Lyman rifles

My next quest is to make a .69 cal. plains rifle to hunt Canadian squirrels. They are knarly and feisty with attitude, like a pit bull. :bull: :wink:
Should be good for moose as well.
Fred[/quote]

When hit center with a .69 cal ball I am wondering how far the critter flys? I once had my dog tree a squirrel in a short (15') pine tree. I shot low, hit him about between the front shoulders with my .54 cal and he went a good 30' straight up

Adui said:

...many black powder arms are made of milder easier to work steel that is therefore weaker.

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And don't forget those dovetails. How much steel would be left after cutting a dovetail in a .125 barrel, including the sight dovetail back in front of your face. And don't forget the loss of thickness when threading for the breech plug right there under your nose. Oh my..... :shocked2:

Our squirrels are so agile, if the ball is big enough, they will jump on the ball and ride it through.......so it seems.
But my .62 sure can flush them out of the pine trees.
A .36 or a .62 makes no difference when you hit him in the noggin. He still flies from the tree.
Fred

azmntman said:

My next quest is to make a .69 cal. plains rifle to hunt Canadian squirrels. They are knarly and feisty with attitude, like a pit bull. :bull: :wink:
Should be good for moose as well.
Fred

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When hit center with a .69 cal ball I am wondering how far the critter flys? I once had my dog tree a squirrel in a short (15') pine tree. I shot low, hit him about between the front shoulders with my .54 cal and he went a good 30' straight up
[/quote]

Learn how to bark a squirrel with .54 - .62" balls and you won't need to put a mark on them. Gravity & quick deceleration to zero when they hit the ground leaves them intact.

Wont work on .32 or .36 ??

Barking a squirrel with a .32 or .36 is very difficult.

First, you have to get the squirrel to lay on a branch of the tree.

Then, you have to shoot thru the bark just under the squirrels chest. The impact of the bark against the squirrels chest will often stop his heartbeat and at the same time, knock him out of the tree. Precision shooting is obviously needed.

It's much easier with a large caliber gun.

With a .54, a .62 or a .69 you just have to aim at the trunk of the tree.
The impact of the ball on the tree will be enough to not only stop the squirrels heartbeat and knock him out of the tree but it usually showers the ground with nuts or pine-cones. :rotf: :rotf: :grin:

Announcing my glee!
Yeah I just found an Interarms .58 percussion, with walnut stock, 28" barrel. :shocked2: :blah:
I don't know the barrel width yet.
I will post how well it shoots.
Fred

"Learn how to bark a squirrel"
Once you learn them how to bark.......can you teach them other tricks, sitting up, fetching nuts. :idunno: :hmm:
And to do these tricks do you have to fire a shot each time? :shocked2:
Patience with me , please. I'm new to this.
Fred

Old Ford said:

Announcing my glee!
Yeah I just found an Interarms .58 percussion, with walnut stock, 28" barrel. :shocked2: :blah:
I don't know the barrel width yet.
I will post how well it shoots.
Fred

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Congratulations! Those are scarce, but worth the hunt. If it's like mine and the few others I've seen, the barrel is notable for being 15/16" across the flats. That makes for light, easy carry, but I'm a little touchy about pushing the loads too high. Looks like plenty of steel at the muzzle, but when you consider what's been gouged out for dovetails and breech threads, the steel starts lookin kinda skinny.

Never tried mine above 100 grains of 2f Goex, and frankly didn't stay there long. Settled on 80 grains of the same under a .570 ball wrapped in a ticking patch greased with TOW mink tallow. Trajectory is a little loopy, but plenty fine when sighted in at 75 yards. Puts it a little over an inch high at 50 and about 8 low at 100.

Enjoy!

In response to Brown Bear, when to consider that 70-80 grains of black powder was enough for the 45-70 & 50-70 your 80 grains of BP is quite adequate.
Fred

Oh yeah. My biggest issue was trajectory until I admitted to myself that I just don't shoot as far as 100 yards!

Hey! We're way too old to think of 200-300-400 yards. It will take us waay too long to walk that far, AND by the time we get there, we will have forgot why we went there in the first place.
So keep it short! We haven't the time left anyways.
This has been a fun post!
Fred

If you shoot a deer at 100 yards you have to drag the thing back a 100 yards. Try to shoot everything up close. Except VC

Off topic, I apologise, years ago I was hunting moose in Quebec, Canada.
I crossed a lake in a aluminium motor boat, pulled it up on the short beach went to my stand, leaning back on a tree.....fell asleep. Woke up about forty minutes later, not much moving.
Look back at the boat and there is a nice young mature cow moose.
Carefully brought my .62 cal. cap rifle eased back the hammer and took my shot just behind the hump.
The cow moose twitched like a bad fly bite. To my horror I thought I missed, impossible forty yards at the most, then she stumbled and was leaning to fall into the boat, at the last moment she fell just outside the boat.
How easy can that get? It was really tough telling the guys back at camp how hard I had to work for that one.
That shot hit the bottom of the back bone, glanced down took out the heart, and left lung.
Not an ounce of meat damaged.
I could not see the bullet hit with the smoke, but I could see her twitch.
Fred

I also have a Cabela's rifle with .58 15/16ths barrel. It is the nicest of the modern "Hawkens" that I've ever seen. The stock is exceptional, and the previous owner engraved all the brass. It is noticeably lighter than others of its kind. It's zeroed with an 80 grain charge, which seems adequate.

Blackpowder loads generate roughly the same pressures as shotgun loads. It might be interesting to research the thickness of shotgun chambers. Also, what is the thickness of the "chamber" region of a muzzleloading shotgun? That might shed some light on the rifle bore question.

Lightweight modern barrels are sometimes made as thin in the walls as .10 at the muzzle. Pressures at the muzzle of a modern rifle might be greater than the pressure in a BP barrel, I don't remember exactly. Slow burning powders give higher muzzle pressures. Blackpowder is somewhat slow burning, but of course the initial pressure in a barrel is high. Just trying to imagine things, but pressures in a BP barrle might be somewhat uniform the entire length, but that's just a WAG.

There is a simple formula for calculating the bursting pressure of a tube, but I've misplaced my reference and can't remember it off the top of my head. Given the same wall thickness, but differing inner diameters, but both subject to the same pressures, a larger tube will fail before a smaller one. If the formula can be found online a quick result could be had.

Sorry, but I can shed no light on barking squrrles with big balls.

Kansas Volunteer said:

Lightweight modern barrels are sometimes made as thin in the walls as .10 at the muzzle.

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I hear what you're saying, but that's at the muzzle. If you think about those same barrels, there's a whole lot of steel aft.

I have one 58 cal that might be a better comparison to the modern barrels you cite. Its barrel is straight-tapered from 1 1/8" at the breech to 15/16" at the muzzle. With only a single qualm I've really pushed the loads up just to see how it shot. But in the end I settled back to 80 grains of 3f.

The qualm is that the barrel is only 24" long, and big charges flap your ears AND your pant legs. :grin: It's so loud that my hunting partners have named it DANG!, and they back way off the firing line if they see me haul out a big powder measure. :rotf:

Old Ford said:

Hey! We're way too old to think of 200-300-400 yards. It will take us waay too long to walk that far, AND by the time we get there, we will have forgot why we went there in the first place.
So keep it short! We haven't the time left anyways.
This has been a fun post!
Fred

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I was at a flea market with a buddy when we happened on an old wallhanger flinter. My buddy asked to see it. He looked it over then sniffed the muzzle and said, "That's what I thought, salt." The vendor stepped back and asked what do you mean?

My buddy said, " They loaded these old things by pouring a powder charge down the barrel, then a handfull of salt and then a ball." The vendor asked why the salt? Gerald said, "These ole guns would shoot so far away, if ya didn't salt the meat it would spoil before ya get to it."

The vendor took the gun back and doubled the price! Said it was worth more cause now he had a story to tell with it!

A good thread thanks. :grin:

Old Ford, be sure to share some images of your new lightweight .58. And when you build that .69 "squill gun" give me a shout and I will sell you a Lyman .69 hollow-base minie mold. Good for those tough shoulder shots.

:wink:

Hey Bill,
That .69 minie ball sure would be good on the tenacious Canadian squirrel.
It would be great at barking them.........just shoot the tree, any where and that pesky rascal should be falling out of the tree.
You better be good at reloading.
Seriously, it would make one heck of a hog gun.
I see many of the states have wild hog problems, we don't here in Canada.
Guess the St. Lawrence river is just too wide, but it does freeze over in the winter sometimes.
Fred