Howie1968
40 Cal.
.58 is my favorite roundball caliber
.58 caliber?
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Humor is absolutely lost on Flat Landers. Come to my neck of the woods. Put you on a Sasquatch faster than you might think. I hunt right smack dab in the center of one of the largest clusters of sightings, in the Western US. I personally don't care for them. They tend to scare off the game, and its hard to get the stink out of the hippies, when they share the same swimming hole.
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Well, many military muskets of the era of the American Civil War were .58 caliber. Also the British Enfield musket, whose ammunition was the ultimate culmination of the evolution of muzzle loading ammunition, was .58 caliber.
So getting into .58 caliber percussion guns means you will probably be getting into military muskets, which is a lot of fun. There are many avenues to explore. The Union stuck with the "Burton" ball (commonly known as the Minie ball, though he had little to do with the bullet by his name). This was a hollow-cavity "expanding ball" bullet that had grooves on the outside. These grooves functioned both to carry lube but also were to function like a shuttlecock and provide air resistance so that the bullet flew nose-first over long ranges, rather than staying pointed skyward over its parabolic trajectory as a football might. One of the benefits of the Burton bullet was the paper cartridge it came in was discarded on loading - no paper went down the barrel. So the only thing that has to be controlled during manufacture was the diameter of the bullet itself.
You can then get into the variations of paper cartridge for US cartridges - the 1855 pattern and the 1862 pattern:
The Confederacy also produced the US style cartridge as above for their .58 caliber guns. But they tried throughout the war to adopt the British style of cartridge, which integrated a paper-patched bullet into the cartridge itself. They were never able to pull it off because of the lack of consistent quality paper which is required for the Enfield cartridge. With the Enfield cartridge you must consistently produce bullets of the proper diameter and paper of the correct thickness so that when the bullet is wrapped up in the paper it comes out to the proper .575 diameter. Just procuring accurate gauges for all the Confederate arsenals was a challenge for them.
The British style of cartridge - the Enfield cartridge, when through 3 different iterations of bullet. Initially, it used the "Pritchett" bullet, which is a smooth-sided bullet with a very shallow cavity in the base. This bullet did not function as an expanding ball, but rather, it collapsed on its length when fired, causing it to swell and take up the rifling. It was paper patched. The paper carried the lubricant (actually an anti-fouling agent more than a lubricant) and prevented leading. The Pritchett bullet was .568" in diameter. When wrapped in paper, it was a very tight fit in the bore which would prove a problem for loading in combat conditions. What doomed the Pritchett bullet, however, was the fact that if the bullets were manufactured at the low-end of tolerance - .566, and the musket bore was at the high-end of tolerance, the Pritchett, with its "bump up" expansion method, could not expand sufficiently to take up the rifling and so accuracy suffered horribly.
The second iteration of Enfield bullet was the Hay bullet. It was also .568" in diameter, but had a deep cavity in it. Initially this bullet had a spherical steel cup placed in it to drive forward into the cavity to expand the bullet. Later this was a conical iron cup. Later still it was a boxwood plug. But being still .568" in diameter, the finished paper-wrapped bullet still was a very tight fit in the bore. While this worked great on training grounds, with ammunition that had been shipped in ship holds around the world and delivered to front lines by wagon and loaded into dirty muskets in combat conditions, it was found that very often on loading the paper would be stripped away on loading, pushing the bullet out of its paper cocoon naked down the barrel. Of course the naked bullet would be vastly undersize for the bore and would not take up the rifling and shot horribly. But extensive testing indicated that the Enfield cartridge with the Boxer bullet performed splendidly. Initially it used a boxwood plug, but boxwood was found to be expensive and hard to obtain as an import. So, the final iteration was to utilize a fired clay plug.
In desperation, Colonel Boxer made the radical call to reduce the diameter of the bullet massively - by .015" - resulting in a bullet .550" in diameter. When wrapped up in paper it easily loaded in muskets in any condition. There was great concern that the bullet, being so under-size, would never expand enough to take up the rifling.
Here is a video that shows how to make the final iteration of the Enfield cartridge:
So getting into .58 caliber percussion guns means you will probably be getting into military muskets, which is a lot of fun. There are many avenues to explore. The Union stuck with the "Burton" ball (commonly known as the Minie ball, though he had little to do with the bullet by his name). This was a hollow-cavity "expanding ball" bullet that had grooves on the outside. These grooves functioned both to carry lube but also were to function like a shuttlecock and provide air resistance so that the bullet flew nose-first over long ranges, rather than staying pointed skyward over its parabolic trajectory as a football might. One of the benefits of the Burton bullet was the paper cartridge it came in was discarded on loading - no paper went down the barrel. So the only thing that has to be controlled during manufacture was the diameter of the bullet itself.
You can then get into the variations of paper cartridge for US cartridges - the 1855 pattern and the 1862 pattern:
The Confederacy also produced the US style cartridge as above for their .58 caliber guns. But they tried throughout the war to adopt the British style of cartridge, which integrated a paper-patched bullet into the cartridge itself. They were never able to pull it off because of the lack of consistent quality paper which is required for the Enfield cartridge. With the Enfield cartridge you must consistently produce bullets of the proper diameter and paper of the correct thickness so that when the bullet is wrapped up in the paper it comes out to the proper .575 diameter. Just procuring accurate gauges for all the Confederate arsenals was a challenge for them.
The British style of cartridge - the Enfield cartridge, when through 3 different iterations of bullet. Initially, it used the "Pritchett" bullet, which is a smooth-sided bullet with a very shallow cavity in the base. This bullet did not function as an expanding ball, but rather, it collapsed on its length when fired, causing it to swell and take up the rifling. It was paper patched. The paper carried the lubricant (actually an anti-fouling agent more than a lubricant) and prevented leading. The Pritchett bullet was .568" in diameter. When wrapped in paper, it was a very tight fit in the bore which would prove a problem for loading in combat conditions. What doomed the Pritchett bullet, however, was the fact that if the bullets were manufactured at the low-end of tolerance - .566, and the musket bore was at the high-end of tolerance, the Pritchett, with its "bump up" expansion method, could not expand sufficiently to take up the rifling and so accuracy suffered horribly.
The second iteration of Enfield bullet was the Hay bullet. It was also .568" in diameter, but had a deep cavity in it. Initially this bullet had a spherical steel cup placed in it to drive forward into the cavity to expand the bullet. Later this was a conical iron cup. Later still it was a boxwood plug. But being still .568" in diameter, the finished paper-wrapped bullet still was a very tight fit in the bore. While this worked great on training grounds, with ammunition that had been shipped in ship holds around the world and delivered to front lines by wagon and loaded into dirty muskets in combat conditions, it was found that very often on loading the paper would be stripped away on loading, pushing the bullet out of its paper cocoon naked down the barrel. Of course the naked bullet would be vastly undersize for the bore and would not take up the rifling and shot horribly. But extensive testing indicated that the Enfield cartridge with the Boxer bullet performed splendidly. Initially it used a boxwood plug, but boxwood was found to be expensive and hard to obtain as an import. So, the final iteration was to utilize a fired clay plug.
In desperation, Colonel Boxer made the radical call to reduce the diameter of the bullet massively - by .015" - resulting in a bullet .550" in diameter. When wrapped up in paper it easily loaded in muskets in any condition. There was great concern that the bullet, being so under-size, would never expand enough to take up the rifling.
Here is a video that shows how to make the final iteration of the Enfield cartridge:
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I have a .58 Zouave and a .62 Baker, wife insists, kind of, that she gets a cannon next!!
Ballshooter
50 Cal.
Well that's easy you answered your own question you don't have one. Now go get one.
I try really hard to not mention gun purchases to mine on the belief that what she doesn't know won't hurt me.
Sun City
45 Cal.
I’d just as soon throw rocks than tote a musket!
I have trouble throwing rocks with accuracy out around 100 yards.
Just what I was thinking. You need a gun for self defense, you want a gun to hunt with, what do you hunt? That tells you the gun that works for that. You don’t hunt Bulwinkle with a .36, or Rocky with a .54 or bigger. So you have a choice for your wants.
If’n a .58 is what your want’n it what you ought to buy
.58 rifled musket
.58 rifle
24 bore smoothie
Even then there is no end of choices
SwanShot
36 Cal.
Because shooting a two, or three band Enfield is huge fun and surprisingly accurate.
I haven't read every single post in this thread, so I don't know if this might have been mentioned previously. I'll apologise in advance if it is redundant.
Anyway, one good reason to get and shoot a .58 is the availability and choice you have for accessories, components, and projectiles. If you get a sporting rifle intended for round balls, .562", .570", and .575" balls and moulds are readily available almost everywhere, as well as pre-cut patches and wads. If you go with a military rifle musket, you'll have a tremendous variety of conical bullets and moulds to cast them, and these guns can also shoot patched round balls very well. This is not to mention published load data for the .58, which is not hard to find.
Regarding accessories, I was referring primarily to cleaning and shooting supplies and implements. Thanks to the popularity of mid-19th century military arms, brass and aluminum cleaning rods with correctly fitted muzzle protectors are widely available for the .58 in several different standard lengths. Correctly-sized jags, ball pullers, worms (called "wipers" back in the day), and bore mops and brushes if you should choose to use them, are all easy to get, both from the general muzzleloading suppliers as well as the Civil War specialty shops. These .58 caliber implements can be found in 10-32, 8-32, and 5/16-27 (Hoppe's) thread sizes. That last one is for shotgun rods.
Expert shooters on the forum (which I am not) may be better qualified to comment on this, but in my opinion, larger calibers may be a little less finicky about powder charges than the small-bores, and may need less frequent wiping between shots. If you are certain the gun is unloaded and you are willing to peer down the muzzle, you can actually see the breech face just using a flashlight, if you hold it right. People who have experimented more than I have also mentioned developing accurate loads with very light powder charges in the .58, meaning it has the capability of being loaded down if you want to, so you have some versatility. The shooter does not have to endure punishment to shoot the .58.
I don't think you'll regret getting a .58. You'll still need to make a choice, however, between a military or a sporting rifle, meaning one bored and rifled for conicals versus patched round balls. Either one can be fun to shoot.
Best regards,
Notchy Bob
Sun City
45 Cal.
Last edited:
Because they knock things down
I struggled with this issue for some time when contemplating my next build. I have .36, .40, .50, and .54. I finally decided on make a .58 simply because I didn't have one yet. A swamped barrel Lancaster is underway now.
Will do Bob. Not much to show so far. The barrel and lock have been inletted. Working on the side plate now, This is my third stock from Pecatonica and I am delighted by their work.
Sun City
45 Cal.
Buffalo bullets snd all the other crap like them are a ZpiTS to get accuracy from because its dang. Igh impossible to seat them strsight into the bore!
Historical reason would be to shoot replicas of the Civil War rifles. Enfield's and Springfield's. Minie ball and variations, plus the Enfield cartridge.
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