Minnie... PRB heresy

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Dutch,

there is a little ignore button we can use to stop seeing negative posts. I use it myself when I have enough of someone needing to be "the big shot". If ya need help let me know. I had a guy in there for over a week just recently and its great to not hear horn tootin and negative horse poop for a while :thumbsup:
 
I’m a round ball fan, I don’t if you noticed :wink: however some of us dyed in the wool traditionalist forget a fifty year history of muzzleloader designed to shoot conicals.
Ned Roberts, who was one of the founders of our modern sports, cut his teeth on conical muzzleloaders.
I will rib you a bit for throwing more lead then you need to kill with, and I will take ribing for putting one in my round ball gun. But it’s just ribing.
Round ball was almost all that ml ate for six centuries. But half that time matchlocks were all the gun any one needed.
I will continue to shoot my flinters, and ball in most of my guns.
 
Hey if my gun liked round balls I would be shoot I g them but it seems as though it doesn't.. As for why you only get a torn patch every so many rounds I don't know? Is it worse if you shoot faster? Though I can't see shooting one fast enough to heat it up to awfully much.... That's a real mystery... Your patch material isn't real old im sure... I would think if the was a burr or something in the barrel it would show even on the patches that didn't tear... Its a real conundrum...
 
CapPopper said:
But it shoots 1/2 inch groups with minies.... Its just the ball it doesnt like lol

Exactly the reason I mentioned Dutch, patched round ball accuracy is his specialty..

When I said;

Hasn't the "Dutch's" crowd cornered you yet?

It was meant to be a "Segue" or a "lead-in for" someone who has benefited from Dutch's system to chime in...It was not meant to be negative in any way...

Even if you try Dutch's system and it doesn't turn your gun into a tack driver, the knowledge you gain is something you will be able to apply going forward.


For me, Your gun represents an opportunity, or an experiment, something to tinker with...If you are not interested in those things than the quickest way to accuracy is probably to replace it or re-bore it.
 
Well I plan on buying another gun and it shoots monies fine I also planned on getting dutch's system too... Maybe it will shoot ok once I play with it more maybe it won't.. When I tried everything I did and it wouldn't shoot balls but shot the minies good I didn't have another opportunity to shoot before season started and had already put 40 or 50 balls down range but the first minie load I tried cause I was frustrated shot so good I quit and called it good enough... So perhaps it will shoot balls I mean I haven't tried everything by any means
 
If your rifle shoots nice groups with minies and not with patched round ball is because the minie. if you mean the regular skirted minie expands the skirt into the rifling completing the ideal seal needed for accuracy. and in the case of the patched round ball that disappoints you have any inadequate thickness of material in the patch which is not completing that ideal seal..
Probably too thin a material because it's easier to load.
.

The core of my method is to show you how to get patching material that when compressed between ball and wall gives us the perfect seal.

You may have too much lube on you patch material and a few other variables.
I don't know what your powder charge is or a few other questions.

Dutch One of the Crowd
 
Tried charges between 60 and 110... My patches shouldve been thick enough... Much harder to get down the bore ill need a mallet.... Tried spit olive oil and some others none were saturated merely damp... I can try thicker patches but ill have to buy a range rod I doubt I can seat them with the rammer on my gun
 
Because I specialize in Patched Round ball there is some belief that I am "Anti Minie".
I think conicals are fine but they either work well in your rifle or they don't. What adjustments can you make in order to make your elongated projectile become accurate in your rifle/
You can seek a different source for you minie.
You can alter the powder carge up or down and hope for the best.
You can also weigh them out to eliminate off balance projectiles.
That'sabout it.
With the patched roun ball you can adjust the fit of the patched ball by changing ball size ,like .445 n or .440, /You can change the fabric you use fro patching, you can adjust the amount of lubrication to what seems to be a more precise amount of no too slick help the ball both in and out.
you can fiddle with the powder charge
You can do quite a few things to get everything just the way Old Bessie likes to be fe.

That's the fun for me in correcting a gun load to give sweet results.

In the beginning I used to worry about a lot of things rate of twist for one, but as month after month at the range coaching folks I came to the conclusion that most rifles are rather forgiving once you pay attention totheirneeds and the rifling may vary in depth from deep to very thin. The twists can be all over the place but if the barrel is straight and unbulged I have yet to find one we ouldn't improve rather remarkably.

I feel that probably 75 or80%of the Muzzleloaders sold lie corroding in closets and basemens because the owner never figured out how to load and use it.. That is what will kill the sport and that is why all ofus should help newbies doing everything wrong.

Dutch Schoultz
 
Thank you for the Pep Talk,

I personally believe thatI am one of the best writers around, I feel that use use great wit and humor to express my ideas and thatI produce material that is of interest to just about everyone.

I also believe that the people who agree with the above number in single gigits and half of them are dead.

Accordingly I am very sensitive about the above and expect the overwhelming mass of people not to agree wit me.
So Iam a tad over reactive to criticism which I figure improbably well based.

My mother called me Fuss Buget in the 30's and Icontinue to think she was and is still correct.

DEutch
 
The round ball is an amazing projectile, you can shoot it in almost any barrel twist, all you have to do is find that sweet spot.
I have seen early Lee Enfields in .303 and Martini .577-.450's used as muzzle loaders with surprising accuracy.
NO they were not shooting at 100 yards, mostly twenty five (25) and fifty (50) yards.
Who can argue with success?
Way back in the early seventies ( that dates me!)
fellows in our club did not have a traditional flint or percussion, but would take the above mentioned guns, load a cartridge in the breech, and then ram a patched round ball down the barrel.
(where was the safety officer?) and then proceed to shoot.
Those fellows could rack up a pretty good score, or shooting an X on a board.
So who says a round ball won't shoot in a barrel designed for longer projectile?
Long winded today!
Fred
 
If your rifle shoots groups that are satisfactory to you, the torn patch should be of no interest unless you intend to reuse it.

I assume you do not weigh out the lead balls you shoot to eliminate the light weights and there fore you jave the odd flyer very so often.
Unless the situation has changed the swaged balls that are so pretty run about 22 - 25 balls out a hundred as being light weight and you should except about one out of every five shots has a good chance of being a flyer It's a lot of bother to weigh out the little critters but it's a bigger bother and expense to load your rifle, get four in a tight group and one that wanted to visit Wisconsin

If you are hunting, that flyer becomes a flat out miss or at worst a no-kill wound that will cause the deer or whatever to die a lingering death from the infection

Spending about three days a week at the range I didn't have a flyer in the last two or there years I was able to shoot.

Dutch
 
Well, you got me interested in that Minie, so I went to TOTW to look it up but I could not find it. Must have been discontinued. If you still have the box, would you list the maker and model number? I always wanted to try those ballets and this sounds kind of close.
 
My fliers are close enough to hunt with, well with in kill range. When I first built the gun I tried bought ballsix different sizes and my best groups came with .500 in .1 patch. Every few shots I would get a flyer out of the group, sure enough I would find a patch with cuts along the rifling lines.
That was a tight load so I sold some tightness of groups to get a smooth loader. .495 with .15
.490 with .24 patches would not shoot at all, about 4 inches at fifty yards. I only ran about 30 shots with that combo.
This gun is about twenty five years old and I’ve never had this happen with any other rifle. I take it out pretty regular but I haven’t hunted with it in a long time. I like my fusils.
I’ve tried leaping with steel wool, and greenies. I’ve not tried the valve grinding compound.
I saw these small minies, and I never have been a minie shooter, but I looked at its weight and thought I would give it a try, and it shot as well as any other rifle I’ve shot. I’m going to try the compound, but I’ve never been a tack driver.
I can’t shoot against you, that’s for sure. I load from a horn in to a antler bone or measure, that may be a little heaped one time or just shy the next. My sights are primitive in keeping with the style of the gun.
I’m a big round ball fan but found this minie very fine, and may try it on Bambi next year....maybe, as I said I love them smoothies.
 
I had, I believe, a non Forum member write me about his old CVA squirrel rifle which sometimes required a second cap to cause ignition.
This brought back a very old memory whereI had the same problem.
After the bad language died down and I began to look into the problem I found it was caused by an earlier cap not falling away but remaining stuck somewhat loosely in the cupped end of the hammer which acted like a shock absorber and didn't fire the nippled cap. Recocking would frequently allow the expended old cap to fall away and the second trigger pull on the rechecked rifle would would go off nicely.

So if this happens to you. look into the cup on the end of the hammer and remove any stuck in copper expended cap. And while you're at it. clean out that totally neglected part to map it harder for expended caps to remain there after firing.


Not a common problem but annoying when it happens
What really woke me up to this was when I found more than one old cap stuck together on the end of the hammer.

Dutch.
 
Nobody has a problem. All questions answered.
I think I'll not check the Forum for a day or two and see if anything interesting shows up of interest.
Somebody on or off the Forum wrote tat he was pleased with a 2 and half inch group at 25 yards. That same group would be about 5 inches at 60 yards.
Forgot to mention that.

Peace

Dutch Schoultz
 
Unwarranted regulatory interference and the deer hunting mania marketed to America means there's a general dearth of good small bore rifles. The smallish geometry of the second hand wood stocked rifles like the Traditions Deerhunter makes for good candidates for rebarrel.
 
I'm curious what Minnie you're shooting. I went to the TOW site and didn't see a 220 grain Minnie ball. You aren't referring to the PA Hornady conical are you? I've tried those and my gun(s) shoot much better with round balls, not to mention that I don't like the gunking up that occurs with the Hornady loads. Purely scientific curiosity, you know.....
 
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