Accuracy

I have an 1858 Enfield , replica, in .58. Shooting minies. I pre-lube the grooves on the bullet with a wax the consistency of candle wax.
60 gr of pyrodex the bullets are all over the place. Groups would be 6x6 FEET!!
I get out my softer lube of a cream type consistency and also fill the base cavity which I had left hollow. I start placing the minies in a man-size target consistently at 50 yds. 3/4 of the rounds actually struck at point of aim.
Any ideas on what is going on here? My experience with my setup kind of leads me to believe accuracy in this firearm is a myth. Tips and advice would be welcome. Thanks.

Mr. CharlesZ,
Are the "minies" you are shooting cast of pure lead? How well/tight do they fit the bore?
With that small of a powder charge and if they are cast from wheel weights, our accuracy was terrible.
Best Wishes

Ive been there and done that.....It CAN be fixed!
1st (if you havnt) clean your barrel including de-leading it with a good lead solvent.
2nd start at 25 yards and "work up a load". Start with 60grains of powder and shoot 5 shoot groups, increase the poder by 5 grains, and repeat till you get to 100 grains. THEN you will see which gave you the best 25 yard group. THEN sight in at 25 yards, THEN worry about 50 yards.
I had my 1st muzzleloader bring me to tears (or at least I said "those words") of frustration and yet today it puts out 3" groups at 100 yards. It was NEVER the gun ... Sometimes it makes sence to look at differant variables with the bullets too...
Either way I am willing to BET that there is a deadly accurate load just waing to be found in that gun. Remember that each gun has its own "personality" due to the harmonics of the barrel and it likes what it likes and will shoot very well once you have found what it likes.
:wink: :hatsoff:

A musket can be quite accurate.You want to use a soft lube.I have found a noticable difference by not lubing the grooves of the minie ball.I put bore butter in the base load and fire.With my 3 band Enfield replica I can put 15 shots into a 4 inch group at 100 yards.That said I tried a lot of different weight minnies before I found the one the musket likes.

These answers are great. Gives me something to work on. Thank you all.
Charles

Try putting one of the Minie's into the bore nose first while holding onto the very rear of the bullet.

If it rattles or can be noticeably cocked sideways it is too far under bore size to give good accuracy.

During the C.W. it wasn't much of an issue, at least in the U.S. because long range accuracy still wasn't a big concern on the battle field.
Having a semi-accurate gun that could be easily loaded was still the desired characteristic for war.

To really shoot accurately, the bullet should be about .003 under the bore size. That's just one human hairs thickness.
If the bullet has this sort of clearance it will fit easily but it won't have any perceptible side movement.

There's lots of different Minnies out there! A friend of mine switched from a thin skirt to a thick skirt and was able to up the volume of powder to 70 grains or 3Fg Goex and does quite well with that load. Early attempts at shooting the thing would result in a 6'x6' group with bullets "key-holing" sideways through the target, cause the mould was slightly undersized.

A "blown skirt" of a thin-walled Minnie at the back end will result in shots going all over the place as well! The happy medium is when the skirt gets enlarged enough to fully connect with the groves of the rifling without blowing the skirt. I believe the standard war-time load was a 555 grain thin-skirt Minnie with 60-65 grains of (2Fg) powder.

Dave

Keyholing. Is that what it's called? I was thinking I was putting 2 rounds in almost the same hole but it became clear the bullet was tumbling,ie...keyholing. Thankyou.

If the bullet is tumbling and makes a elongated hole in the target, you are correct. Keyholing is what it is called.

This is the result of an elongated bullet not spinning fast enough to stabilize it.

With your 60 grain powder load there should be enough powder to develop the velocity needed to get the spin required to stabilize a Minie.

The other thing that can cause the Minie to fail to develop a fast enough spin to stabilize it is a failure to fully engage the rifling grooves when it is fired. A undersize bullet will fail to expand enough to grab the rifling grooves.

Zonie said:

If the bullet is tumbling and makes a elongated hole in the target, you are correct. Keyholing is what it is called.

This is the result of an elongated bullet not spinning fast enough to stabilize it.

With your 60 grain powder load there should be enough powder to develop the velocity needed to get the spin required to stabilize a Minie.

The other thing that can cause the Minie to fail to develop a fast enough spin to stabilize it is a failure to fully engage the rifling grooves when it is fired. A undersize bullet will fail to expand enough to grab the rifling grooves.

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Zonie,

Looks like we've both shot sideways! A couple thousands of an inch wider bullet from a different mold or manufacturer makes all of the difference! The round engages the rifling and then gets to spin....those 3 little grooves have to do a lot of work on a chunk of lead weighing more than 1.25 ounces! It's like walking a tightrope. Too much force and you blow the skirt, not enough and the skirt doesn't get to engage the rifling :shocked2: .

Dave

Feel like I'm fixing to state the obvious here but here goes anyway...
The whole idea behind the minie rifle was to be able to toss an undersized slug down the fouled barrel time after time in a combat situation. It is a means of overcoming primary concerns and it forced accepting as a consequence some other down fallings. Everybody reading this is probably familiar with all that, right?
Well, if you're not confined to using gubmint issued ammo there's no reason to be confined to an off the shelf mold. For very little cost you can have a mold tweaked to exactly suit your rifle and how you wish it to perform.
If desired you can have the front band an interference fit. Make it mold easier. And thicken the skirt by altering the plug. Make the plug adjustable for length. Or have two plugs (one thick skirt, one thin, one heavier, one lighter).
It's all easy. And it's just part of developing a load for your rifle.

Having a custom mold made is just what my friend did to make his rifle shoot straight. Those extra couple thousandths of an inch were the sure cure! And the thicker skirt can handle 2F or 3F charges as well!

Thanks for your post. It finished what I was trying to say when I became distracted yesterday. :thumbsup:

Dave

Interesting stuff. I have no doubt a custom mold would work wonders. What I want to achieve is maximum accuracy of a soldier of the period. These men were issued rifles and ammunition. Did they just point downrange and hope for the best? The casualty lists contradict the results I'm getting. What did the men in the ranks do to make themselves sharpshooters?

CharlesZ said:

I have an 1858 Enfield , replica, in .58. Shooting minies. I pre-lube the grooves on the bullet with a wax the consistency of candle wax.
60 gr of pyrodex the bullets are all over the place. Groups would be 6x6 FEET!!
I get out my softer lube of a cream type consistency and also fill the base cavity which I had left hollow. I start placing the minies in a man-size target consistently at 50 yds. 3/4 of the rounds actually struck at point of aim.
Any ideas on what is going on here? My experience with my setup kind of leads me to believe accuracy in this firearm is a myth. Tips and advice would be welcome. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Try 60 grains of FF or F *blackpowder*. It's what the bullet was designed for. You might be surprised how well BP works.
Just because something goes "bang" is no indication it's going to shoot accurately.

Dan

I think the accuracy of the rifled muskets with issue ammo is highly overrated. Modern day match shooters do achieve remarkable accuracy with loads tuned to the individual rifle but that really doesn't relate to what one could expect from issue paper cartridges. As others have pointed out here, a difference of .001" or .002" in bullet diameter can make a big difference in accuracy, as can +or- 5 grains of powder. Bullets for issue ammo were generally much undersize to allow loading down a fouled bore and that is a sure recipe for poor accuracy, not to mention damage of the hollow base in subsequent transport and handling. Both sides in Mr. Lincoln's War issued many smoothbore muskets and quite a few commanders preferred them. Many, if not most, CW battles ended up hand to hand anyway.
Much is made of long range sniping and for the dedicated sniper, picking off enemy commanders or artillery crews, it can be quite effective. For the average soldier, one of 100,000 men, long range shooting never decided the outcome of a battle nor affected that soldier's chance of survival.
Every soldier's main concern is to survive and in the CW war a revolver on the belt would improve one's chances of survival far more than grooves in the musket bore.

I have shot a home cast minnie ball since 1975. I have been lucky that my Musketoon is very accurate. The lead must be soft. One time I was in a hurry to out with friends, and to speed up the process I put my freshly molded bullets under the water tap to cool them faster. Well that must have anelled them, because they were the worst shooting balls I ever shot. I guess they got tooo hard with the sudden cooling.

Your load sounds right. Make sure your lead is soft and maybe use softer lube.

Much is made of the extended range and accuracy of the rifled musket. I've always had my doubts about markmanship of the era. Massed discharge of .58 lead bullets into masses of men must have taken it's toll but picking people off, I'm not sure. Would a Whitworth rifle raise the ante?

I am not sureabout the Witworth. My Parker_Hale Musketoon shoots like a modern gun. The only target I have kept is one I shot using it and it is just about one raggdy hole, standing at 50 yrds. I can hit a 12oz bottle at 100 yrds with it, easy. My mold is made by, LEM in England and is .569cal.

CharlesZ said:

I've always had my doubts about markmanship of the era.

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See this thread on "The Souths Sharpshooters and the Enfield - and other rifles" >> http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/225184/

David

Yep, the Whitworth is a whole different animal. Minie rifles are chunking a projectile that's about like a scaled up Colt pistol bullet. The Whitworth has a long bullet to barrel contact length, less base distortion, all kinds of advantages.
Just for grins, on the eight groove .577 bore barrel I have on order, there's a rifling engraving die being made from a piece of the barrel blank. Been wanting to see just how far away a flinter can hit with a bullet.