When I got into BP shooting in the 1970s the accepted dogma was that slow, deep rifling was the best for round ball shooting, because a round ball doesn't need much stabilization. The common 1:48 rifling offered on the available replicas of the time was said to be a compromise intended to make it possible to shoot both ball and conicals with acceptable accuracy. I never had a rifle with 1:48 twist, so I have no personal experience with those, but I certainly agreed that slow and deep worked extremely well for ball. I still do. All my rifles are slow and deep, and I have no complaints. The .30 has a 1:56 twist and I can shoot < 2.5-inch groups at 100 yards. The .40 has 1:66, and it also very accurate to 100 yards. The .54 has 1:70, and I worked up a load which gave me good deer-killing accuracy at 150 yards. All three guns are also very accurate with reduced, small game loads.
In my day it was said that very slow twist, up to 1:120 was used in some of the old rifles, but I’ve never seen or been aware of an actual one that slow. Hiding in plain sight...it turns out the famous Baker rifle is one of those, and it seems to have worked very well for the British.
_A British Rifle Man : The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade, During the Peninsular War and the Campaign of Waterloo_, edited, with Introduction, by Lieut-Colonel Willoughby Verner, late Rifle Brigade. 1899
From the introduction:
"The Baker rifle, with which the regiment was armed, was in every sense an arm of precision up to 300 yards, and at ranges of 400 and 500 yards it was possible to hit a mark with it. This alone gave the riflemen an immense advantage over their comrades armed with smooth-bore muskets, and, as proved by experiments at Woolwich, it was greatly superior to the rifles of Continental and American manufacture in use at the time.
“This rifle was invented by Ezekiel Baker, a London gunmaker, towards the close of the last century, and was the first rifle regularly adopted into the British service. It was tried at Woolwich in February 1800 by order of the Board of Ordinance, and was selected as the arm of the Rifle Corps, then in process of being raised. On this occasion eleven shots out of twelve were placed in a six-foot circular target at 300 yards’ distance. The following is a description of the Baker rifle : Weight 9 1/2 lbs., barrel seven-grooved and 30 inches in length, rifling one quarter turn in barrel, bullet spherical, 20 to the pound, charge of powder 84 grains, flint-lock. The ball was placed in the center of a greased leather patch and rammed home, considerable force being necessary to effect this. At first, wooden mallets were issued to the Riflemen to facilitate the process of ramming home, but these were very shortly discontinued (circa 1803). A supply of greased patches was carried in a small box with spring brass lid in the side of the butt of the rifle.”
As these things tend to do, opinion has swung, and many people now advocate much faster twists. The ”˜compromise’ twist of 1:48 seems to have become the recommended one for round ball as well as conicals. It’s too late in my career for me to find out if that idea works for me, I guess my old slow and deep barrels will have to do me. And they will.
Spence
In my day it was said that very slow twist, up to 1:120 was used in some of the old rifles, but I’ve never seen or been aware of an actual one that slow. Hiding in plain sight...it turns out the famous Baker rifle is one of those, and it seems to have worked very well for the British.
_A British Rifle Man : The Journals and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, Rifle Brigade, During the Peninsular War and the Campaign of Waterloo_, edited, with Introduction, by Lieut-Colonel Willoughby Verner, late Rifle Brigade. 1899
From the introduction:
"The Baker rifle, with which the regiment was armed, was in every sense an arm of precision up to 300 yards, and at ranges of 400 and 500 yards it was possible to hit a mark with it. This alone gave the riflemen an immense advantage over their comrades armed with smooth-bore muskets, and, as proved by experiments at Woolwich, it was greatly superior to the rifles of Continental and American manufacture in use at the time.
“This rifle was invented by Ezekiel Baker, a London gunmaker, towards the close of the last century, and was the first rifle regularly adopted into the British service. It was tried at Woolwich in February 1800 by order of the Board of Ordinance, and was selected as the arm of the Rifle Corps, then in process of being raised. On this occasion eleven shots out of twelve were placed in a six-foot circular target at 300 yards’ distance. The following is a description of the Baker rifle : Weight 9 1/2 lbs., barrel seven-grooved and 30 inches in length, rifling one quarter turn in barrel, bullet spherical, 20 to the pound, charge of powder 84 grains, flint-lock. The ball was placed in the center of a greased leather patch and rammed home, considerable force being necessary to effect this. At first, wooden mallets were issued to the Riflemen to facilitate the process of ramming home, but these were very shortly discontinued (circa 1803). A supply of greased patches was carried in a small box with spring brass lid in the side of the butt of the rifle.”
As these things tend to do, opinion has swung, and many people now advocate much faster twists. The ”˜compromise’ twist of 1:48 seems to have become the recommended one for round ball as well as conicals. It’s too late in my career for me to find out if that idea works for me, I guess my old slow and deep barrels will have to do me. And they will.
Spence
