.73 caliber minnie or maxi bullet molds

[chriskletke]

Trying to find a manufacturer of a minie or maxie bullet mold for .73 caliber rifle I'm currently making for a hunting trip I'm going on next year to Africa. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Chris

 

[J.D.]

OOOOh, firing a 73 cal conical is gonna hurt, big time. I cringe, just thinking about shooting something like that.

An acquaintance hunted Africa a coupla years ago with a 62 cal flint rifle firing round balls pushed by 250 gr FFG. I seem to remember that he took cape buffalo with that load. I witnessed a friend fire that rifle, off hand, with only a half charge of 125 gr FFG and it set him back a coupla steps...and that was with the light load. I would not want to shoot the full house load with that comparatively light 62 cal ball, much less a 73 cal conical with enough powder to make an effective load.

I wish you luck. Maybe Jeff Tanner can supply what you are looking for.

NEI or one of the other custom mould makers could probably make it for you...at a price, if Tanner can't do it.
http://www.neihandtools.com/

Good luck,
J.D.

 

[Moloch]

I shoot a 1842 rifled Musket with .685 735 grain minies, sevice load is about 75 grain of swiss FFFG and about 900 fp/s. Just for fun I treid it with 110 grain of FFG, I can tell you I dont want to shoot it again from the bench, nearly knocked me from the chair and it gave me some headache. :grin:

I dont see a problem shooting it out of a heavy double, on the bench it might be a problem. A conical in .73 would weigh about 800 grain+ I guess, to get performance you would need at least 100grs of swiss 2FG, or better 130-140.

I dont know, but it might be a problem to push that concial over speed fo sound, the conicals need to be very soft so the skirt expands well, but soft lead will disintegrate at too high velocity.Such a soft concial may be a problem on though bones I guess. :hmm:

The bavarian wallgun in the 1860's used .75 minie conicals, weight was as far as I can remember 825 grain or so. Looked like a german jager rifle on steroids. :haha: