English Match Rifle

[grey8833]

Well, now for something different:

English Match Rifle
11.5 pounds, with sights and sling.
Petonica River "Rigby" parts set, Walnut half stock, no stain, permylin finish, no ram rod, poured pewter nose cap. Boiled blue (Mark Lee Express Blue)on the barrel, butt plate, pistol grip cap, trigger plate and escutcheons. French gray on the hammer, lock plate, trigger guard and tang.

Green Mountain 1-18 twist 1" octagon .451 barrel (pin gauged at exactly .451), L&R Lock (custom tuned), 535 grain grease grooved bullet (Pedersoli mold), no sizing used.

Lee Shaver Super Soule Muzzleloader tang sight with a Distant Thunder custom height front globe (with level and inserts):

And the first target, after I got the sights onto the paper. 100 yards, 70 grains of FFg Goex, lubed felt washer under the bullet, beeswax/oil/murphy's oil soap lube, bench, no support, no sling:

Yea, that is the bullet used in the corner of the target. Big thing, despite the rifle weight and the broad butt plate, she does kick.

First time I have used them but Soule and globe sights are amazing.

And yes, I need practice.

Mike F

 

[JayDee Flohr]

Great looking gun :hatsoff: I bet after you get her dialed in it will be printing very, very small groups.

 

[jmforge]

Very nice, sir!! I was at the Blade show this past weekend and was talking with Mark Sentz, who is both an ABS Master smith and and long time muzzleloader guy. The conversation got around to English style rifles and he told me that he had a very high quality Rigby repro that was made in Spain back in the '80's that is his target shooting and deer hunting rifle. Now the fun part. He has found that the most accurate load for his rifle is the big honkin' 540 grain bullet sized and then loaded using a "false muzzle" on top of a felt wad and.........wait for it.........120 grains of powder!!!!! That has to generate some recoil!!!! He uses a lighter bullet in the 375 gr range for hunting, but with about the same powder charge.

 

[jmforge]

As an aside, I wish they would offer that kit with a little fancier grade of walnut.
The kit is a slightly loose interpretation of the Rigby. From what I have seen. many of the Rigby's had round barrels like the current Pedersoli repro of the Gibbs. The Purdey sporting rifles that I have seen from that era had the octagonal barrel with two groove "express" rifling pattern.

 

[SR James]

Joe, you can order an wood upgrade. Below is a pic of my English flint sporter built on a Pecatonica English shotgun stock. There is actually much more figure than shows in the photo.

 

[grey8833]

Joe:

Yea, thats the game. The bullet I have goes at 535 grain, grease groved. The paper patch some use goes at 540 grain. The standard load for these guns for 1000 yard shooting is 100 grains of 1.5 Swiss. The twist is right at 1:18, but most of these barrels were round way back when. The butt plate is wide, due to spread the recoil, which is not too bad - the gun weighs in at 11.5 pounds, sights and sling included.

As noted, it is a loose interpretation of a Rigby / Metford / Henry. Probably closer to the Henry, particuliary the ToTW version with a ram rod. The repro Gibbs is a good gun, but I find building them at least as much fun as shooting them.

Thanks for the comments.

Mike F

 

[jmforge]

Considering that the Gibbs has very plain wood, Perdersoli is VERY proud of their gun if you look at the pricing. :shocked2: I am getting ready to build my first gun, but I would eventually like to build an 1860's Purdey style express rifle with the two groove barrel and the "winged" bullets. :grin: Those English target rifles and sporting rifles were state of the art back in the late percussion era and I have read that they were still beating the cartridge rifles on the 1000 yard range sometimes 10+ years after they were considered to be "obsolete" What rifling pattern does your gun use? From what Mark told me, it sounds like his gun is using the Henry pattern. I have seen pictures of one rifle, a Henry IIRC, that had an octagon to round barrel, but I only see those for fowlers one the websites. What is really curious is that a number of the round barrel rifles seemed to have had little "ribs" up at the breach where the flats of an octagonal barrel would have been.

 

[jmforge]

Nice! :bow: That little gun has a a major Manton vibe.

 

[chapmans]

Mike,
What kind of nipple are you using? How long will a standard nipple last? Just wondering.
By the way nice rifle!!
Longball 58

 

[grey8833]

Joe:
The rifling is a modern setup, shallow with a 1:18 twist(very much like the later Rigby rifling). The barrel, as I understand it, was done by Green Mountain as a cartridge rifle barrel, sold to Pectonica as an unbreeched barrel. Pectonica put an English breech on it and called it quits. The Rigby has a different, very rounded nipple stand for its breech plug - usually with a blow out plug (safety for the high pressures in this gun). The plug you get is a lot more like a Henry than a Rigby, as is the octogon barrel. Rigby/Metford rifles had a round barrel with "ribs" at the breach - all had a drip bar soldered to the barrel to releave the weak wood structure you get over the lock (it is not all that hard to do, and I am terrible at soldering).

The original Creedmore Match in 1874 was won by the Americans using Sharps and Remington Rolling Blocks, the Irish used the Rigby / Metford muzzleloader - the Irish lost by ONE point. So the rifle is good to 1000 yards (the English still shoot this rifle at 1200 yards at Bisley).

Longball:
I am using an Ampco nipple - for now. Everyone in this game tells me that the burn out rate for even Ampco is 50 to 100 rounds. Most guys give up and buy a platinum lined nipple from J. Cunard and Co. - owner is a world class long range muzzleloader shooter. The back pressure in these rifles is very high > from the heavy loads and the fact that the bullet (uses no patch) is obdurated to the bore for a gas tight seal at firing. This was the secret for the long range accuracy, heavy long tin/lead bullets, fast spin, high bore pressure using big loads of slow burning high quality powder (thus the Swiss 1.5), high fps out the barrel. The cost is nipple burn out.

One more caution on considering this rifle - the sights cost a fortune - but man are they the best! :shocked2: Particuliary if you have old eyes. The sights were / are a work of late 19th century art. Grandfather to all the modern peep sights - but on 1000 yard steroids.

Mike F

 

[Headhunter]

You know Mike, that might just do.

Great job once again.

HH

 

[jmforge]

As for the sights, I have thought for a while that one of those English long range rifles would be perfect for one of the Leatherwood long tube Malcolm scopes :grin:

 

[jmforge]

As for the sights, I have thought for a while that one of those English long range rifles would be perfect for one of the Leatherwood long tube Malcolm scopes :grin: As for velocity, i have heard that those old English express and target rifles can spit out the lighter bullets (300-350gr in .45) at velocities in the 2000fps+ range. the rule of thumb for the express rifles was that even the early models and later big bores, which used the bullet/charge weight ratio of 4 to 1 or so would do around 1600fps! :shocked2:

 

[Capt. Fred]

I thought the Irish lost by THREE points! LOL (Written as a proud American!)

 

[R.M.]

Plus, from what I've heard, the Irish cross-fired on one of the last targets, costing them dearly.

 

[Capt. Fred]

Yup, big no-no. :thumbsup:

 

[grey8833]

Joe:

I looked at the leatherwood scope, and I got a bit scared off by the reports of what recoil was doing to their scope mounts, even the re-enforced one. The scope is fine, but the standard mount would rip out the dovetails, front and back in fairly short order on a heavy recoil (58 cal +) gun. They did come up with a screw re-enforced back base, but I heard there were problems with that.

Any one else heard anything on that Leatherwood scope and mount?

By the way, the Leatherwood is about the same cost or a little cheaper than a good Tang and Globe sight setup.

Mike

 

[SR James]

Leatherwood now makes a sliding ring that helps considerably with recoil forces. I have one on my Gemmer Sharps but as it was mounted only recently, I can't comment as to its durability. However, Montana Vintage Arms uses a Unertl-style mounting system (two blocks with two screws each) and a sliding mount that holds up very well, so I anticipate the Malcolm will as well. I have a short Malcolm (17") on an 8lb, .45-70 High Wall using Leatherwood's Unertl-style mounts and it has held up well

 

[cannonball1]

I would like to renew this old post because of the leatherwood scopes. I have a custom target rifle with two 18" twist Oregon barrels. I am shooting PP 503 grain bullet, 75 grains of Swiss Powder and a lead sled. When I put the barrel on with the leatherwood scope, 6 power, set the target at 300 yards I can get a very close vertical group, but the horizontal group is way off. 5" vertical, way over 12" horizontal. Is the horizonal most likely me? Any suggestions?