A Tale of Two 1861 Enfield Musketoons

[SDSmlf]

Recently spent a day at the range with a buddy shooting our 1861 Enfield Musketoons and each of us had extremely different results with our guns.

A little background, decades ago I briefly owned a Euroarms 1861 Musketoon, and while a fairly well made gun, it could not accurately shoot Minies of any style, though it handled patched roundballs fairly well. Since that time, I had the opportunity to shoot a number of Parker-Hale examples, and they seemed to shoot Minies with relative ease, and always thought I’d like to pick one up.

Recently purchased that P-H Musketoon from the forum classified (thank you @BigSkyRambler) and I had not yet shot it, and it was time to give it a test run.

I have a friend in PA that recently acquired a NOS Pedersoli Enfield Musketoon who was going to be traveling through NC and we decided to schedule a play date. It’s worth noting that he had been unable to get Minies of any type to shoot with acceptable accuracy, and even though it shot patched roundballs ‘ok’, he wanted to shoot Minies. He also wasn’t interested in shooting trashcan shaped bullets like a REAL, which he admitted he had not tried.

Enough rambling, I’ll cut to my notes on the ‘test’ and the results.

Bullet: Lyman's 575213PH cast from soft lead (5 BHN), sized to .575”, homemade lube.

Powder: Swiss 3F, 50 grains by volume for all shots.

Musket cap: RWS 1081.

Target: 2-3/4” bull at 25 yards, 5-1/2” bull at 50 yards. Used six-o’clock hold, all shots taken from seated position, gun unsupported. Note to self, getting too old to shoot muzzleloader from seated position if standing up to load. Bring short stool and cross-sticks next time.

P-H Musketoon results:

First will be to see how it loads and shoots. Goal was 25 shots without a bore intervention, and actually shot 35 times. Sights are an issue, but wanted to shoot as is first. Front sight is modified to a thin .03” wide blade, and is about .40” above the barrel. Too tall and too thin. The rear sight was also modified by a previous owner, having only a .02” square notch. Very difficult to use, but an easy fix.

At 25 yards with rear sight in #’1’ position (100 yards?) had three shots in a 1-1/2” group about 1” below POA. With rear sight in position #’3’ (300 yards?) only took one shot, but about 10-1/2” higher.

At 50 yards with rear sight in #’1’ position had a 3-3/4” group with six shots, about 4-1/2” below POA. With rear sight in position #’3’ took two shots that were about 17” higher.

With rear sight in #’3’ position hit a 24” high by 30” wide steel plate at 300 yards sighting at top of plate. No wind, but hit near left edge of the plate. Thinking gun may be shooting a bit to the left, particularly when rear sight is elevated. More testing required.

Pedersoli Enfield Musketoon results:

I didn’t measure the bore diameter, but owner stated that as cast .577” Minies would load, but there was some resistance. The .575” sized Minies I let him shoot dropped down the bore, the same as my P-H bore.

Pretty obvious the Lyman PH Minie sized to .575” was not the solution. Took five shots at 25 yards and all key-holed, with a pattern of over 17”.

At 50 yards, got no hits on a 24” x 32” target. A bore relining is in the near future according to the owner.

Note that rifling depth according to owner (using a lead slug) in the Pedersoli bore measured a little over .003”. Spec is .004” deep 1x48 rifling. The P-H rifling is supposed to be 1-48 with progressive depth. Per old notes the spec is .005” deep at the muzzle and .016” deep at the breech. Something to confirm.

 

[CyrusP]

Great write up.Thanks. Looking forward to getting my P-H 2-band out soon and experimenting.

 

[kh54]

Yes, great info. With my PH 1861 I found that I could shoot a large ragged hole at 30 yards but windage was about 2-1/2 inches off. Without any way to correct that I hung it back on my wall.

 

[Pete G]

Yes, great info. With my PH 1861 I found that I could shoot a large ragged hole at 30 yards but windage was about 2-1/2 inches off. Without any way to correct that I hung it back on my wall.

There are several ways to correct windage if one really cares to pursue it.

 

[westrayer]

I had one years ago and gave up on it as I couldn't get it to shoot accurately with any Minnie, only patched round ball.

 

[kh54]

There are several ways to correct windage if one really cares to pursue it.

What would those entail? Without driftable sights I’m at a loss.

 

[Nobade]

I ended up dovetailing my barrel and made a sight to fit. As delivered it was about two feet off at 100 yards, now it's hitting center though I still haven't gotten the accuracy out of it I would like. A work in progress.

 

[Stutzer51]

Your P-H P1861 Artillery short rifles (not "musketoon") were originally designed for British military service to deliver effective fire against (French) tactical formations out to 600 yards, check out the rear ladder sight. Mine will mostly hit the British Army Regulation 300 yard target, 6ft x 4ft with a 2ft bull, all day long. It would probably hit the huge Regulation 400-600 yard target, 6ft x 8ft with a 3ft bull if I could see that far over the P1861 sights! That target is the size of a cavalry horse or four French infantrymen standing shoulder-to-shoulder; my two-band P-H Enfield with better sights will routinely hit it more that 60% of the time at ranges of 400-600 yards. That was the accuracy standard required by the British Army's Musketry Regulations, back in 1859.
https://www.amazon.com/Regulations-Conducting-Musketry-Instruction-Adjutant-Generals/dp/0265626269

The core problem is that most folk are trying to shoot an American version of an obsolete French Minie bullet through a British rifle - seems an unlikely combo to me. Dont get me wrong, I am sure lots of folk do it just fine and it is ACW correct, but no trained British soldier in the 1860s EVER loaded his British Enfield with greasy French-style grooved Minie balls and practiced firing it at a tiny target only 50-100 yards away. Never happened, there would have been no point.
The British rifleman of the 1860s, Regular or Volunteer, used "The English Cartridge" as described by your great American author, Brett Gibbons, in his book of the same name. All the Enfield P1853 rifle series used the same standard P1860 government paper cartridge, as mass produced by both Woolwich Arsenal here in London and increasingly by the English gun trade who were well placed to supply it to the Confederacy a couple of years later. If you have read this far, you are going to need:

• Pritchett hollow-based, .550" diameter soft lead projectiles, smooth-sided, fitted with epoxy-putty base plugs. In the US you can get projectiles and even complete cartridges from Brett at papercartridges.com in Gettysburg, watch his YouTube video "Making Pritchett Plugs the Easy Way!
• Stiff card for the powder cylinders and school graph paper for the inner and outer wrappers, all cut to the P1860 dimensions given in the back of Brett's book, and not forgetting the critical three cuts in the outer wrapper to help it separate from the projectile as it leaves the muzzle.
• Watch more videos on how to roll your cartridges and.....
• Roll your own P1860 English Paper Cartridges using an 8" piece of half-inch wooden dowelling as a former.
• Dip the projectile end of the cartridge in 10:1 beeswax/Liquid Paraffin and don't forget the final cut down the side of the bullet once the wax has set, again to aid separation at the muzzle.
• Fill the cartridge with the Government Charge, 69 grains of good quality black powder, and you are good to go. (Tip: try shooting at 300 yards, you may need to increase the charge to get on the bull with the ladder sight at 300 elevation and this should get you on target at longer ranges).

Now go and shoot your long-range British Enfield like a British soldier of the 1860s, and don't forget to adjust your sights for distance!

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

Great video that is relevant to this discussion:



The bottom line is the Italians simply do not use the correct rifling in these reproductions. Minies like deep to shallow progressive depth rifling, not the shallow full depth modern rifling they utilize due to it being cheaper and easier to manufacture.

I once owned a PH musketoon that was a little cutie. Only problem was due to the bone structure of my face it slapped me in the cheek with every shot. I parted with it and have wanted another rifled musket ever since, lots of fun.

 

[dave951]

To get any Minnie to shoot well, size to bore is crucial.

Here's a 100yd group with my PH

 

[Stutzer51]

Dave951 does some fine shooting with his P-H Enfield and he is absolutely right, "To get any Minnie to shoot well, size to bore is crucial." The problem in my experience is, the tighter the fit, the bigger the problem with fouling buildup.

The British Army never used "Minie balls" in their .577" Enfield rifles, instead adopting the smooth-sided, hollow-based Pritchett projectile with a hard base plug to expand the skirt into the rifling. The excellent 1860 final version of the English Cartridge featured a .550" Pritchett, with a wooden plug and a beeswax coating on the outside of the paper cartridge to clean the bore each time it was loaded. As Brett Gibbons states in his book on The English Cartridge, "It loaded effortlessly, fired accurately and could sustain a rate of fire almost indefinitely."
Importantly, they found no loss in accuracy from using the smaller diameter projectile providing that it was plugged.

I cast both .568" and .550" Pritchetts in pure lead, preferring the smaller diameter for ease of loading. I mold the base plugs from hard-setting epoxy car body filler and roll the cartridges from cheap school graph paper - with 27 thou of windage to play with, fancy papers are not necessary! I soften the beeswax dip with 10% liquid paraffin as was common back in the day and my personal best is 33 cartridges fired without cleaning, the last round going down the barrel as smoothly as the first.

So roll some P1960 Enfield paper cartridges, set up a big 6ft x 8ft target at 300-600 yards, raise your ladder sights and feel the joy!