minie balls and rough bores...

[Jac Spring]

Anybody have experience with 58 cal minie balls in a "rough" bore?

My .58 has milling marks due to the soft steel making it difficult to cut during a rebore. It shoots balls very well but cuts the patches badly and gets inconsistent rather quickly with POI changing.

I;m wondering if a well greased minie ball would do better at handling this?

I've got some cast-up from a Lee mould ready to go.

Any tips?

 

I have a Hoyt reline of an origional that po has allowed to become lighty pitted. Shoots as good as it ever did when I owned it 10 years ago when just relined. I had an origional rifle musket w heavily pitted bore and it would not shoot. The bore is .578 and I shoot a 510 rapine minie sized to .577 w 45 gr 2F. Used to shoot a few grs. less in 3F. Minies need to be no more than 2,000s under bore size for best results. Heavy charges may blow out the skirt. Give it a shot and let us know how it turned out. Best regards,Jaeger

 

[ord sgt]

Put a cleaning jag on your ramrod, wrap some 0000 steelwool around the jag. Run this down the barrel 50 or so times. Clean out barrel. Try loading to see if it smoothed out. If not, repeat 1st step and clean again. Should make loading easier.

 

[Jac Spring]

Thanks, I'll have to check the diameter of my minies - they do seem to fit rather easily into the bore.

And I've lapped this bore, so the milling marks aren't too bad - but maybe some steel wool would help... I'll see how they shoot.

I was thinking of starting with 50 grains... maybe I'll try 45 to start.

Weren't the original military loads 60?

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

The original load for the Springfield rifle-muskets was 60 grains of powder. Considering the rough bore, you might want to use this load to be sure the Minie is sealing the bore well. Much over 70 grains and you may well start blowing out the skirt on the Minie. I like the 560 grain Minie from Lyman as it has a lot of punch at the low velocities attained by Minies and they are quite accurate, too.