Old rifle from a friend

[Col. Batguano]

I have a New Model Sharps Mod 1863 (repro not an original) and it's my understanding that that gun is primarily designed to shoot Maxi-Balls. I realize that upon firing, both projectiles are designed to expand to fill the grooves, and in different ways, but would the twist rates be substantially different for each intended projectile? It seems to me that the Sharps has a pretty fast twist, but I might be remembering it wrong too. I don't shoot it very much, like once every 6-8 years maybe. Too much fiddling around in disassembly for a thorough cleaning.

 

[hawkeye2]

The maxi is a solid cylindrical bullet and its twist rate can be calculated using Greenhill's (or other) formulas. With most of its weight concentrated in the front part of its length a mini behaves differently, somewhat like a round ball, and will stabalize with a slower twist. I can see that this discussion could become long and complicated and I don't want to hijack this thread so I'll stop here.