Building my first muzzleloader it will be a underhammer with a .45 caliber, 1" x 35" straight octagon barrel with 1:18 twist.I will be ordering the barrel soon can anyone tell me what rifling depth I will need and what do the breech threads need to be cut. Please tell me anything that can help me in anyway. The gun will be used for target & hunting. Thanks Tim
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Help building a underhammer rifle
- Thread starter buddy3658
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Ed Wingenroth
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2007
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Hi Buddy !!!
Welcome to the Site !!!
Not knowing your abilities, It's tough to advise you of all the aspec's of building a Rifle.. Not to blow you off, but you need to be a little more discriptive in your knowledge and needs for anyone to help you out.....
Good Luck...
Ed.....
Welcome to the Site !!!
Not knowing your abilities, It's tough to advise you of all the aspec's of building a Rifle.. Not to blow you off, but you need to be a little more discriptive in your knowledge and needs for anyone to help you out.....
Good Luck...
Ed.....
Hi Ed I have no knowledge at all building a muzzleloader this will be my first.What I need to know now is what would be the best rifling depth & What breech threads to have cut in the breech? For a target rifle This I need to know before the guy can make my barrel any help would be nice. Thanks Buddy
Well Hello Buddy,
Happy to have a new enthusiast here.
Now to your barrel1 Why 1:18 twist? That would be for a heavy "Bullet" 450 grains or better. That is a lot of lead, not well suited to round ball.
With a 1:18 twist you would be looking for a rifleing depth of about .007"
Nothing wrong with any of this. BUT your rifle would swing towards a bench rifle.
Question now is, where exactly did you plan to go?
Your breech plug should be 9/16" X 18 threads
Now tell us more!
Fred
Happy to have a new enthusiast here.
Now to your barrel1 Why 1:18 twist? That would be for a heavy "Bullet" 450 grains or better. That is a lot of lead, not well suited to round ball.
With a 1:18 twist you would be looking for a rifleing depth of about .007"
Nothing wrong with any of this. BUT your rifle would swing towards a bench rifle.
Question now is, where exactly did you plan to go?
Your breech plug should be 9/16" X 18 threads
Now tell us more!
Fred
Welcome to the forum.
The 1:18 twist will only be useful with elongated bullets.
These usually use a very shallow rifling depth varying from .002 to .004.
A breech plug thread of 9/16-18UNF-2B should work fine.
In my opinion, a barrel with this sort of fast twist and shallow rifling will be a poor choice if you ever decide to shoot patched roundballs.
Admittedly there are those who are not interested in competing with other target shooters but most of the "off the shoulder" muzzleloading contests are shot with patched roundballs.
The muzzleloading competition done that do use elongated bullets (often with underhammer guns) are generally long range bench shooting matches and the guns used often weigh over 15 pounds so they would make very poor hunting rifles.
Anyway, for a first gun being built by a new builder, I think you have a pretty long row to hoe. Good luck to you.
The 1:18 twist will only be useful with elongated bullets.
These usually use a very shallow rifling depth varying from .002 to .004.
A breech plug thread of 9/16-18UNF-2B should work fine.
In my opinion, a barrel with this sort of fast twist and shallow rifling will be a poor choice if you ever decide to shoot patched roundballs.
Admittedly there are those who are not interested in competing with other target shooters but most of the "off the shoulder" muzzleloading contests are shot with patched roundballs.
The muzzleloading competition done that do use elongated bullets (often with underhammer guns) are generally long range bench shooting matches and the guns used often weigh over 15 pounds so they would make very poor hunting rifles.
Anyway, for a first gun being built by a new builder, I think you have a pretty long row to hoe. Good luck to you.
jdkerstetter
69 Cal.
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The best advice I can give you for a build like this, that is for a specific type of shooting, is to seek out those who do it and ask them.
Find a club or individual who is into this kind of stuff. Do the research!
Enjoy and Good Luck, J.D.
Find a club or individual who is into this kind of stuff. Do the research!
Enjoy and Good Luck, J.D.
FL-Flinter
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2007
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- 110
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- 0
Tim,
No offence intended but based on the questions you're asking, you're nowhere near ready to jump into one of the most difficult combinations that can easily frustrate an experienced ML bullet pusher. I had over two decades of experimentation and experience before starting build specialty guns for a living.
The rifling depth can range anywhere from 0.0025" to 0.012" depending on the list of associated variables that's as long as your arm and include everything from bullet design and alloy composition based upon the intended use to how it's going to be loaded. At a bare minimum you'll need a custom bullet mold engineered to produce not only the correct bullet design but also the right size bullet according to the alloy composition of the melt and there's no guarantee the rifle is going to like that particular bullet anyway. You also need to know how you're going to load (Pre-swage, muzzle-swage, bareback, single/multi layer paper-patch, strip-patch, cartridge-patch, ect.) before you even start to consider the bullet design, rifling depth or anything else.
This is the first five shots from a new underhammer hunting conical bullet rifle, starting load was based on the calculations I used during the design phase. 45cal, 490gr muzzle-swaged bullet 1:18 twist 135 yards.
Mark
[email protected]
No offence intended but based on the questions you're asking, you're nowhere near ready to jump into one of the most difficult combinations that can easily frustrate an experienced ML bullet pusher. I had over two decades of experimentation and experience before starting build specialty guns for a living.
The rifling depth can range anywhere from 0.0025" to 0.012" depending on the list of associated variables that's as long as your arm and include everything from bullet design and alloy composition based upon the intended use to how it's going to be loaded. At a bare minimum you'll need a custom bullet mold engineered to produce not only the correct bullet design but also the right size bullet according to the alloy composition of the melt and there's no guarantee the rifle is going to like that particular bullet anyway. You also need to know how you're going to load (Pre-swage, muzzle-swage, bareback, single/multi layer paper-patch, strip-patch, cartridge-patch, ect.) before you even start to consider the bullet design, rifling depth or anything else.
This is the first five shots from a new underhammer hunting conical bullet rifle, starting load was based on the calculations I used during the design phase. 45cal, 490gr muzzle-swaged bullet 1:18 twist 135 yards.
Mark
[email protected]
FL-Flinter
That is awesome chit!
Nice to see
Thank you
Fred
That is awesome chit!
Nice to see
Thank you
Fred
