1-48" was a rather common twist rate 230 years ago. As long as the rifling is deep enough to get a good grip on the prb it will shoot just fine.
I agree with
hanshi. The original Hawken shop apparently used a 1:48 twist for all of the calibers. If you think about it, people whose lives depended on their rifles were happy with a 1:48 twist, but today's hobbyists believe they need a slower rate. Go figure! I believe the depth and width of the grooves has as much to do with it as the rate of twist.
Conventional wisdom maintains that you don't need as much powder to stabilize the ball with a faster twist, and that you can use a larger powder charge, to get a higher velocity and greater kinetic energy, with a slower twist. However, Horace Kephart bought an original Hawken as "new old stock" from Albright's hardware store in St. Louis in 1894. This was a .52 caliber rifle, shooting a 217 grain ball. Kephart wrote that he had a 41 grain charger, and he tried incremental loads of 41, 82, 123, 164, and 205 grains. He wrote that fouling increased with the higher charges, "...
but there was no sign of the bullet stripping." He appeared to prefer the 82 grain charge, stating that "...
I would land in the 12-inch black of the German ring target when aiming at the top of the bull, unless there was a wind blowing. This was at 200 yards" (from "The Hawken Rifle," in
Sporting Firearms and The Hawken Rifle, by Horace Kephart, originally published in 1912, reprinted 2004 by the Palladium Press, in "The Firearms Classic Library").
That may be more than you wanted to read. However, the 1:48 twist may be more "tolerant" than we modern folk like to think. With the right ball, patch, and powder charge, I'm willing to bet you'll do just fine.
Notchy Bob
