new shooter making rifle selection based on availability of commodity hi quality conical hollow base minnies

[preventec47]

I am just getting started and trying to decide on what BP firearm to get and so far this is all I know. I not want to use flintlock and I want to use percussion caps.
I do not want to shoot balls in a smooth bore barrel. I want to get some advanced rifling barrel even if it is not historically authentic. Seems to me that there must be a hi volume mfgr of minnie balls with hollow base that do them in such hi quantity that there is little to no variation in size and shape etc and that the costs likely are less due to economies of scale.
I dont want to make bullets and would therefore select this rifle based upon the availability of this particular bullet. I want the gun to look reasonably authentic ie like some kind of antique gun and not a modern synthetic stock bolt action etc. I would however toy with the idea of adding an easily removable modern scope due to failing eyesight if anyone has figured out how to do that .... Maybe could even dress up the scope to make it look old. ie enclose in toilet paper tube and paint silver etc or wrap with aluminum foil etc. So I would appreciate suggestions first as to the bullet to be used and then some firearms to shoot the bullet. I live in Atlanta, Georgia . Six or eight years ago I attended a competition shoot by a civil war skirmish club and I cannot forget how enjoyable it was and only now have the time to pursue. Remarkably, every single shooter at that shoot was using balls and not conical bullets of any type. Still I am drawn to hollow base conicals.

 

[LawrenceA]

Welcome Preventec47
Good luck finding what you want.

We really cannot even start to help without knowing where you are.
I cannot buy ball or bullet where I am soo casting is all I can do. Honestly enjoy it. There is an extra special feeling taking game with a bullet you made. Especially in a gun you built.

As a start look at some of the reproduction muskets that are available in your location.
Many will likley have rifling for using minies. There has not been anything new in rifling since the late 1800's that I can think of.
Even this new fad "polygonal rifling" dates back to the Whitworth rifle.

 

[Kansas Jake]

Another welcome Preventec47. I don't shoot hollow based bullets but can give you some ideas from reading here and some experience with muzzleloaders. Generally hollow based minies will put you into civil war era firearms or some time before. The most common would be 58 caliber. There were telescopes used during that time on a limited basis. Reproductions have been made and I think are still available. Also, some of the modern so called Hawken type guns are tapped for mounts which will allow the use of modern scopes. There are a number of makers with the most common today being Traditions or Pedrsoli. Used guns from CVA and Thompson Center also have provisions in some models. I imagine some manufacturers or smaller independent businesses sell minie bullets although I have never looked for them for sale. You might do a google search to see what is available. Large scale manufacturers such as Hornady also make and sell some types of bullet too.

 

[Zonie]

Preventec47:

I would recommend any sidelock rifle that will shoot patched roundballs. For a first time rifle, I wouldn't recommend one of the more expensive ones.
A Traditions Hawken or a Lyman Trade Rifle or Lyman Deerstalker would be a good starting place.
Then there are a lot of used muzzleloading rifles like any of the Thompson Center Hawken and Renegade for sale. The used Traditions and CVA's can also be an even less expensive buy than the TC's. Just be sure to inspect the bore to make sure it is smooth and doesn't have any rust pits in it.

Patched roundballs, when they are shot from a rifle using a suitable patch are very accurate. They are more than enough to use when hunting and best of all, they don't cost a lot of money. Their low cost allows you to shoot a lot more without 'breaking the bank'.
Most of the lead bullets cost about $0.50 each but you can buy .50 caliber lead roundballs (.490 diameter) for as cheap as 14 cents each. (If you ever get into casting and can find some lead for sale at $3.00/pound the .490 diameter lead balls you cast would cost you 8 cents each.)

 

[Coot]

Your greatest choices fo guns designed to fire a minnie will be .58 caliber rifled muskets from the time frame of the ACW. The British made Parker-Hale reproductions are some of the best ever made & appear on the used market from time to time. While many places sell minnie balls, they are not inexpensive relative to roundballs & the quality is often questionable with bent skirts & occasional voids. Most serious shooters choose to cast their own as a result. I cannot remember the name of the best source for quality & price for precast minnies but he is a friend of Eddie Mays (who specializes in good roundballs) but a call to Eddie in Georgia will get you the name of the minnie guy. To get good accuracy from a minniie, you will at least need to buy a sizing die which will fix the bent skirts and produce uniform & optimum clearances in your gun. For a quality (again, not inexpensive) period looking scope with good performance, look up Montana Vintage Arms - they also make excellent long range tang peep sights for those going that route.

 

[preventec47]

Ever since I was a kid I always remember the story about a guy named Minnie who created the Minnie Ball and how it immediately obsoleted ( you wouldnt know it from messages here ) all the round ball guns forever. ( I always wanted to load up a bunch of 30-30 with round balls to see how accurate they were compared to regular bullets. ) Anyway, for no logical reason, the round ball action does not excite me but the way the pressure blows the skirt out to grab the grooves
really intrigues me. I have shot 12 ga foster slugs through smooth bore and I think minnie ball conical bullets also have the same what I call badminton shuttlecock effect. As long as the center of gravity of the bullet is ahead of the center of drag, the bullet is never going to tumble ... rifling or not.

 

[COTNTOP]

I was in the same boat and with help from people on this forum BP shooting is getting a lot less foggy. My past experience with BP left me confused due to bad info from sidewalk commandos. Now I know the difference in fast twist, slow twist, round, conical and last but not least the diff between substitute and real BP. I wound up with a rifle that will shoot both conical and PRB. Always shot highpower centerfires and it takes a lot of adjusting to go BP. Have fun

 

[Grenadier1758]

The Minie' ball obsoleted the round ball on the battlefield, not the hunting grounds. The need to expand the skirts to fill the grooves kept the powder charges low so the skirt wouldn't deform so much that accuracy was compromised. The under sized Minie' bullet was easy to load even when the bore was getting fouled by black powder. However the heavy weight of the Minie' ball made for very much more of an arching trajectory when shot at longer ranges. And if the Minie' ball is too small for the barrel, you get a lot of gas cutting and the ball doesn't engage the rifling so the ball doesn't stabilize by spinning and they can indeed tumble.

 

[tenngun]

Pedersoli makes a .45 Whitworth rifle . It’s not a hollow base minnie but sold base conicals. You have to get a sizer and handle the projectile yourself but the .45 basic projectile is easily available via several suppliers. Buffalo Arms via on line has many projectiles that fit.
you can fit a scope, or special target sights easily to the gun.
This was a gun made for super accuracy, just at a time when modern long range accuracy ideals became norm.

 

[hawkeye2]

Ever since I was a kid I always remember the story about a guy named Minnie who created the Minnie Ball and how it immediately obsoleted ( you wouldnt know it from messages here ) all the round ball guns forever. ( I always wanted to load up a bunch of 30-30 with round balls to see how accurate they were compared to regular bullets. ) Anyway, for no logical reason, the round ball action does not excite me but the way the pressure blows the skirt out to grab the grooves
really intrigues me. I have shot 12 ga foster slugs through smooth bore and I think minnie ball conical bullets also have the same what I call badminton shuttlecock effect. As long as the center of gravity of the bullet is ahead of the center of drag, the bullet is never going to tumble ... rifling or not.

When I was young I thought Minie was Mickey's girl friend. Yes minies do tumble and it doesn't take much talent to make them do that. Years of experience with different minies, lubes and guns has driven that home. With a lot of weight toward the nose they behave differently than a conventional projectile and require different (generally slower) twist rates. They also do not work well in the deeper rifling required for a patched round ball. BTW the shuttlecock effect is almost completely non existent, the factors that influence them, when fired from a gun designed for them, are fit to the bore, lube and powder charge. I won't buy minies, far too few people can cast good ones specially when making quantities to sell.

 

[Bill M.]

A .45 caliber TC Hawken precussion rifle will do exactly what you want and they are generally available used. As will a Lyman with the bullet barrel if you want a new rifle. You can find the scope mounts for a Hawken on E-bay sometimes. The hammer is in the way of the scope on a muzzleloader so there are some limitations to scoping. TC even sold scopes for the Hawken at one time. Look to TOW and October Country for a supply of minibullets. I do not shoot them so I have not kept up.

 

[COTNTOP]

I bought a TC Pennsylvania Hunter that has a slow twist barrel. Hornady made what is called a PA Conical that shoots a lot tighter groups than the PRB.

 

[Spikebuck]

I bought a TC Pennsylvania Hunter that has a slow twist barrel. Hornady made what is called a PA Conical that shoots a lot tighter groups than the PRB.

Huh? Grouping is a matter of load workup and this statement apparently does not take that into consideration at all.

I have shot a lot of conicals and a lot of roundballs over the last 21 years and I've had guns that shot both types extremely well with no appreciable difference in grouping, but one has to put in the time to work up the correct load for each.

One benefit I found of the PRB, in my .54's, over the big Hornady GP conicals I used (I also used Buffalo Ball-ets, which are basically the same in design as the PA Conicals) was at longer ranges, like 100 yards, the conicals were dropping about 6" more than the PRB with the same powder charge. I've also shot many whitetails with both...one projectile killed the same as the other. No overall difference in penetration (usually pass thrus with both) or travel distance of the animal after the hit.

I'm not a "roundball snob." I've shot conicals and I liked conicals. In the end, however, for my shooting and hunting, the lower-cost PRB won out for less recoil, flatter trajectory toward the outer reaches of my hunting ranges (up to 125 yards), and deadly results no different, on average, than a conical produced.

If I HAD to, or WANTED to hunt at really extended ranges with a muzzleloader, I'd be talking to someone like Idaho Ron to put together a combo gun/sighting system to shoot the long paper-patch bullets he uses. For the distances he is preparing to shoot at, he has a deadly system.

 

[TreeMan]

The issue I’ve found with any civil war era 58 cal reproduction is that every single one of them have a different bore size. Buy three of the same rifles by the same maker and each one will require a different size minie bullet mold for best accuracy. The OP stated he wanted to be able to purchase pre made hollow base bullets/minies. Finding a store bought minie of the exact size needed may be a problem. If you want a civil war era musket that shoots 58 cal minies then you need to be prepared to shoot lots of lead in frustration until you measure the bore and make your own minie type bullets that fit your particular rifle. On top of that there are several different styles of minie type bullets. Each particular rifle will like one type over the others. I have a euroarms .58 Zouave and a Euroarms 58 enfield. I have a Lee 575 minie mold that fits the Zouave perfect. In the enfield you could put a patch around that 575 minie and it would still be loose.

 

[COTNTOP]

Shooting 80gr with the PA conical against 50gr against the PRB gives about the same results in accuracy from a benchrest. Like I said I am a newbie to BP, not shooting. Shot a couple hundred out of each to come to this conclusion. Still a lot to learn.

 

[Boomerang]

Hornady made what is called a PA Conical that shoots a lot tighter groups than the PRB.

Shooting 80gr with the PA conical against 50gr against the PRB gives about the same results in accuracy from a benchrest.

 

[COTNTOP]

Should have made that statement a little more clear. Switched from substitute to Goex an groups improved with PRB. Still a lot to learn.

 

[dave951]

Ok sorry to bust yer bubble but there is NO mass producer of minies. Closest you’ll get is Bulletman at Lodgewood. Even with that, you still have to take barrel differences into account, types of powder, brand of caps, lube makeup etc. In short, shooting minies is a rodeo of variable control. Find that balance and life is good. Get one out of whack and it’s frustration city.

FWIW, I compete with Civil War era arms including artillery in the North South Skirmish Association. My main competition musket is a Parker Hale “2 band” and when I keep those variables under control, that musket is a solid sub 2moa gun, meaning it can shoot groups with minies under 2” at 100yds if I do my part. If you want to see how well a minie can be made to shoot, check us out.