Nother Ped Enfield

[bigted]

I also have a Pedersoli Enfield 577.

Slugged it and came up with bore of .577 and groove of .585.

Twist is somewhere in the 1 in 70's something.

This seems very slow for a military rifle designed to shoot hollow base bullets of 450 to 650 grains. Seems like a great round ball twist though.

I love this rifle and need to get it shootin. Already lowered the comb so my poor cheek stop takin a whoopin. I also removed the military nipple and replaced it with a number 11 nipple and using CCI Magnum cap's which seems to give plenty of hot gases for good ignition.

So does these bore measurements and twist rate seem in line with the Pedersoli Enfield 2 band 34 inch barrel rifle?

 

[user 43911]

https://www.davide-pedersoli.com/sc...-enfield-2-band-pattern-1858-naval-rifle.html

Pedersoli shows 1 in 48 twist

 

[bigted]

With 32 inch barrel, my tight jag with an oiled patch run up and down a few times to bed into the grooves, makes not quite a half turn in the 32 inches of rifled barrel to the patent breech. This is how I arrived at 1 in 70ish twist.

I have read the same about the 48 inch twist. But my rifle does not bear this out.

I can put my light down the barrel, I can see the almost complete half turn down the length.

I have some experimental .570 balls on the way to find out if my rifle wants round balls instead of the minnies. No joy with TOTW minnies in .577, .579, .580 and I could not load the .583ish minnies. These are all Lyman minnies I believe. Bought them for experimental findings to discover the accuracy THIS rifle wanted. No joy.

I had set it back out of frustration but now with the Covid 19 time on my hands, I am revisiting this Enfield and hopefully get weather to go mess with it again.

 

[nkbj]

Reproduction .577-.58 minie ball rifles seem to have a variety of interpretations.
My Armisport P53 has a four foot twist. Got a sneaking suspicion that somebody else's might just as likely have a six foot twist.
Some people might find their P58's to have closer to six foot twist than the four foot the pieces were originally produced with.
Maybe it depends upon what the factory had available that month?

 

[Grenadier1758]

The 1 in 70" approximate twist is not uncommon in original rifled muskets. You have the shallow rifling (0.585-0.577 = 0.008) or 0.008/2 =0.004" deep grooves that are good for minie bulletts. Those are just deep enough for optimal expansion of the minie skirts and enough spin to stabilize the minie ball.

You need to size your minie ball to o.576" diameter and go out and enjoy the shooting.

 

[dave951]

Luigi didn't get the rifling correct all the time, but in general, a minie ball twist is sllloooowwww, like 1:66+

If you want good quality minies cast by someone who is a competitor with minie ball rifles, get in touch with CWBulletman-
http://www.lodgewood.com/Bullets_c_7.html
Next question, what did you use for powder and lube? Use only real black powder. I use 3f Swiss in competition with my P53 Parker Hale and it's a sub 2moa gun. For a good accurate rifle, service charges aren't the most accurate. My competition charges are in the range of 40-45g 3f Swiss, depending on the gun I'm competing with. And YES, different black powder acts differently just like in a modern gun with different powders. Avoid Pyrodex, fouling is very abrasive and compared to real black fouling, it's like giving your bore an acid bath if you don't clean it and clean it and clean it one more time. Lube- beeswax/crisco or lard or olive oil or lanolin typically mixed about 50/50. My 1862 Colts like beeswax/olive oil, the Parker Hales like beeswax/lard and yes I did do a pile of testing. If you get the charge/lube in proper balance, you should be able to shoot without wiping until you run out of ammo or shoulder or time. I've run over 60 shots straight without a loss of accuracy doing this.

The only reason I can see for using #11 caps is you can't get the right stuff. Best musket caps are #1-RWS close #2-Schutzen. Forget anything CCI. Second, the nipple needs to be in good condition for consistent results.

 

[bigted]

More info ...

Powder used was Ol E 1.5 F and 2F. The minnies looked great and were cast by somebody at or for Track of the Wolf.

Rifle is a 1861 Tower, 577 from Pedersoli.

The charges of powder ranged from 40 grains running up in 5 grain leaps to 70 grains. Never had to mine lead ... very smooth bore.

Lube ran SPG, bee wax/Vasoline, bee wax/lard and bee wax/Crisco. All these have served well in my ball guns and revolvers as well as BP suppository guns.

Think that is all I can add.

Is a .576 inch size really works? I can get a size die pretty cheap to try this. If these work well, think I would try getting a mold for one.

 

[dave951]

More info ...

Powder used was Ol E 1.5 F and 2F. The minnies looked great and were cast by somebody at or for Track of the Wolf.

Rifle is a 1861 Tower, 577 from Pedersoli.

The charges of powder ranged from 40 grains running up in 5 grain leaps to 70 grains. Never had to mine lead ... very smooth bore.

Lube ran SPG, bee wax/Vasoline, bee wax/lard and bee wax/Crisco. All these have served well in my ball guns and revolvers as well as BP suppository guns.

Think that is all I can add.

Is a .576 inch size really works? I can get a size die pretty cheap to try this. If these work well, think I would try getting a mold for one.

Get up with the guy in the link I posted. Order bullets in the style you want to try and specify the size. Get some 3f Old E or Swiss. Try 40-45g.

When you find a bullet that works, then buy that mold.

 

[lyman54]

I used a .575 Minie .500gr from a Lee mold and it was perfect and very accurate. The twist on that was 1-78. Also used Pyrodex and Goex, couldn't really see any difference in accuracy. Got an average of 950 fps. Oh yeah it was a P53 though. For the Zouave I need a .478 ball.