what size ball to use in rocky mountain hawken

[paulvallandigham]

Great to have that information. NOW, MEASURE YOUR OWN BARREL to see if those dimensions apply!

Seriously, I cannot stress enough that NO buyer should trust the " published dimensions" for any MLing barrel. I have been "stung" Twice, to learn that lesson once and for all.

Measure the Rate of Rifling in the barrel, too.

My last " sting " was a new, custom made "20 gauge fowler", that was pushing a PRB out the barrel at barely over 800 fps with a 75 grain charge of Goex FFg. powder. That load should have given between 1000 and 1100 fps. The .600" diameter and thick denim patch seemed to go down almost too smoothly, but the patches came out looking Okay.

Finally, I measured the bore. It is .626" instead of the nominal .615" for a 20 gauge. That makes my barrel very close to being a 19 GAUGE barrel! I ordered 19 gauge wads, and the first shots over my chronograph showed more than a 200 fps increase in velocity, and a much higher POI on my 25 yard target. I have some .610" diameter lead balls to try in the gun, next, to see if I can get better accuracy with the larger balls.

When I called my gunmaker, he was more than a little upset. He had not measured the bore, either. He had bought the barrel stock from a supplier, from whom he had bought a barrel just a couple of months before to make a similar fowler for himself. He checked his bore diameter, and it was .615". He also made an incorrect assumption that if ordering from the same source, he would get a barrel of comparable dimensions. He was most embarrassed, as He takes great pride in the guns he builds.

I have since talked to barrel makers and they tell me that many of their fellow barrel makers use their cutters too long, and some over order oversized cutters( buttons, broaches) so that they can get more barrels out of them before the expensive cutters have to be replaced. The results are barrels that are both oversized, and undersized.

If you are lucky, the barrel you get was cut when the dimensions are close to nominal dimensions. I am not sure this is the proper explanation for what happened to my barrel, but it should give shooters a nudge to measure the bores of their barrels- regardless of what published information is available, or what caliber, or gauge is marked on the barrel. :hmm:

 

[longcruise]

Personally, I don't give two hoots for what the actual dimensions of my round ball barrels are.

Just get various size balls and various patch material and go at it. Start with the smallest ball size and the thinnest patch. Work up through the patch material from thinnest to thickes. Then, do the same thing with the .535 ball.

There are no hard and fast answers to our inquirer's question.

I don't much measure my patch material any more. I just label a corner of it with what it is and where it came from and, of course, I use that corner last! :haha:

Last weekend I shot a .54 for with .535 ball and patch material that I had labeled .023 about 10 years ago. I cut my patches square, lube em just before loading and puch them down with one palm whack using the long arm of the short starter. No hammer and no pain. In fact, none of my short starters have the ball starting nub on them anymore.

The problem with sharing each others patch material measurements is that no two shooters will measure exactly the same with the same material. Guess this all got started with the selling of patch material that is labeled with it's measurement. Not sure how well the packagers of these items maintain consistency either! :shocked2:

Not a specific response to you Paul, just some rambling and thoughts about this thread overall.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

Another thing is that some of my guns aren't marked as to caliber. They probably were before the maker dressed the barrel to its final finish and the markings were probably a little shallow to begin with. So I had to measure them and then try different ball and patch combos until I found one the rifle liked. I prefer a load that can be thumb started so that adds another dimension to load development. It's all part of the fun that muzzleloaders provide to their hopelessly addicted owners!