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Enfield Pritchett Bullet Mould

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Viking78

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I have been thinking of having a mould made that is as similar as possible to the original Enfield Metford-Prichett bullet for paper patching. It is going to be made for muskets with the 1 in 78" twist, i.e. the original P-53 and P-56/P-58 Bar-on-Band Army Short Rifles, but also repro .58 muskets with 1 in 78" to 1 in 66" twist, such as the Zouave, Springfield and Richmond muskets. Most shooters using the rifles with the faster 1 in 48" twist use notably heavier bullets with shallower hollow base so my planned bullet is to be a tad shorter than the original Pritchett and possibly it will have a deeper hollow base compared to the original.

As many of you are aware of, the bullet used in the Enfield rifle muskets was .568" in diameter (naked) and 1.05" long to begin with, but in 1858 the diameter was decreased to .55" producing a slightly longer 1.09" bullet. (Hawes, Arthur B.: Rifle Ammunition). I have chosen the .568" diameter because I'm not planning on going to war with it.

Here's my sketch for a bullet (not final yet, it is nose pour so a meplat will be added to the nose):

pritchett.png


If someone is interested in this mould I'm going to have Lee make me one. If I order 25 or more the price will be about $25 + shipping. It would be pretty period correct for a Enfield rifle musket used in the Civil War.
 
If you do it, I would be interested in one. Note my email address and let me know.
 
I'll do that. Didn't find you adress but I'll send one through the forum.
:grey: :blue:
 
,You might want to know the Confed sharpshooters used the con for the 62 Springfield .580 because it was such a tight fit (had to tap it in after swaging) this was just for long shots and worked real good if you belive whats written from back then, I always wanted to try one of these but never found any or mould for 25 Id go for one too. Paper patch a minie 58 never heard of that.
 
This thread is old, but anyway, here is the result:

image314.jpg


Some of the finished products: British Enfield style paper cartridges, naked bullets and paper patched bullets:

image316.jpg


Now the shooting can begin! :thumbsup:
 
Nice looking galena tablets. I have four quick questions. What is the finished weight? How did they shoot? What did you use for paper? How much for a mold? Very neet experiment viking. I have a PH repro with a 1:48 twist barrel and am looking for a hunting bullet. This look like it.
 
Sorry for the late reply (Easter Holiday and all that) :)

The bullet weight when cast from pure lead is 450 grains. The original Pritchett was 530 grains.

Due to a miserable powder situation in Norway I have not shot it very much, but it seems to work very well. Best three inch group so far is about 1” at 100 yds with an original Tower P-56 Army Short Rifle with a 1 in 78” twist. I was shooting 65 grains of Wano FFg (PP). I paper patch to bore size with two rounds of the paper available from Buffalo Arms and lightly lube with SPG. No cleaning between shots. Excuse the quality of the photo below, but that is all my phone camera can do. This is the best 100 yd group:

pritchettgroup.jpg


I have also tried various plugs in the base and actually the groups seem a little tighter with plugs, but not much though, and it is probably not worth the efforts. I made plugs from both wood and body putty.

I have a few of them left if anyone’s interested. There’s more information and an order form here:[url] http://www.svartkrutt.net/engpritchett.php[/url]
 
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