Hard lead minie ball in Pedersoli Musketoon

[Tobee]

Mentor friend turned an aluminum minie mold center pin for me to cast a really deep cavity, thin walled minie. Soft lead and hard lead "thin" minies were cast and tested. I use the hard lead alloy for centerfire pistol and light rifle cast loads. Test was 42 grains of 3F at 50 yards for both soft and hard lead minies. Wanted to see if I could use hard lead is why.
First pic is the mold with the stock pin, aluminum pin, stock minie and thin wall/deep cavity minie. Second pic is a multi-shot group with soft lead, thin walled/deep cavity minies. Third pic is a four shot group of the hard lead minies. After four shots, I could see the minies were not tumbling but doing not that good either. Comments welcome.

 

[dave951]

Hard lead minies don't grip the rifling as well as pure lead minies. End of story. I have a similar thing going on with my PH musketoon. With the tall base pin in my RCBS Hogdon mold, it'll shoot 2moa with just 42g 3f Old E and 50/50 beeswax/lard. With the stock base pin, I have to up the powder charges considerably to even begin to get close to what it'll do with the tall pin.

There is also typically one other factor in play besides powder charge and that is lube. I can switch the lube for my musketoon to the lube my Colt Contract likes on the Rapine Trashcans, and the group will open up considerably.

 

[Enfield58]

Hard lead minies don't grip the rifling as well as pure lead minies. End of story. I have a similar thing going on with my PH musketoon. With the tall base pin in my RCBS Hogdon mold, it'll shoot 2moa with just 42g 3f Old E and 50/50 beeswax/lard. With the stock base pin, I have to up the powder charges considerably to even begin to get close to what it'll do with the tall pin.

There is also typically one other factor in play besides powder charge and that is lube. I can switch the lube for my musketoon to the lube my Colt Contract likes on the Rapine Trashcans, and the group will open up considerably.

I swage my Minie balls and have experimented with hard lead cores.

First of all it takes a lot more effort on the lever to swage hard lead Minie balls. Like your cast hard lead bullets, I didn't get the best accuracy either.

Soft lead makes a better Minie.

 

[dave951]

I swage my Minie balls and have experimented with hard lead cores.

First of all it takes a lot more effort on the lever to swage hard lead Minie balls. Like your cast hard lead bullets, I didn't get the best accuracy either.

Soft lead makes a better Minie.

My RCBS mold drops the Hogdons at 579+. I swage them down to .576 for the musketoon and PH 2 band. I don't cast any hard lead except for my Sharps. All minies are soft lead as are all Smith bullets. And yes, hard lead minies take quite a bit more force to swage.

 

[hawkeye2]

Your load should be more than adequate as far as accuracy goes. Hard lead minines just don't work well regardless of the skirt thickness.

That appears to be a Lyman mold for the 315 grain semi wadcutter which shoots well in its stock form. Ray Rapine copied that bullet for his aluminum mold except for making the skirt a little thinner and that's the bullet my wife and I shoot. There is one shortcoming in that wind deflection becomes much more of an issue beyond 50 yards than with the minnies up in the 500 grain range but in 0 wind it's as good as any at 100.

While it's quite common to make a new base plug to give a deeper cavity and thinner skirt I would be quite concerned with the one you have there. First the plug is far longer than needed which gives an extreme cavity. Second, I would opt for a slightly thicker skirt. If the skirt is too thin the bullet can seperate, usually at the bottom grease groove, leaving a ring of lead in the bore and yes that's not an uncommon thing to happen. I knew someone who had 3 of those rings stuck in his bore and it wasn't from a modified mold either. Minies in their stock form aren't the easiest things to cast and any imperfection in a thin base can cause a blown skirt or seperation. A blown skirt will ony cost you a medal, a ring stuck in the bore is a safety hazzard. There has been cases where skirmishers who reenact (or the other way round) using the same gun have had the ring come out when firing blanks injuring another participant. I hope you don't take that as critical of your casting skills, your bullets seem flawless, wish all of mine came out that well.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Just a thought....I think you were hoping that the very thin walls for the long length would allow the alloy to expand like all lead, no?
So, I think maybe..., you defeated your purpose buy the huge cavity, so the gas expanding into the empty "chamber" inside your bullet had too much room and thus, didn't flex the lead outward very much. PLUS the lack of inertia since you really dropped the weight..., the bullet would've moved forward much sooner than a standard Minnie from the mold, so even less pressure buildup. Maybe if you thinned the walls but kept the nosecone? So perhaps your friend could do another plug for you but like this?


LD

 

[Tobee]

Dave951
I would have to disagree about "end of story". In my locale, lead of unknown hardness is way easier to find than dead soft. I have a stash of linotype, solder bars and pewter; not hard to make alloy. So I will have need, eventually. Swapping out Crisco is a good idea. I have lamb's tallow, lanolin and castor oil to mix with beeswax for the next batch of lube. I use crisco, lanolin, Wesson oil and beeswax now.

Enfield 58
What kind of swaging press do you use? Back in the day I read up on Corbin's literature and almost bought his basic manual press. Decided to stay with casting, however. Keep experimenting and good luck!

Hawkeye2
The deep cavity pin was my friend's second try. I returned the first one. Told him the cavity won't be deep or thin enough, hahaha. He gave me the second pin with a warning about safety, same as yours. Appreciate it. I will be careful. I also like the lyman blue/gray Hogdon style minie. I use the lyman 315 grain minie's base pin in it to make a thin wall and deep cavity. Thanks for noticing the good fill out on the hard lead minies. I get a 60% cull rate. Imho, aluminum pins might not work so good in steel molds.

Loyalist Dave
I like the way you think! I'll ask my friend to modify the pin. See what happens. I could try stuffing the nose cavity with lube for now. Maybe get a change in the group size.

 

[Metalshaper]

Dave951
with due respect to everyone above!!!!


can I add my two cents in?
maybe the skirt is too thin? and shooting the same load you are 'blowing' the skirt as it leaves the bore?? Quick way to find out, reduce your load
by 5% first and see if the group improves??.. then by 10% maybe?? since the pin is home made.. you could experiment with reshaping it and tuning the
center pin design to get a lil more weight up front.. and then I'm thinking a more cylindrical sided interior with just a rounded portion at the top??

But what do I know

Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan

 

[hawkeye2]

Loyalist Dave has a good suggestion for a base plug. I would refine it somewhat (I realize it's only a quick photoshop job) by tapering the base plug more and rounding the top corners. Those 2 things would make filling the skirt and releasing from the base pin much easier. The skirt can be thicker as you go up the cavity and it won't affect expansion at all.

Putting lube in the base cavity won't improve expansion at all. The pressure of the explosion is distributed equally in all directions including the inside of the cavity so nothing is gained by having anything, mechanical or hydraulic, in the base. It may help with keeping the fouling soft and therefore improve your groups.

As an aside for those who don't know, all the Lyman mini molds use base plugs of different configuration and they interchange giving a chance to customize your minis somewhat. It's also possible to modify the mold and base plug so that it's captive like the RCBS, Rapine and Lee molds and that really speeds production.

"Swapping out Crisco is a good idea" Yep, great idea, throw it away or give it to your wife. You could probably leave the Wesson Oil out too without changing anything. If you continue with your hard lead experiments please keep us informed.

 

[Enfield58]

Dave951
Enfield 58
What kind of swaging press do you use? Back in the day I read up on Corbin's literature and almost bought his basic manual press. Decided to stay with casting, however. Keep experimenting and good luck!

I use a Corbin's H-Type swaging press. The big floor model.

I bought it back in the early 90s. I also use it to swag bullets for my Whitworth and Sharps rifle.

It is a little more expensive than casting, which I hate to do. However, the quality of the bullet that I get is a little more uniform.

I was applying a paper jacket for the Whitworth and may go back to that. I even used a bare .451 conical bullet in either a hollow or flat based configuration.

The best groups I ever got with the Whitworth were with the cast 475 grain bullet from the mold that came with it. I had to weigh each bullet, size and lube it as well as weigh each powder charge. I used a plastic wad (from a coffee can lid) a felt wad soaked in saliva and another plastic wad over about 65 grains of powder at the time. My best groups were about 1 inch at 100 yards. My eyes were much better back in those days.

With the aforementioned configurations of bare .451 flat based or conical based bullets my groups were about 2 inches at 100 yards.

I'm experimenting with hollow-based bullets with a diamond knurling patter over it. It's not authentic but I want to see if it retains the lubricant and still yields good groups.

I found a photo from a museum online which showed a Whitworth bullet that was .443 inches in diameter and hollow based. I can't find the link now. However, with that dimension, it leads me to believe that the cartridges were probably similar in design to the Pritchard bullets. After all, it is not inconceivable that they would use that method of constructing a conical bullet in the Whitworth.

I've read a number of articles stating that over time they dispensed with hexagonal bullets in favor of conicals but no further details were given.

I've take a lot of deer with my Whitworth and the hollow based bullets I use are plain sided, 420 grains with 80 grains of powder.

I have some 500 grain bullets that are swaged to a .448 diameter and knurled to give a .451 diameter but have yet to try them out. I think I will start with 70 grains of powder. The reason I went with the heavier bullet and lighter charge is to hopefully, get them close the trajectory represented by the sights.

I have some dies that will swaged a .443 diameter bullet. So I might make up something like a Pritchard style round to shoot out of the Whitworth.

I've swaged some bullets for my Sharps rifle out of hard lead. However, the results were not as good as I had hoped for. So I have another batch that was made up from soft lead wire and will try them out when the weather gets better.

When I was using soft lead for the Sharps rifle my groups were about 2 inches at 100 yards.

Sorry for the thread drift. So I'll get back to the Minie ball.

I used hard lead at one time for the swaged Minie ball and the results were awful. If memory serves me correctly, I was getting about 2-3 inch groups with the soft lead bullets on a good day but the rifle shot left and that was aggravating.

A lot of my groups sizes also depended on the lubricant. I finally settled on the Bore-Butter in the cavity of the swaged Minie ball. The results for the hard lead were disappointing. The groups at 100 yards were about 5-6 inches if I recall correctly. They were about half that size with soft lead.

So I will be testing some soft lead bullets with the knurled pattern, 500 grains with 70 grains of powder. I'll be trying bore butter, SPG or white lithium grease. Or a combination of two or all three lubricants.

My '58 Enfield is made by Euroarms. When I bought it, I thought it had the 1:48 twist. I decided to measure it a few weeks ago. That's something I should have done in the first place. It's a 1:60 twist:-(

That may explain why my group sizes are not any better.

I can't afford a P-H 58 Enfield now. A Pedersoli '58 Enfield might work for me but I don't know if I can be assured of a 1:48 twist with that brand.

Besides, I'm going to conduct some more experimentation with the slow twist rifle. But before I try out a Pritchard style round, I want to see how the knurled bullets work.

Yes, I know it is not authentic but I'm looking for accuracy and to be able to shoot a lot of bullets without doing a lot of cleaning between shots.

It seems that after they came up with the Pritchard round they didn't do much more improvements after that cause the emphasis was on developing metallic cartridges.

My aim is to continue to develop a Minie ball from the point at were they left off over 150 years ago.

 

[Eterry]

Tobee, I too have thought of trying a lead/wheel weight mix to cast minies. My thoughts are using pure lead the skirt deforms and "blows" as loads increase, but a mixture having a higher BRN wouldn't "blow" until higher pressures, thus higher velocities, are reached. So you could get a higher velocity and still maintain accuracy. I cast some Lyman 460gr old style minies using a 70/30% mix, but haven't shot them for group yet.

I always lube the grooves and cavity, because Lyman's test show a higher velocity when the cavity is lubed, and the hydraulic force should help the cavity fill the bore.

I would be interested to see if your groups tighten with the hardened minies and heavier charges. Please keep us posted.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

maybe the skirt is too thin? and shooting the same load you are 'blowing' the skirt as it leaves the bore??

GOSH I had assumed (sorry folks) that the hard lead wasn't engaging the rifling, but a ruptured skirt might explain why you got enough spin to hit the marked area of the target, but gave the bullets enough random variation to give your grouping all that trouble....,

LD

 

[45man]

The bullet is a a head shaker for sure. All of my friends had guns for the Minie' and could not keep them on a 4'x4' cardboard at 50 yards.
Several reasons, the thing should be pure lead and have thicker skirts. Over 50 gr of powder would make skirts flare at muzzle exit, badminton birdy. Next I lapped molds to get a tight fit to the rifling so I needed a hard push to load. That alone let us ring the gong off hand at 200 meters. The Minie' needs engaged full length, just the skirt is not enough. Yes they were made smaller to load fast in battle, something we don't need. I would go to the shoots near Winchester VA and watch. Sad-sad accuracy and a rack of clays was safe for hundreds of rounds.
Seems hard lead and BP does not go together. It can also lead the bore faster then pure. I am lucky and collected pure all my life and have a ton of it. I was given a truckload of cable sheathing and was selling aluminum at the scrap yard and seen a guy ahead of me with huge blocks of lead from the hospital radiation rooms. He gave me one free.
The guys are correct about safety.
Ray Pine was a friend and I have many of his molds and he sold me handles for $14 because I make my own molds. I could have bought his business when he retired but SS does not allow that. His line of molds for BP was so good I would have no other.

 

[Metalshaper]

OK I looked back at the original post and realized he was using 42 grn powder in the testing..

Now I'm wondering if the harder skirt is not getting enough Umpff to expand things fully?? again, I'd try to go up <or down> in increments and find a charge that would work
for the projectile your slinging down range.. spend some time developing a load is all I can give you..


Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan

 

[Tobee]

Metalshaper,hawkeye2,Enfield58,Eterry,LoyalistDave,45man:

Twocents? Heck ya, appreciated. Very encouraged by the comments/suggestions.

Would like to note that the second group in post #1 is a group of minies made from the home made base plug (will stop saying pin, excuse me) using soft lead. The group is holding together more or less so I think the minies are flying okay. Dunno about the flyers. Could be my shaky shooting or casting flaws. Therefore I think the hard lead minies are keeping their shape but not expanding or not expanding enough. Keeping safety in mind, increasing the powder charge is easy to do.

I'll mod the tip of the base plug. I like your ideas of more weight in the nose, more pressure going to the sides (bearing surfaces), and easier release (better casting).

 

[Metalshaper]

Try grouping sets of 5 at 45, 50,55,60 grn charges ??< it may be a weirdo and like a 47 or 52 grns instead ? >put up a clean target each time Or tape over the old holes.. be clear as to what your groups are and ONLY vary one thing at a Time!!! don't switch lubes mid way, or brands of powder, change cleaning routines.. try to be as consistent as possible.. it's the only way you will ever know what did or didn't work.. ( take photos and make notes of what is going on.. saves a foggy memory )

I'd expect a musketoon or any reasonably made firearm could handle those loads?? always the exception I guess. My St'Louis Hawken has tried to digest some of the small .50 cal REAL's at 70-80 grns.. it's the recoil that gets some people uncomfortable!

Not that I'm a great shooter by any means but I know how it works

Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan

 

[dave951]

^^^^ This with regards to consistency. Only change ONE variable at a time and test enough to get a representative sample. That sample size will almost never be less than three shots. A three shot sample size is only valid if there is absolutely no accuracy or grouping evident or if the minie is keyholing. A decent minimum for sampling is five shots, preferably more. Clean up, take notes, try again on another day to confirm.

 

[Eterry]

The bullet is a a head shaker for sure. All of my friends had guns for the Minie' and could not keep them on a 4'x4' cardboard at 50 yards.
Several reasons, the thing should be pure lead and have thicker skirts. Over 50 gr of powder would make skirts flare at muzzle exit, badminton birdy. Next I lapped molds to get a tight fit to the rifling so I needed a hard push to load. That alone let us ring the gong off hand at 200 meters. The Minie' needs engaged full length, just the skirt is not enough. Yes they were made smaller to load fast in battle, something we don't need. I would go to the shoots near Winchester VA and watch. Sad-sad accuracy and a rack of clays was safe for hundreds of rounds.
Seems hard lead and BP does not go together. It can also lead the bore faster then pure. I am lucky and collected pure all my life and have a ton of it. I was given a truckload of cable sheathing and was selling aluminum at the scrap yard and seen a guy ahead of me with huge blocks of lead from the hospital radiation rooms. He gave me one free.
The guys are correct about safety.
Ray Pine was a friend and I have many of his molds and he sold me handles for $14 because I make my own molds. I could have bought his business when he retired but SS does not allow that. His line of molds for BP was so good I would have no other.

Lyman's #577611 has thicker skirts and in their data book they show high speed photos of it in front of 150gr ffg and the skirts are holding up fine. While the #575213 starts to show slight flaring at the base at 100gr ffg, and with 150gr ffg the skirts have flared and it resembles a badminton birdy.

Now whether these heavier loads are Accurate is entirely another matter. When a bullet breaks the sound barrier the resulting shock wave causes turbulence, which effects accuracy. Then as the bullet slows below the sound barrier the turbulence repeats, again effecting accuracy. That's a leading reason why most accurate loads for the Minie are so mild, IMHO. It would also explain why the 38 Spl and the 45 Acp are renown for accuracy. None reach the sound barrier.

That's why the 6.5 is the new Darling among the long range CF shooters over the 30 calibers; due to its extreme BC it remains supersonic a longer period, extending the range one can accurately shoot.

My hope is to mix a metal so heavier loads can be used with the molds I have before the skirts deform and spoil accuracy. And I have much more WW's than pure lead, it is harder to find it scrap here.

My ultimate goal is to use them on Elk or Moose. So a faster load with acceptable accuracy is a goal as well.

 

[Tobee]

I use a Corbin's H-Type swaging press. The big floor model.

I bought it back in the early 90s. I also use it to swag bullets for my Whitworth and Sharps rifle.

It is a little more expensive than casting, which I hate to do. However, the quality of the bullet that I get is a little more uniform.

I was applying a paper jacket for the Whitworth and may go back to that. I even used a bare .451 conical bullet in either a hollow or flat based configuration.

The best groups I ever got with the Whitworth were with the cast 475 grain bullet from the mold that came with it. I had to weigh each bullet, size and lube it as well as weigh each powder charge. I used a plastic wad (from a coffee can lid) a felt wad soaked in saliva and another plastic wad over about 65 grains of powder at the time. My best groups were about 1 inch at 100 yards. My eyes were much better back in those days.

With the aforementioned configurations of bare .451 flat based or conical based bullets my groups were about 2 inches at 100 yards.

I'm experimenting with hollow-based bullets with a diamond knurling patter over it. It's not authentic but I want to see if it retains the lubricant and still yields good groups.

I found a photo from a museum online which showed a Whitworth bullet that was .443 inches in diameter and hollow based. I can't find the link now. However, with that dimension, it leads me to believe that the cartridges were probably similar in design to the Pritchard bullets. After all, it is not inconceivable that they would use that method of constructing a conical bullet in the Whitworth.

I've read a number of articles stating that over time they dispensed with hexagonal bullets in favor of conicals but no further details were given.

I've take a lot of deer with my Whitworth and the hollow based bullets I use are plain sided, 420 grains with 80 grains of powder.

I have some 500 grain bullets that are swaged to a .448 diameter and knurled to give a .451 diameter but have yet to try them out. I think I will start with 70 grains of powder. The reason I went with the heavier bullet and lighter charge is to hopefully, get them close the trajectory represented by the sights.

I have some dies that will swaged a .443 diameter bullet. So I might make up something like a Pritchard style round to shoot out of the Whitworth.

I've swaged some bullets for my Sharps rifle out of hard lead. However, the results were not as good as I had hoped for. So I have another batch that was made up from soft lead wire and will try them out when the weather gets better.

When I was using soft lead for the Sharps rifle my groups were about 2 inches at 100 yards.

Sorry for the thread drift. So I'll get back to the Minie ball.

I used hard lead at one time for the swaged Minie ball and the results were awful. If memory serves me correctly, I was getting about 2-3 inch groups with the soft lead bullets on a good day but the rifle shot left and that was aggravating.

A lot of my groups sizes also depended on the lubricant. I finally settled on the Bore-Butter in the cavity of the swaged Minie ball. The results for the hard lead were disappointing. The groups at 100 yards were about 5-6 inches if I recall correctly. They were about half that size with soft lead.

So I will be testing some soft lead bullets with the knurled pattern, 500 grains with 70 grains of powder. I'll be trying bore butter, SPG or white lithium grease. Or a combination of two or all three lubricants.

My '58 Enfield is made by Euroarms. When I bought it, I thought it had the 1:48 twist. I decided to measure it a few weeks ago. That's something I should have done in the first place. It's a 1:60 twist:-(

That may explain why my group sizes are not any better.

I can't afford a P-H 58 Enfield now. A Pedersoli '58 Enfield might work for me but I don't know if I can be assured of a 1:48 twist with that brand.

Besides, I'm going to conduct some more experimentation with the slow twist rifle. But before I try out a Pritchard style round, I want to see how the knurled bullets work.

Yes, I know it is not authentic but I'm looking for accuracy and to be able to shoot a lot of bullets without doing a lot of cleaning between shots.

It seems that after they came up with the Pritchard round they didn't do much more improvements after that cause the emphasis was on developing metallic cartridges.

My aim is to continue to develop a Minie ball from the point at were they left off over 150 years ago.

Interesting read about your work on the Whitworth. Someday I'd like to get one. I have a Pedersoli 2 band; got it used. Always thought it had a 1 in 48 twist. Now I don't want to know. Cabelas says theirs is 1 in 48. DGW says 1 in 56. Please post when you test the knurled minies.

 

[Tobee]

Lyman's #577611 has thicker skirts and in their data book they show high speed photos of it in front of 150gr ffg and the skirts are holding up fine. While the #575213 starts to show slight flaring at the base at 100gr ffg, and with 150gr ffg the skirts have flared and it resembles a badminton birdy.

Now whether these heavier loads are Accurate is entirely another matter. When a bullet breaks the sound barrier the resulting shock wave causes turbulence, which effects accuracy. Then as the bullet slows below the sound barrier the turbulence repeats, again effecting accuracy. That's a leading reason why most accurate loads for the Minie are so mild, IMHO. It would also explain why the 38 Spl and the 45 Acp are renown for accuracy. None reach the sound barrier.

That's why the 6.5 is the new Darling among the long range CF shooters over the 30 calibers; due to its extreme BC it remains supersonic a longer period, extending the range one can accurately shoot.

My hope is to mix a metal so heavier loads can be used with the molds I have before the skirts deform and spoil accuracy. And I have much more WW's than pure lead, it is harder to find it scrap here.

My ultimate goal is to use them on Elk or Moose. So a faster load with acceptable accuracy is a goal as well.

Back in the day, I used WW but added some form of tin. Got better fill out, if I recall. Also read somewhere that straight WW can be brittle. Might be helpful to test the straight WW and a WW+tin alloy minie with a hammer. Don't want the skirt to fragment since you'll loading upwards. Um, disregard if you'll be making an alloy. Please post when you test.