Interesting Day at the Range

[Heelerau]

Gentlemen, my mate Dave bought a GW Bales of Ipswich Colchester two band Enfield Volunteer rifle. It has chequering about the wrist and for end, nice steel fittings, including the ver nice pistol grip type trigger guard, (correct term eludes me). Bore is pretty good, but it is only 3 groove, ver shallow and guessing 1in 73 twist. We set up at the range for 50 m off the bench, using 2 1/2 drams of FFg Goex with the Trevor Bugg minnie' bullet. As I suspected although all the bullets hit in and around the black they did not stabilise. We also tried some paper cartridges with the same charge and had much the same result with most bullets tumbling. I was not surprised at this initial result, rifle did not foul and loaded nicely, lovely trigger and did appear to shoot to point of aim 6 o'clock hold with the black on top of a fine sight. Differing from my PH Navy rifles which all have a tendency to shoot a little to the left. This Sunday I will take her down with some more cartridges, but loaded with 2 1/2 drams of FFFg, the other cartridges were some old ones, which also by the way I put down a lovely 9 - 10 ring group with my own Navy Rifle. We also put a few shots out of the Baker Fusil, but that will require a little more work and the bore may be to rough to ever shoot properly, lovely quick lock time though. I do have a .568 pritchett which does not work in the rifles with 1 in 48 but might be worth a try later in this rifle with maybe a larger charge. Basically I am looking to increase the charge and see if that would stabilise the bullet properly . I am guessing that this rifle did shoot once with as issue ammunition, and may have been commissioned with the 3 grooves and 1 in 73 inch twist out of ignorance or perhaps the debate over twist rate had not been properly settled at this stage.

Cheers

Heelerau

 

[nwtradegun]

1 in 73 is a round ball twist.

 

[Zonie]

3 groove, shallow rifling was used both in the Enfields and most of the military rifled muskets made in the US as well.

This was found to be most suitable for the big hollow based Minie' bullets.

The slow 1:72 or 73 twist was also used in some of the rifled muskets and I think the 2 band Enfield was one of them.

The original slugs for the Enfields were rather complex, paper patched bullets, fired with the paper still intact.

Here's a link that has some information about it.
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/...tid/276932/post/1245919/fromsearch/1/#1245919

 

[Heelerau]

The .568 pritchett bullet I will try is much shorter than the .55 pritchett or the Bugg minnie' so closer to a round ball in over all length. Guess we will see how this one goes on Sunday.

 

[Heelerau]

Gents, long and the short, neither bullet worked in the rifle, I suspect I wrapped the outer with the wrong paper, another brand of linen rag and not the Beinfang 360. They would not even work in another chaps Peitta 3 band enfield, stupid mistake on my part. The chap with the other 3 bander had some Lee Classic Minnies which were a good fit, shorter than my bug bullet, and with 50 grain charges of Goex FFg I shot a 5 shot 9/10 ring group on the point of aim with the Bales, so blast me and no key holes each shot dead square to the target !! The rifle is a good shooter so will order said mould and go that way. Shot a 4 inch group with my .72 English hunting rifle using now 4 1/2 drams of Fg and Dutch Schoultze patch lube, 7 parts water to 1 part ballistic and dried over night !! Old girl is starting to cook with gas, will have to tap the rear sight over a tad more and she will be dead on ~~

Cheers

Gordon

 

[ResearchPress]

1 in 73 is a round ball twist.

...and 1 in 78 was the rifling twist for the Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle (three-band Enfield) shooting Minie bullets. It saw extensive military use, for example in the Crimean War and American Civil War. Rifle Volunteers used this rifle in competition in the UK target shooting out to 600 yards.

Slow rifle twists are not exclusive to PRB.

David

 

[ResearchPress]

...and may have been commissioned with the 3 grooves and 1 in 73 inch twist out of ignorance or perhaps the debate over twist rate had not been properly settled at this stage.

The Pattern 1853 Rifle-musket, P.56 Short Rifle and P.58 Short Rifle all had 1 in 78 twist with 3 groove rifling. The P.58 Naval Rifle and later Short rifles had 1 in 48 twist and 5 groove rifling.

In the earliest days of the Volunteer movement the men purchased their own rifles, but this soon standardised to the P.53 being their arm of issue.

Trade rifles did not necessarily follow any of the Pattern rifles so there will be variations in specification, barrel weight, and rifling.

I don't shoot a P.53 but understand that the deep based Minie bullets may perform better with the 1 in 78 twist, while the shallow based Minie's are a good starting point with the 1 in 48 twist short rifles.

David

 

[Dr5x]

If you can cut the lead of your projectile with your thumbnail you will have some idea of how little force can change its shape.
The more lead is engaged with the rifling the faster the twust can be. With the round ball only a narrow "belt" around the ball engages the rifling and that is through the cloth of the patching. if the twist is too rapid the force of the exploding powder will rip the ball's lead belt from the ball ,disengaging the rifling altogether and there will be no accuracy.
The elongated bullet bears much of its length against the rifling and the same amount of powder that rips the lead from the rifling of the round ball won't do the same with this much more complete bearing side of the elongated bullet.
The skirted Minie basal is a bit different as, apparently only the flange in the rear of the projectile expands into the rifling but here again the amount of lead engaging the rifling is somewhat limited and that's why the minie ball fired from the Enfield and the Springfield are still slow twist.

The 1 in 48 or so twist in many of the stock rifles is considered to be a compromise so the rifle will handle both round ball and more elongated projectiles.

When Experimenting with the goal of accuracy, I haver considered the twist rate as being all that important. The System seemed to work as well with either rate of twist.

Oddly the so called muzzle loading pellet firing rifles have a twist rate somewhere in the later 29's or lower ;30's can fire patched roundball if you back off on the POWDER charge in an effort to avoid the lead of the round ball being ripped out of the rifling.

The above must be a festival of typos and auto spelling correction which is seldom right

Dutch the Fairly Blind Typist