A Rifled Musket Range Report

[ihuntsnook]

Went to the range Friday with my rifled musket to do a comparison between impact of 570 rb and Minie balls. The next to last shot of the day I stuck a Minie ball about nine inches from the breech. So I took my trust glass rod from TOW with the ball puller and screwed it into the ball. Of course I didn't check to see if it was pinned to the rod, and it's still stuck in the ball. When I got home I promptly ordered a CO2 discharger from Dixie. Then it occurred to me to stand the rifle in a corner and soak the inside of the bore with WD 40. The next day I was able to hammer the ball all the way down to the breach. I pulled the nipple and trickled in some 4f -- in case the WD 40 got past the ball. In any event, it went off when I pulled the trigger and the bore was finally clear.

What I can't figure is why the ball got stuck. The first one I loaded dropped all the way to the powder. I started with 3f GOEX and finished with 3f Swiss, and I didn't swab between shots. Any thoughts?

 

[cynthialee]

my limited experiance guess would be that not swabing bit you in the ass
fouling build up and all

I swab between every shot. Just a dry pass with a .50 cal cotton swab. When I do it after every shot I get no issues. But if I do not it starts to get harder to seat my ball. So I just do it by rote now.

 

[Tumblernotch]

How many shots did you fire? Even with a fairly loose Minie, they eventually get tight enough to jam going in. Other factors could be a lack of lube or an oversized ball. If you ran all of them through a sizer, that wouldn't be a problem, but every now and then one can sneak by. Another thing could be an out of round skirt. Most likely some fouling build up near the breech finally got you. Whenever any of my muskets are shot without wiping for an extended period, they got tight between 8" and 12" from the breech.

 

[ihuntsnook]

I had just finished up with about round balls, where I wiped between shots. I was on my fourth shot with the minies without wiping when that ball got stuck. I had a Japanese Springfield in the late 70s and never had any such problem with it. This one's a Colt and will be a good shooter, just never had a Minie ball stick like that. My guess is that the government issue Minies of the Civil War were considerably undersized. Mine came out of a Lee Mold. They looked pretty good, and the weights were pretty close, but I guess I will be wiping between shots from now on.

 

[hawkeye2]

A patched round ball will clean the bore to an extent as it is loaded while a mini will not. Since there is clearance between the mini and the bore a layer of fouling will build up and this is not completely removed by firing the round. Lube is critical in that it keeps the fouling soft allowing loading and controlling accuracy. It isn't unusual to find that a rifle musket will build up fouling at some spot in the bore causing a constriction. Where that occurs seems to be a characteristic of the barrel and possibly the load/lube combination. I would recommend a quick cleaning every dozen or so rounds or whenever the loading effort increases significantly. A lot of skirmishers clean between events (2 rounds on a good day, a dozen on a really bad day) with a dry bronze bore brush. Hold the rifle muzzle down so the loosened fouling drops out as you brush the bore and don't hesitate to clean at the first sign of a loading problem.

Another issue that sometimes happens is the separation of a mini skirt which leaves a ring of lead in the bore preventing the next round from being loaded beyond that point. This is almost always caused by a poorly cast ball with defects in the skirt. The ball will separate at one of the groves upon firing.

 

[ihuntsnook]

Thank you for that. I hadn't considered skirt separation, and from the way that ball wedged in so tight, it makes perfect sense.

 

[varsity07840]

I had just finished up with about round balls, where I wiped between shots. I was on my fourth shot with the minies without wiping when that ball got stuck. I had a Japanese Springfield in the late 70s and never had any such problem with it. This one's a Colt and will be a good shooter, just never had a Minie ball stick like that. My guess is that the government issue Minies of the Civil War were considerably undersized. Mine came out of a Lee Mold. They looked pretty good, and the weights were pretty close, but I guess I will be wiping between shots from now on.

Are you casting the minies from dead pure lead? If not you may not get full expansion of the skirt
into the deeper grooves at the breech. That will result in blow by creating hard, burned fouling and leading which can cause your problem.

Duane

 

[ihuntsnook]

Yeah, the lead was pure. I'm thinking a skirt separated. Been shooting muskets for 33 years, and this was a first.

 

[varsity07840]

Yeah, the lead was pure. I'm thinking a skirt separated. Been shooting muskets for 33 years, and this was a first.

Could be a skirt. The reason I mentioned lead purity is that one batch of minies I cast years ago came from "pure" lead used to line walls of x-ray rooms. Got it as a freebe from a jobsite. Groups went south, a ring of fouling built up, running the minie home became difficult and the milder recoil with the first shot from a clean barrel was obvious. Couldn't figure it out until I decided to test the lead. No good. I'm wondering if maybe you were pushing fouling down the bore with the PRBs and it was collecting at the breech. How much 3F Swiss were you using with the minie? It's pretty hot. Maybe it was cooking the fouling left behind.

Duane

 

[ihuntsnook]

Patched round ball I shoot 50 grs, bumped it up to 70 for the minies. Lead was all flashing material and pretty soft. I suspect the guy casting the bullets is the culprit. I started shooting rifled muskets in 1979 and never ran into anything like this, and I'm now convinced it was skirt separation.

 

[oscarlovel]

So how was the musket grouping with the PRB loads?

 

[ihuntsnook]

I had the PRBs down to 4 inches offhand. I am shooting 570 Hornady swaged balls patched with .011 pillow ticking lubed according to Dutch Schoultz. Bought a .568 mold from Jeff Tanner with the idea of being able to cast wheel weights and other hard lead for target shooting. Results are encouraging with the .568s but inconclusive as yet. I've done some work on the trigger and it's crisp, but still a tad heavy for 50 yard target work. I'm gonna let it be for another hundred rounds to see if it works in or I get used to it. I may have a slight adjustment to make on the front sight. I'm still a tad right at 50 yards -- just a inch or so.