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Rifling Depth
- Thread starter wtilenw
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Normally you will get better accuracy with a round ball with deeper rifling. The Hawken Bros. ( some of ya might have heard of them) :: used a 1-48" twist in their guns, but they used deeper Cut rifling, and not the shallow button rifling found in most of todays guns. Shallow, fast twist should work better with mini's and maxi's. :m2c:
What he said. There is also round groove vs. flat groove. The round is easier to clean but harder ($) to produce.
0.012" & deeper is consider a patched round ball rifling depth. At some point, it gets so deep the gasses will blow-by the patch material. So, the deeper your rifling, the softer your lead and thicker your patch needs to be. That's why it is always important to experiment to fins what combination works best in YOUR rifle.
0.012" & deeper is consider a patched round ball rifling depth. At some point, it gets so deep the gasses will blow-by the patch material. So, the deeper your rifling, the softer your lead and thicker your patch needs to be. That's why it is always important to experiment to fins what combination works best in YOUR rifle.
In addition the deeper rifling will allow you to use a heavier powder charge if you are inclined to do things like that. The heavy charge with a patched round ball and shallow rifling (.003 to .004) can cause the ball to loose it's grip on the lands and strip, causing it to loose accuracy. You will find a deep rifling slower twist to stabelize round balls, where the faster twist stabelizes conical bullets. A one in 48 twist is a compromise to attempt a balance between round ball or conical and usually works pretty good. Round ball rifles with deep grooves .013 or so and a turn in 66 inches are pretty much standard now days. On antique guns I've seen one with a turn in 9 feet. When you have deep riflings your patch should be thick enough that when you recover a ball you can see the print of the material on the lead where the lands cause it to imprint. That's also a reason for using pure soft lead for a ball. Harder alloy lead won't hurt your gun, but it won't shoot as accurate on that account.
:m2c:
:m2c:
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