.58 caliber loads

[Rifleman1776]

I am familiar with most of what you said and, for the most part, agree. But you also said:

A lot of the .58's, in fact, most of them have barrels made for shooting the .58 Minie' balls.

. Where did that come from? A barrel is a barrel and is/was made as the maker made it. Statistically, I doubt that is correct. Thee are a lot of .58 Hawkens, Jaegers, bench rest and other style rifles in that caliber which are no make over military muskets. Nowhere did the OP say his was military. What is missing from this discussion is his twist rate. That factor is of major consideration in finding the sweet spot load. Until we know that we cannot offer him more definitive assistance.

 

[Zonie]

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts the vast majority of the .58 caliber barrels out there in the public domain are sitting in a Italian or Spanish reproduction of one of the Civil War Rifled Muskets.

Most of the .58's I'm familiar with that have deep rifling in their barrels are custom made guns with barrels bought from folks like Green Mountain, Getz and Colerain.

Over the years since 1970 there have been thousands and thousands of these Rifled Musket style guns sold here in the US. I would guess actually the numbers would be in the tens of thousands of these guns sold.

I know I'm not the average sort of guy but I own 4 of them, three different Parker-Hales and a Italian "Remington Zouve".

All of them have the shallow rifling typical of the style used for shooting Minie' bullets.

Getting back to the reason for my earlier post, some of the people who own one of the tens of thousands of the Rifled Muskets will read the title of this topic and figure, "Hey! That's what I own."

Then they will read a bunch of posts about 120 grain powder loads that have an accuracy that can pick the hair off of a gnats ass at 100 yards and try it.

After they figure out that a 120 grain powder load won't shoot a patched roundball accurate enough to hit a 20 gallon garbage can at 100 yards in their gun, they will either figure we are all a bunch of perverted liars or we are dumber than a rock.

In either case, although they might be right on both counts, I didn't want them to be totally misled by some of the early posts.
:grin:

 

[mooman76]

My 58 is a Cabelas Hawken with the thinner barrel because it came with a interchangeable 50 barrel also. It has deep rifling. Best I can tell, it has 1/60 twist. Shoots my 510gr minies pretty good too or at least good enough for deer out to 100y.

 

[azmntman]

My 2 Cabelas .58 hawkins (Investarms) are 1-48 deep groove. I have not tried the 100+ charges but once....120 gr with a Hornandy great plains. No dental insurance so not doing it again! :shocked2:

 

[nkbj]

Concerning the .58 barrels with rifling designed for hollow based bullets, most will have a rate of twist as slow or slower than the Green Mountain drop-ins and thus increase the difficulty some experience in trying to get round ball accuracy. And then again over the years you run across folks getting fine accuracy with them that are just as happy as larks.

Even though one turn in 66" isn't particularly slow for a .69 caliber the shallow grooves in rifled muskets can be troublesome with round ball.

 

[TFoley]

These military rifled muskets have very shallow rifling grooves made for the long Minie' bullets like the ones used in the War Between the States.

And, orginally, in the Crimean War of 1855-6, where the Minié shooting muskets of the French and British slaughtered the Russian gunners in front of their guns as they went about reloading.

Used to being ignored by infantry armed with smooth-bore muskets with a maximum range of around 100 - 150 yards, they believed that they were safe at 800 yards.

Enter the Minié bullet-firing rifled muskets of the French and British infantry, and a very rude awakening.

tac

 

[BrownBear]

...shallow grooves in rifled muskets can be troublesome with round ball.

There it is in a nutshell, from what I've seen in helping friends with their rifled muskets. Never owned one myself, but sure spent a lot of time in mutual head scratching with friends. Grooves I've seen (though never measured) are lots shallower.

Gotta run a real tight patch/ball combo as well has hold round ball charges down to no more than about 80 grains of 2f in all I've played with. Plenty accurate and potent for hunting at that point. But if a guy has dreams of long range shooting, it was best to stick to hollow based minies sized correctly for the bore and launched by no more than about 60 grains of 2f. And a serious rainbow trajectory at longer ranges.

 

[nkbj]

You know, I've discussed having more grooves added to the present three groove barrel lands on the .69 two bander, on the theory that it's the .36" wide flat lands that are the culprit rather than the shallowness of the grooves. I think that doubling or tripling the number of the shoulders would work just fine with patched ball and not interfere with the minie performance. Haven't done it though and the proofs in the pudding...

 

[Zonie]

That reminds me of Grandma's cooking.

When ever a large number of the family came over she always made up a large batch of favorites like fried chicken and mashed sweet potatoes with gravy buttered peas and fresh biscuits but the thing that topped it all off was her famous pudding.

Strange thing about that pudding.

The more of it people ate, the happier and more talkative they got.
Dinner usually ended up with a very merry bunch of people.

One day while everyone was finishing their bowl of pudding, Grandpa said to Grandma, "I've been looking around for that batch of 98% white lightning I made and I can't find it anywhere. Do you know where it is?"

Grandma just smiled and said, "The "Proofs" in the pudding." :grin:

 

[mahkagari]

Went to the range this weekend. 100gr at 50 yards was about 2-3" groups. The upgrade to .015" from .010" helped. 120gr at 75 yards and it was out to 12" groups. Had to scour through the cardboard on the stand the target was stapled to in order to find them. Doesn't seem like they're dropping off, it's like they're spiraling out.

It ain't me. I shoot 200 yards iron sights with my Mosin and my accuracy is fine. It's a new to me gun so I could do with some getting used to the trigger action, but...DAMN! WTH?

Green Mountain bbl. Anyone's guess on twist rate is as good as mine.

 

[BrownBear]

Green Mountain bbl. Anyone's guess on twist rate is as good as mine.

If I recall correctly my GM 58 caliber drop-in barrel is 1:72". Same? Dunno.

But my GM drop-in didn't really come alive until I moved up to .018"-.020" ticking patches and a .570 ball. It's about as good with .575" balls and .015" patches.

Worth noting that with looser combos, my accuracy was akin to yours. With the tighter combos 120 grains of 2f has proven kind of a sweet spot.

 

[udaum]

Hello,

I have a .58 cal. Zouave Musketon (Italien made) and I want to shoot Mine type projectiles 478 grain lead (cast). I wonder what charge is good for this... I have Swiss No. 3 and Swiss No 2 for rifles. Could 80 grains work to get a muzzle speed of ca. 1'300 fps? What is the maximum load for this rifle / barrel and what would be the muzzle speed?

Normally I shoot .41 cal. Swiss Mod 1851 (original rifle) Mine 270 grain lead (self cast) with 58 grain Swiss Nr. 2 (fff) at 50 m (ca. 50 yards) and good results or a .45 Hawken replica with the same load and 290 grain Mine; as well with good results.

I like to try the Mine projectiles, because the service rifles were shot with them in the past (patched round balls are more accurate, I know)

Thanks for your input,

udaum

 

[Fatboyz]

Mine shoots good out to 100y with a .015 patch and 80gr.

Mine too. CVA big bore, 80 Grains of FF Goex. .570 ball and .015 patch.

 

[longcruise]

Here's a theoretical. It assumes 1750 fps. Probably not much help to the OP since it's a 5 yr old topic. Several of the participants are on n the other side.

 

[udaum]

Hello eveybody, I am shooting Miné without patch (won't work at all).

 

[longcruise]

Hello eveybody, I am shooting Miné without patch (won't work at all).

You really should use a patch.

 

[Stantheman86]

Minies do not use a patch

You have to lube and size them properly

 

[longcruise]

Ooops, a misreading on my part. On my phone I didn't notice the accent mark. I though he said mine as in his.