Harpers Ferry Pedersoli

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phoenix511

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What should I shoot in this pistol?

I have a Pedersoli Harpers Ferry, the bore is 0.586, with a 7 groove very shallow rifled barrel. The catalog shows this a 1/47" twist. This pistol shoots great, the lock is fast, trigger nice ... other than I need to green wheel most square 5/8" flints to shorten them to fit. Of course there is no rear sight, so accuracy is diminished, but its so much fun to shoot. I've used am unpatched o.570" ball with nice results, an unpatched with a felt overpowder wad about the same.

Could I try a Minie ball in this pistol and expect fair results? I've been using 30gr FFG and I wonder if this is enough to open the skirt of the Minie?
 
Hey that's an idea. That old shorty style minie of Lymans might work pretty good. It was made for low power charges...right?
 
If the bore measures .586" you may have a hard time finding a Minie to fit, however if you meant the groove diameter, you should be able to get an oversized Minie mold.
 
Well, at the risk of being called a "ol' stick in the mud" I'll point out that this pistol was designed for shooting a roundball.

Minies and other elongated bullets weren't invented until later in history.

OK. So the historical stuff is fine for talking but a lot of folks are interested in POWER.

That usually brings up the subject of shooting elongated bullets in these old guns but folks need to remember, more power means more recoil.
More recoil means greater stress on the gun. Especially the stock.

I would sure hate to see someone crack their stock because of a heavy "Powerful" load.

Just somethin' ta think about. :hmm:
 
I have one of those pistols, I have only shot round balls through mine with a 40 grain charge of 3f. I have gone a bit higher but I think the ball has left the barrel with more of a powder charge.
 
Zonie said:
More recoil means greater stress on the gun. Especially the stock. I would sure hate to see someone crack their stock because of a heavy "Powerful" load. :hmm:

Jim you aren't blown smoke on recoil in these old guns. I was in the library and an old black fellow came in carrying an old musket percussion gun. The first thing I saw was it had a wrap on the wrist and looked like it had been well used (not beat). After talking to him we find out this had been used in Africa 65-70 years earlier by this gentleman and his father when herding cows. One of the guys asked about the wrist and the repair. Turns out they had lost their measurer and would just dump powder in stopping at the count of "two". He called it the two finger load, if shooting bigger game they may go as high as "four" for the count.

We forgot to ask how fast they counted. Talk about recoil and they were shooting the bullets mentioned. :( :nono:
 
Stick with those big ole .570 round balls. You won't gain that much with a minnie but you may lose alot. There is a famous video on you tube of a guy wanting to impress his date with a flintlock pistol and he loaded up a minnie for the first time using the same charge he always had using a round ball---the guy wears a scar on his FACE today from that event. he got smacked badly in the face with the gun---the recoil increase was significant and he was not ready for it! But as others have said it will really add wear and tear, and for what??? ...A .570 round ball in that Harper's Ferry pistol is a cannon ball.
 

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