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Rifling?

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Jim Comer

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What is the difference between straight rifling and twisted rifling when it comes to black powder?
 
Basicly it is just as the names imply. Twist spins the ball to stabilise the ball. Straight rifling was used to keep the ball from bouncing around as it did in smoothbores , but still allow for the use of shot. :idunno:
 
Rumor has it that straight rifling was used initially to allow fouling to stay in the grooves and allow more firings between cleaning. Others will dispute that. FRJ
 
Until they discovered that fouling built up on the lands as well. Bet that didn't take long.
 
"Straight Rifling" is an oxymoron. :grin: I have been told that it's a modern relabel of what should be called a "gooved" barrel.., but I cannot confirm that. Sorry :(

When a ball isn't stabilize by spin, if it creates any sort of torque as it moves down the barrel it will fly off center quicker as it moves along its flight path, than if it has no torque.

Shot columns as well do not do well when they are torqued while moving up the barrel, hence the reason a rifled barrel shooting shot needs to be much closer due to the pattern that is thrown. The grooved barrel prevents torque in a shot column, and tends to throw a pattern a bit tighter for a bit longer distance.

Remington a few years back introduced a screw-in modern shotgun turkey choke, that had grooves..., what was old is "new" again. :grin:

So reportedly, a grooved barrel will often fire a round ball and shot a bit better than a plain, smooth barrel. Results may vary.

LD
 
Straight grooves have been an available option for modern trap and skeet guns for as long as I can remember...sometime referred to as "wad-lock" grooves, or wad-lock barrels...to prevent that arbitrary torsional spin of a shot column.

As far as MLs go, the only articles I've ever seen about straight grooves is that they were experiments to try and provide a place for fouling to go in a smoothbore...a bit of increased PRB accuracy was noticed...which then led to the experimentation of spiral grooves like the fletching on an arrow.

No idea if that's true but so far have never seen any other comments to the contrary...
 
These are the kinds of articles that I’ve seen...again, no way to know if they’re accurate, but I’ve never seen similar articles refuting the mention that straight grooves were originally for the purpose of accommodating fouling in a smoothbore...
http://www.thepirateking.com/historical/cannon_rifling.htm

050612StraightGrooveRifling.jpg
 
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