.58 Rebore

[Dphar]

Took a few of the 500 grain minies and ran the back half into the .580" diameter sizer to load them as REAL's. Grouped between inch and two inches at 40 paces with 90 grains of FFg and opened up at 100 grains. That was fun and now I'm prepared in case I ever want something like that. I'm already wondering if a smaller plug on the mold could make it work better. Recoil wasn't bad. No pain.

Then tried the round ball again to see what would work for a field load that can be loaded with the ram rod. My thoughts were "that's a pretty tall order" and gave it a try. Ran the powder measure all the way out (120 grains) and loaded a light weight gabardine spit patch. It works, printing three balls wide.
It's raining so I'm gonna make a cup of coffee and clean her up. But before I go, a comment on the rifling pattern. At first I had reservations about what I received. What I asked of Mr. Hoyt for the barrels was rebore to .58 and his best round ball rifling. What bugged me was that the lands were so small. It was just not what I'm used to seeing. Well, I'm sold, and real happy I didn't try to tell the man his business.

High pressure at the muzzle will flair the base on the standard Minie.
These were never popular for hunting even in the ML era.
Moderns have a hard time believing that the old timers stuck with the RB for hunting even when the cloth patched picket was all the rage. The conicals, pickets and Minies were specialty bullets. The pickets were a pain to load and get any accuracy, the Minie was so low velocity as to be largely usedless, and it was over twice as heavy as a 54 RB. It and any naked bullet are prone to slide off the powder.
High trajectories, eroded nipples, marginal accuracy etc etc.
This has been improve on, at least the accuracy part. But the trajectory, the nipple erosion and moving off the powder are still with us.
The fact remains that an equal weight RB is superior to conicals/minie when hunting and even 50-54 caliber RBs are far more effective than the conical "muzzle energy" proponents would like to admit. Its why the typical "large bore" American rifle was seldom over 54 caliber. The average was far under this if the rifles from 1770s are added and not just the plains rifle era guns.
I just shot the "Picket Rifle" match in Cody and finished second behind another RB shooter. We almost finished 2-3 but the best picket rifle shooter had a bad target and lost by about 2" on the string measure match, he had wind problems, but we all did it blew at 5-20 MPH from all points of the compass during the match. I was .069" behind the winner who shot a 32.508" string for 20 shots. I was shooting an open sighted flintlock.
Some were shooting scopes and most peep sights. Some strings were over 100 inches. This is a 5" average from center.
Small lands are an ADVANTAGE. I don't want wide lands. Narrow lands will allow hard lead to be used.
Dan

 

[Bob E]

Goodcheer, The vast majority of military rifles used by both armies in the CW were .58 with a 40 inch or there about barrell. Springfield type rifles were made to the tune of over 1.5 million and about750,000 Enfields were imported.. Short rifles and muzzleloading carbines were also used so I dont think that barrel length is a big factor as much as barrell width across the flats especially in the breech area.Discuss this with Hoyt( I dont have his # handy but I can find it if you need it). You tell him what you want to shoot and he will recomend twist rates, Groove depths, etc,etc. If your breech doesnt have enough meat to accomadate .58 then you might consider .54. Both kick butt! Good Luck! Bob E

 

[odfairfaxsub]

90 grs of ffg might be too much powder. try 60 grs or something. i use 55 gr of fffg