. But, BILL, you have to climb out of your cocoon, and go shoot with other shooters to meet them, and to learn from them!

I am so happy that my week did not end without a dose of your nastiness. I was going through Withdrawal because of your absence. :rotf: :thumbsup:

 

[Dphar]

[
Funny thing was, when I described these results to the writer, he harrumphed and guffawed up one side and down the other but in the end admitted that he had never chronoed his gun. He just thought he sensed a bit more recoil and a bit mor of a "crack" at the shot. :rotf: So much for experts! :rotf: Only thing he was an expert at was hawking for the advertisors. :rotf:

The primary job of gun writers, in general, is shilling for advertisers as you point out. Editors seldom stand for truth if it causes problems with an advertiser.

Dan