Why 60 Grains?

Dave Fox said:

Believe well into the war Union ordnance studies resulted in U.S. made .58 caliber cartridges' powder charge being increased to 65 grains. Enfield cartridges contained about 68 grains as a general rule. As stated above, exhaustive testing found these charges to be the optimum compromise of several factors.

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Was not aware of the Increase; thanks. I will say that those big .69's loaded with buck-n-ball I'd think would want a bit more powder charge. What was the standard for the B-n-B like the 69th NY was so fond of using?

LME said:

I read where under certain circumstances 40 grains were used. It is hard to get accurate information some times. I have read respected authors that made mistakes. You may wonder how I know they were wrong? It is easy they were talking about my G.G. Grandfather and I have his records.

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I believe 40 grain charge was for carbines.

Walkabout said:

Considering most .50 cal hunting loads are probably at least 70 grains, 60 in a .58 cal seems pretty light to me. Apparently it did the trick, though.

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Oddly enough, it is a well-established fact that animals have far more latent 'vitality' than the average human being. After all, we are not trying to wound the game, and as has been pointed out, blowing somebody's arm off is still going to achieve the aim of making him fall off his perch, whereas we are trying to drop the animal in its own hoof-prints with least amount of grief for the animal - a humane kill.

The British had settled on a service load of two and one half drams [drachms in in apothecary parlance] and used that for all their long arms. Like many before me, and here, I've found that all of my Minié/Burton bullet shooters like 60gr of 1 1/2 FG. Kinder on the shoulder an, in the long term, slightly easier on the wallet.

springfield art said:

BTW, many target shooters like in the N-NSA find that 40 grains is really accurate in rifled muskets.

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The lighter charge is best for short range target work.
The desired effect on men was more to wound than to kill. Actually makes more effective results considering the men required to care for the wounded.
Bloody business this.

I used 44 gr FFFg and a 500 gr minie in my Enfields and had very good accuracy, out to 100 yards.

And there is the issue of more powder making the recoil too lively as well as being hard on the musket.

Nobade said:

And there is the issue of more powder making the recoil too lively as well as being hard on the musket.

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I am not a fan of recoil, regardless of the platform! I see no benefit in "beating" myself up!!

They didnt need to kill the enemy soldier just incapacitate him. That .58 slug would do a lot of damage to an arm or leg or guts.

I recommend the 4-volume series "Round Ball to Rimfire" by Dean S. Thomas if you want a good overview of the evolution and design of ammunition from the era of, naturally, round ball to rimfire ammunition. It covers all kinds of arms.

The short answer is the arsenals of various countries invested quite a bit of time experimenting with and proving out ammunition and arms with an eye towards suitability to military use.

This involved not only optimizing the charge for any given projectile, but trying to figure out what the "best" caliber was for different applications.

N.Y. Yankee said:

They didnt need to kill the enemy soldier just incapacitate him. That .58 slug would do a lot of damage to an arm or leg or guts.

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Yes, no such thing as a light wound from a .58 Minnie!