Round ball out of fast twist barrel

[Bob Stager]

will a round ball shoot decent out of a G.M. LRH carbine barrel. I have a chance to pick up a 1” 50 cal LRH carbine barrel and was wondering if it would shoot round balls okay? Any hints on loads etc would be appreciated. Thanks. Bob

 

[SDSmlf]

will a round ball shoot decent out of a G.M. LRH carbine barrel. I have a chance to pick up a 1” 50 cal LRH carbine barrel and was wondering if it would shoot round balls okay? Any hints on loads etc would be appreciated. Thanks. Bob

I don’t know about a 50 caliber GM LRH, but here are couple 100 yard targets shot with a 45 caliber GM LRH. The first target shot with PRB with a slightly oversized felt wad over 60 grains of 3F Swiss. This ‘let’s see what happens’ group was 2-3/4” according to my notes. Only time I have tried PRB in this particular barrel. Second target (1-1/16” group) was shot with a 400 grain paper patched bullet over a felt wad and 80 grains of 3F Swiss, a load I shoot a lot out of this barrel. Bore was ‘cleaned’ between each shot with two wet and one dry patch as I was looking for clean/cold barrel groups. Both targets shot on the same day.

Don’t know what you consider ‘shoot decent’ to mean, nor do I know how your particular barrel will shoot. The 50 caliber GM barrels I have are in round ball twists and really handle PRBs very well.

 

[Mad Professor]

I don’t know about a 50 caliber GM LRH, but here are couple 100 yard targets shot with a 45 caliber GM LRH. The first target shot with PRB with a slightly oversized felt wad over 60 grains of 3F Swiss. This ‘let’s see what happens’ group was 2-3/4” according to my notes. Only time I have tried PRB in this particular barrel. Second target (1-1/16” group) was shot with a 400 grain paper patched bullet over a felt wad and 80 grains of 3F Swiss, a load I shoot a lot out of this barrel. Bore was ‘cleaned’ between each shot with two wet and one dry patch as I was looking for clean/cold barrel groups. Both targets shot on the same day.
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Don’t know what you consider ‘shoot decent’ to mean, nor do I know how your particular barrel will shoot. The 50 caliber GM barrels I have are in round ball twists and really handle PRBs very well.

Nice shooting with the pp bullets!

I've got those GM 1-28" barrels in 50 both 15/16 and 1" , another in 54. Shoot conicals nice.

 

[Nobade]

I had a 50 cal LRH carbine barrel on a Renegade, and saw pretty much the same thing. It would shoot balls pretty well, certain;y good enough for normal use and would shoot conicals (in this case, the RCBS 500 S&W bullets) extremely well. We were loading 50 gr of powder under a ball for kids to shoot and it was a big hit. The bullets were a bit much for the young shooters.

 

[Bob Stager]

Thanks for the input. I’m probably going to pick it up and give it a try

 

[Rifleman1776]

What do you consider fast? IMHO, the perfect prb twist is 1:48" or 1:56". Anything faster needs a slug.

 

[Bob Stager]

This carbine barrel is 1:28

 

[Rifleman1776]

This carbine barrel is 1:28

Go slug. Buy another rifle for prb.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Mild loads for shooting paper targets should work well. You don't need a lot of powder to give the ball enough spin to stabilize the ball. 50 grains or less should work. Early Jaeger rifles were built with a twist rate of one turn in the length of the barrel. Some of these rifles were short, in the 28" length range. They shot well.

 

[.36Rooster]

Yes. Just use less powder. For example, Most people don't know that the Thompson center Cherokee was designed for round balls, and they put a 1:32 twist on it on purpose. The reason was because the little .32 caliber gun was designed in consultation with a black powder squirrel hunter, who recommended the faster twist to stabilize the ultra light powder charges required for squirrel hunting.

So yes roundballs will be fine, faster twist means less powder, so when developing a load, experiment from the lighter ranges. In fact, for lighter loads, a faster twist is better, not worse. The slower twists are better for heavier loads.