Estimated MV?

[DutchmanDick]

Does anyone know about what muzzle velocity I could reasonably expect, firing a 350 grain .600 patched ball from a 7-1/2" barrel, with 60 grains FFFg or FFg? I don't have access to a chronograph, unfortunately...

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Sixty grains is a whoppin' big pistol load! I would SWAG somewhere around 1,000 fps.

 

[DutchmanDick]

I'm thinking howdah pistol. And yes, they DID use hefty powder charges. Consider the fact that .577 Snider was a popular round in cartridge howdahs, and standard service charge (according to Cartridges of the World) was 70-73 grains Fg under a 480 grain bullet. MV was 1250 fps out of a rifle. The same book shows a 350 grain slug with 73 grains Fg produced 1310 fps from a rifle. No data on pistols with this cartridge.

I was just wondering if anyone had chronographed their Pedersoli or Middlesex 20 X 20...

 

[paulvallandigham]

I highly doubt you can get much more than 500-600 fps with that short a barrel, and that caliber RB. You will definitely feel that gun go off.

Years ago, Dad, my brother, and I, took turns shooting loads out of a "Tower Flintlock pistol" in 62 cal., using a cast ball from a Dixie GWs scissor mold, in .600" diameter. There were no sights on the barrel, so it was a "Wish-and-by-Golly" kind of shooting, just to hit the 24 x 24" paper at 25 yds. I believed we stopped at 40 grains of FFFg. with that PRB.

We fired heavier BLANK charges of powder, but NEVER that much with a PRB to push in front of it.

Back in the day when these guns were carried, in scabbards held on the saddles of horses, or on belts on shipboard, the heavy( 3/4 oz.- 320 gr. ) ball did all the damage. There was never any need to try to blow up the gun with a heavy charge.

You WANTED the ball to dump all its energy into the human target at close range, and not pass on through. The ball could knock a man out of his saddle at the short ranges where these pistols were used in a fight, with the primary weapon still being a sword. ( Think of shooting someone at close range( feet- not yards) with a 20 ga. shotgun.)

25-30 grains of today's FFFg powder would be enough.

It still is. :nono: :surrender:

For what its worth, I have some data published here a couple of years back, using a 42" barrel, .62 caliber smoothbore, with a .600" diameter RB, showing 70 grains of FFg powder producing 1191 fps. in that much longer barrel.

By Comparison, The Max. Efficient Powder Load formula( 11.5 grains of powder per cubic inch of bore) indicates that your 7.5" barrel in .62 caliber will burn 26 grains of powder efficiently.

Perhaps the guys on the Pistol thread of this forum can give you a better idea of muzzle velocity. I never had a chance to shoot our flintlock pistol over a chronograph back then. :idunno: :surrender: :thumbsup: Even if that powder charge produces ONLY 300-400 fps, Its still one powerful load. :v

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Back in the day when these guns were carried, in scabbards held on the saddles of horses, or on belts on shipboard, the heavy( 3/4 oz.- 320 gr. ) ball did all the damage. There was never any need to try to blow up the gun with a heavy charge.

You WANTED the ball to dump all its energy into the human target at close range, and not pass on through. The ball could knock a man out of his saddle at the short ranges where these pistols were used in a fight, with the primary weapon still being a sword. ( Think of shooting someone at close range( feet- not yards) with a 20 ga. shotgun.)

Yes, but...... If we're talking about a howdah pistol, the intended target was no puny human, but an irate tiger climbing your elephant, SERIOUSLY intent on doing you grievous harm. Somewhat more significant stopping power was the norm for THESE handguns.

Regards,
Joel

 

[Bearbait2]

Mr. Rich Knack,
Back in '09, we posted the chrono results for our Pedersoli Howdah (11" barrel?) using PRB (.600?) cast from ww. Barrel was cleaned after each shot, in each powder-charge group using Pyrodex P, as I recall.
40gr - 660fps avg.
50gr - 798fps avg.
70gr - 910fps avg.
Interesting thing, velocity jumped when shooting from a fouled bore, permitting a better gas seal; imho.
All of the above charges are above the factory recommended maximum for this pistol. We do not advocate anyone using them.

We made two posts around Jun 2009 in the Pistol Forum.
Hope this info may be of some use even though our barrels are a little longer than what you are interested in.
Best Wishes

 

[TFoley]

Correct - the Howdah pistol was usually one of a pair of identical rifle calibre pistols, carried in holsters on the elephant saddle - the howdah.

Some cheaper designs used a cut-down .577 Snider rifle or carbine with the full load of 85gr of RFG behind the usual 535gr Minie bullet, and others a custom-built - Rodda of Calcutta comes to mind - side-by-side in the same calibre. The Lancaster Howdah pistol had four barrels arranged as a double side-by-side - one on top of the other, and came in a range of usually enormous calibres to match the shikar's long arm. I've seen a .600NE side-by-side, and fired a .500NE.

But by far the most impressive Howdah pistol I've held was .500 BP Express with an impressive set of teethmarks all over the barrels where the tiger had bitten down on it as the shikar fired - the tiger died, but so did the gun, both barrels were squeezed into ovals...

tac
Supporter of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund

 

[BillinOregon]

Tac, my friend, where did you see the chewed-up Howdah? I would love to know more about this gun, being an old fan of Jim Corbett and the Raj.

 

[DutchmanDick]

Mr. Rich Knack,
Back in '09, we posted the chrono results for our Pedersoli Howdah (11" barrel?) using PRB (.600?) cast from ww. Barrel was cleaned after each shot, in each powder-charge group using Pyrodex P, as I recall.
40gr - 660fps avg.
50gr - 798fps avg.
70gr - 910fps avg.
Interesting thing, velocity jumped when shooting from a fouled bore, permitting a better gas seal; imho.
All of the above charges are above the factory recommended maximum for this pistol. We do not advocate anyone using them.

We made two posts around Jun 2009 in the Pistol Forum.
Hope this info may be of some use even though our barrels are a little longer than what you are interested in.
Best Wishes

So 750-800 fps would probably be a safe guesstimate for my gun using a 60 grain blackpowder charge?

 

[Bearbait2]

Mr. Knack,
Probably but as you know, there are a lot of variables at play here.
We are having typical winter temperatures (though a month earlier than normal) and it is -38 degrees below 0 (F). We will probably not do anymore chrono work until late Spring of next year. Sorry we can not be of anymore help than this, for the time being.
Best Wishes

 

[roundball]

Back in the day when these guns were carried, in scabbards held on the saddles of horses, or on belts on shipboard, the heavy( 3/4 oz.- 320 gr. ) ball did all the damage. There was never any need to try to blow up the gun with a heavy charge.

You WANTED the ball to dump all its energy into the human target at close range, and not pass on through. The ball could knock a man out of his saddle at the short ranges where these pistols were used in a fight, with the primary weapon still being a sword. ( Think of shooting someone at close range( feet- not yards) with a 20 ga. shotgun.)

Yes, but...... If we're talking about a howdah pistol, the intended target was no puny human, but an irate tiger climbing your elephant, SERIOUSLY intent on doing you grievous harm. Somewhat more significant stopping power was the norm for THESE handguns.

Regards,
Joel

FWIW, you’re definitely on the right track...as you obviously know, stopping power is not a function of a projectile stopping inside a target...that simply means a load was so weak that it simply stopped inside the target with correspondingly minimal damage and trauma.

Whatever little energy a weak load had would certainly dissipate inside a target but a projectile that slows down and coasts to a stop just 3-4 inches inside a target...compared to a powerful load...has no similarity to the energy transfer and maximum trauma / internal damage done by a strongly driven projectile that plows across through the entire internals of a target, be it man or beast.

 

[DutchmanDick]

That's pretty much what the "Taylor knockout index" is about. It puts more emphasis on bullet diameter and momentum than actual muzzle energy.

As an example, the 7.63 x 25 mm Mauser handgun cartridge, due to its high velocity, exceeds the 230 grain .45ACP hard-ball load in M/E, but it was a notoriously poor "stopper" in comparison due to the small diameter, non-expanding slug that tended towards WAY overpenetrating (the military .45 was a better stopper because it made a bigger hole to begin with, though hardball still isn't as good as an expanding bullet).

Paper ballistics on blackpowder howdahs are not all that impressive, due to the relatively low M/E and slow moving bullet. But, if you plug the bullet diameter (.600) and bullet weight (350 grains, which is what my .600 balls weigh out to), with a muzzle velocity of 750 FPS, into a Taylor knockout calculator, the Taylor index comes out to 22 - slightly OVER a .44 magnum with a 240 grain bullet at 1400 FPS (Taylor value of 20). Reducing the howdah's velocity to 600 FPS still places the Taylor value at 19. NOT something you'd want to be at the receiving end of!

Taylor knockout value calculator

 

[paulvallandigham]

There has to be a difference between what MV you can generate from a 7.5" barrel, and an 11" barrel. I don't know the numbers, as I have never chronographed a smoothbore .62 caliber pistol. You are burning almost 50% more powder in the longer barrel.

But, a large, soft, .62 cal. RB is going to deliver a lot More of its energy on any flesh and blood target, than most .44 magnums.

The howdahs were not used as the principle weapon to hunt tigers. Instead, they were purely defensive guns, to protect the hunters, and his elephant from a Tiger that attacked him, trying to escape the beaters who were driving the tiger to the hunters.

We see DBL S x S Howdah replicas made today, but not the 4 barrel variety. Single barrel ML shotguns, cut down, and some old single shot ML rifles continue to show up on foreign markets, but cannot be imported, usually, into the USA.

So far, ATFE has not declared these modern "replicas" to be Class 3 firearms, requiring registration, tax stamp, etc. That will all end the first time one of these replicas is used to kill someone in an armed robbery/murder, I suspect.

As to the Taylor "Knock Down" formula, it was designed to compare bullets, not RBs. People seem to want to misuse it all the time. Since all these formulas only give a relative "Index" to a particular caliber, and bullet, it does little harm to talk about it. The real test comes in the field, where, as has been pointed out, there are so many variables that affect how a particular projectile acts on a live animal( or man), that all these "formulas" meet the same fate as war plans after the first shot is fired. Somehow, Tigers have a way of reminding people that they can't READ those formulas. :shocked2: :haha: :hmm: :surrender:

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Paul, you are so right about people misusing Taylor's knock-out formula. Taylor himself clearly stated that it was intended ONLY as an index of how long an elephant would be knocked unconscious by a head shot which narrowly missed the brain. He very explicitly stated that it had no application to high velocity rifles nor "thin skinned game"!
Many people dislike kinetic energy numbers because they often do not show their preferred loads in a favorable light but like it or not it IS the only real scientific value of a ballistic projectile's ability to do work. It is not an index of "killing power" because there is no such thing. It actually takes very little to kill an animal and there are no degrees of deadness, therefore no degrees of relative killing power.
Many people have trumped up some totally non-scientific formula to show things the way they believe they should be. Nearly all of those formulas are based on momentum, velocity times weight, rather than energy which is velocity squared times weight. To believe in momentum as an index of killing power one must accept that their gun is far more deadly at the back than the front because recoil momentum is always greater then projectile momentum, often more than 50% greater. I have fired some nasty kicking guns but I'd still rather be behind than in front of them. :haha:

 

[DutchmanDick]

Link to an interesting old G&A article:

Frontier Manstoppers

Deals with cartridge howdahs, true, but it's pretty impressive what sort of power you can put behind a big round ball (16 and 12 bore examples) in a blackpowder pistol... :shocked2:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Joe: GOOD observations about the Taylor formula. Another formula out there that purports to give a reasonable estimation of "Killing power" have you multiply velocity, times bullet weight, in grains, times caliber, divided by 100 = KP. I think it over estimates the power of large caliber bullets( and balls), while underestimating the power of high speed, but small caliber bullets, as the formula does Not take into account the secondary wound cavity caused to tissues by high velocity bullets passing through vital organs.

In that regard, your comments about "Killing Power" are also correct. The Taylor KD power formula over-estimates the power of jacketed bullets, while the KP formula overestimates the power of heavy lead bullets and balls. For example, my .50 cal. rifle, shooting a .490" cal. 180 grain RB, at 1700 fps. has a KP of 1416.10. Compare that to a .30-06, 180 grain bullet at 2740 fps. which has a KP of 1479.8. Not much difference, but I think most people would agree that the 180 grain expanding bullet in a .30-06 is preferred for use in game as big as Elk, or moose, or Caribou, and big Mule Deer to a .50 caliber MLer. Maybe inside 100 yds, the two guns might produce similar results, but out at 200 yds, and beyond the smaller caliber bullet beats my rifle's RB hands down. :thumbsup: :hmm: :hatsoff:

[The Taylor Knock OUT formula is: Weight, times velocity, times caliber, divided by 7000= TKOF.]

What Taylor doesn't consider is the delivery of energy that a soft, expanding Lead Round Ball, with a larger diameter than most CF rifle cartridges can deliver, particularly on thin skinned animals. :hmm:

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Much as we may like to have some quantifiable numeric value of killing power there simply isn't one and never can be. I've seen a mule deer die within three steps from a lung shot with a .22 longrifle and I've seen one shot with a 7mm magnum run 1/4 mile and take two more shots to finish. How do you quantify that? :idunno:

 

[J.D.]

Yes, but...... If we're talking about a howdah pistol, the intended target was no puny human, but an irate tiger climbing your elephant, SERIOUSLY intent on doing you grievous harm. Somewhat more significant stopping power was the norm for THESE handguns.

Regards,
Joel

So, how many tigers are ya gonna shoot? and how much recoil can you handle, from such a comparatively light weight, large bored pistol?

I suggest beginning with 20-30 grains of powder and working up to a comfortable load.

God bless

 

[paulvallandigham]

How do you quantify that??

A. You don't- unless maybe you are GOD.

This is why I am always amused when someone new comes on this, or other forums, with his NEW FOUND information about one or more of these formulas.

What shooters can do( and almost never do) is to do penetration COMPARISON testing with their guns, using a known, respected caliber and projectile for taking the particular game animal you intend to hunt, and compare its performance, in both penetration AND EXPANSION performance to the Gun, Caliber, and projectile you want to use.

Much penetration testing is done at fairly close ranges- often 20 feet or less. That is fine to determine Muzzle Velocity related performance.

But, one of the advantages of MLers is that you can reduce the powder charge to reach the LOWER velocity that your PRB will be traveling out at longer ranges, be it 50, or 100, or even 150 yds. Then shoot the reduced charge at your penetration medium at that same 20 feet. For the average deer caliber PRB, you can expect the ball to lose about 25% of its MV out at 50 yards. At 100 yds, you will lose 40-50% of the MV.

Use a chronograph to determine these velocities with the reduced powder charges, and then do your penetration and expansion testing.

What I found so fascinating was how well my pure lead ball still expanded even at lower velocities. Comparing those lower velocities to performance of some of my copper jacketed, soft point, or hollow point, bullets shot at 100 yds, and further, it was not uncommon for the older bullets to fail to expand. Today, bullet makers are spending lots of money to improve performance "windows" for their bullets, so that the bullets still expand at lower velocities. Some of these new bullet fail to expand at the high velocities when a living target is shot at bow and arrow ranges, zipping right through a deer's chest, for example, without any expansion at all. So the idea of a "Window"( range from high to low velocities) for expansion with these new bullets is a very important concept to understand.

We don't usually have to deal with all that shooting lead balls and bullets, in MLers. Isn't that nice??? :shocked2: :grin: :bow: :thumbsup:

 

[DutchmanDick]

Yes, but...... If we're talking about a howdah pistol, the intended target was no puny human, but an irate tiger climbing your elephant, SERIOUSLY intent on doing you grievous harm. Somewhat more significant stopping power was the norm for THESE handguns.

Regards,
Joel

So, how many tigers are ya gonna shoot? and how much recoil can you handle, from such a comparatively light weight, large bored pistol?

I suggest beginning with 20-30 grains of powder and working up to a comfortable load.

God bless

No tigers, but...

1) I like to shoot guns the way they (or the antiques they were modeled from) were originally meant to be shot. Howdahs were shot with hefty powder charges. Not to say I wouldn't use lighter charges (especially if someone else with less tolerance for recoil - like my mom - was shooting it), and...

2) Black bears are a distinct possibility. There are a LOT of them up here.