Tapered round barrel?

[DonH]

Hello guys; I'm new here. Good site.
I have contemplated for a long time the building of a percussion conical bullet rifle with a tapered round barrel(stalking-type rifle?). Has anyone here built such a rifle, possibly with pics? Or maybe have pics of an original?
I have been looking for examples of such a rifle but am starting to feel that a non-octagon barrel must be heresy!

 

[Zonie]

After looking thru several of my books I come to the conclusion that most of the round barreled guns made prior to 1865 were either shotguns or military arms.

The exceptions to this were the double barreled big game rifles made for hunting in Africa and I am guessing that the reason for the exception was the weight of a double barrel gun in those large calibers would make shooting them a little more than difficult if they were octagon barrels.

If you use "Green Mountain + barrels + .45 + tapered" in a google search you will find at least one 29 inch tapered round barrel with a 1:20 twist that is made for a .45-70 bullet for around $140.
You would have to have someone cut off the reciever threads and thread the breech for a breechplug.
Here is a link to one site:
GREEN MOUNTAIN BARREL

I would suggest using one of the English Bar Lock style breech plugs. Track of the Wolf's part number is #Plug-Eng-15-5. Although it is made for a octagon barrel the 15/16 size would provide material so it could be rounded to match the barrel.
This plug is designed for use with the English Bar Lock and a "face drip bar".

If your interested in pursuing this idea further, I would strongly recommend that you buy a copy of the Track of the Wolf catalog. I notice they also offer full sized plans for the "English Sporting Rifle" and the "Purdey Rifle".
The catalog is well worth the money to anyone who is interested in building their own muzzleloading rifle.
zonie

 

[Many Klatch]

Don, a traditional round type barrel is the ones that start out octagon, then about 18 inches from the breech change to round. The octagon to round barrels were usually used in smoothbores, but that is the kind of barrel that I have on my .54 rifle. I like the way it gets some of the extra weight off the end of the barrel. This was a custom order from Getz, you might have to wait a while on it.

Many Klatch

 

[CoyoteJoe]

I'd suggest you take a look at the Pedersoli "Gibbs". That is a target rifle but could easily be modified for hunting, the general design I mean, not that you should acquire a Gibbs and modify that. I have a friend who is just starting to work with a .451 Gibbs for long range target shooting, no results to report as yet but it sure is a great looking rifle.

 

Mark DeHass will make tapered round barrels to 36", but does not make conical twists. He generally does them with a fairly quick turn around. I waited a hair under 2 months for a custom profiled O/R smoothbore from him and his prices are very good. If you want his contact info, look him up in the archives. Otherwise, Ed Rayle? How about a large bore RB gun?

Sean

 

[Zonie]

DonH:
Before you get to deeply envolved in your fast twist round barrel muzzleloader you should know that shooting a heavy bullet in a percussion gun eats nipples like they are going out of style.

Most of the long range target guns that shoot this kind of projectile use platinum lined nipples to reduce the erosion and these nipples (when you can find them) often go for over $50 each.
zonie

 

[John Taylor]

Several years back I made a few nipples out of exhaust valve stems ( hard stainless). Talk about fun trying to get that small hole in them.

 

[Zonie]

It's possible that your hard stainless was something like Inconel 718 and if it was, I sympathize with you.
Not only is drilling a .030 diameter hole hard to do in anything, if it was in Inco 718 it would be darn near impossible.

Many of these exotic high temperature alloys have strengths of over 186,000 PSI tensile strength and the cobalt that is in it makes it very abrasive even for carbide tools.

 

[DonH]

"Before you get to deeply envolved in your fast twist round barrel muzzleloader you should know that shooting a heavy bullet in a percussion gun eats nipples like they are going out of style."

Thanks for mentioning the nipple erosion issue. I had not thought of that. I know nipples made of different materials are used on the long range bullet rifles. Those are loaded pretty heavily to shoot to 1000 yards. I had not considered tis as I have been thinking in terms of 300-400 gr bullets over 70-90 gr of powder. I most assuredly am not thinking in terms of trying for high velocity but welcome input of this sort.