Old style deep rifling

[zimmerstutzen]

When I was just getting started, I went to lots of the local matches in the Maryland and Pennsylvania area. Many were camp over weekend matches. Especially on Saturday nights, many of the old timers would gather around a camp fire. Besides a few stories and tall tales, one of the things that came up was rifle barrels, smooth bores, types of locks and accuracy. I'd sit in the back with my mouth shut and listen. At first I could barely follow the discussion, eventually, I could understand what they were saying as they said it, and later, understood enough that I could learn from it. The guys at the camp fire argued like crazed lunatics at times. Sometimes it seemed like they were going to take a swing, but never did. I learned from some of the greats of the time. names many alive now barely remember. Ron Griffie of Death Wind Rifle Works, Pat Miller of Bowie, Md., Kit Ravenshear, a couple of brothers from Reading PA, that cut slug gun barrels, built slug guns and won many matches, an old Guy I knew only as Tecumseh, The fellow that owned Pennsylvania Rifle Works, A fellow named Bernie that manufactured mule ear locks, Hoppy Hopkins of H&H barrels, Some of the better shooters, too Mike Bell, A guy named Linwood Dawes, who suffered an eye injury and could no longer shoot as well as he once could. There was a fellow that came up from the Shenandoah Valley to matches named Woody.. I was fortunate to hear a few of the best debate their views on target shooting and fine accuracy. I have owned target rifles and pistols by some notable makes, Pat Miller, Yazel, Roberts, I even had an original target muzzle loader by a great German gun smith and Target shooter, Emil Pachmayr, several times 200meter European offhand champion around 1900.

This forum is like those camp fires, many of the old leaders are gone. We have those who spout off things that may or may not be true based on their limited knowledge about barrels and ignitions. Many know little beyond the old rule of thumb that fast shallow rifling for conicals, deeper slow twist for round balls.. Yet target rifling may have a fast twist for small bore offhand and pistol shooting with round balls. If a person says something makes no difference in accuracy, what is their basis for saying so?. A guy who shoots clay birds off a fence rail at 50 yds, saying it, doesn't mean much. Has he tested it over a hundred shots off the bench at 100 yds? Did he keep track of the differences to know which was better. If something makes consistently, a group an 1/8 of an inch smaller at 100 yds is that a difference worth considering? Too a match shooter that 1/8 of an inch is huge. Matches are won or lost based on number of x's. an 1/8 inch out can easily determine winner or loser.

 

[rich pierce]

Use an original barrel, with the rifling freshed. I shoot several such barrels.

 

[rich pierce]

I’ll add that the narrow grooves seen on early rifles usually indicates the barrel was rifled by hand. The wider the groove, the more muscle required to push or pull the cutter through the barrel. So, there were practical reasons for rifling with narrow grooves, independent of accuracy or ease of loading.

 

[M. De Land]

There is so very much more than just deep rifling. Narrow square bottom deep groove rifling gets to the point that the patched ball needs to be mashed/deformed into the rifling just to seal the bore. If you don't get the bore sealed, you get blow-by which loses velocity and increases fouling. Wide square bottom rifling can be so wide that the lands are like dove tails protruding into the bore. Just because a few old barrels look a certain way, doesn't mean they were accurate. In fact probably the opposite. they didn't get wore down to the point that the bore was re rifled. Much has been touted about round bottom rifling grooves and they do not have the problematic square corners for a patched ball to fill or to accumulate fouling. The problem is that most makers use round cutters that are like a piece of chain saw file and make round grooves that are narrower than the lands.. One of the premier barrel makers of the transition of target muzzle loading rifles to target black powder cartridges and then smokeless, was a guy named Harry Pope. The man was a gunsmithing marvel. He developed a rifling that had very wide round cutters, the arc of the cutters was larger than the bore size. He so when he cut the rifling, the round edges of the cutter were deeper than the center of the groove. The grooves were 3 or 4 times wider than the lands. The result was a bore that looked like the patched ball was sliding on thin rails. This rifling proved itself over and over for decades on the national target match circuits. He even cut special barrels for the US military competition rifles in the 1920's and 1930's. He guaranteed 10 shot sub moa groups at 200 yds..

I believe you are mistaken when you say such rifling "worked for hundreds of years." German gunsmith's brought the concept of rifles to the new world. They made what they knew, but also changed and adapted to their new world. smaller caliber rifles, longer barrels, etc. The earlier German gun smiths were here about 1750. (The elder Angstadt opened his shop in Berks county in 1747) By 1820, the industrial revolution and more precise methods of machining led to most gun smiths purchasing barrels from barrel companies like Remington and locks from Europe by makers like Goulcher. About that same time or a decade later, there were vast ballistics studies going on all over the world. The Minnie ball was developed. Rifled muskets and horse pistols developed. Greener and Alexander Henry in England were making huge improvements in accuracy. Progressive rifling was developed. (deeper at the breach than at the muzzle). (Enfield used it) Accelerated/Gain twist rifling came along, even choked muzzles on rifles. One style of rifling did not last for "hundreds of years" by the first British Martini Henrys (1870's) the rifling used very narrow round topped lands, and a choke ahead of the chamber and another choke near the muzzle. From the pre colonial German gunsmiths to the first rifled muskets was approximately 70 yrs. in another 50 yrs after that muzzle loader rifles were obsolete. The time line alone for cutting edge accuracy changes does not permit even a one hundred year period.

I've done quite a bit of study on Harry Popes rifling and have Smiths book on Pope who I think eventually bought his old lathe and perhaps tape driven rifling machine.
Pope was competitively shooting paper patch and Luvern (SP) style grease bullets not linen patched balls.
His rifling had very wide shallow grooves with a radius on the corner of the pressure/driving side of the land wall bottom (groove). My guess is he also radius-ed the opposite corner as well but I do not know this for sure. The middle of the wide grooves were the same height as land tops so the bullet was supported at sixteen points in an eight groove barrel with minimal bullet distortion at bump up or breech seating.
He also lapped taper the full length of the bore into his barrels using a series of one inch long tapered plug gauges that would drop to a prescribed depth as the lap tapering progressed.
Contrary to what some believe he did not cut the taper with machine tooling.
Early in his career he used cross paper patching and false muzzles but graduated to breech seating Luvern style grease bullets in cartridges.
He also rifled left hand pitch in his personal barrels as he wanted barrel torque into his cheek.
I know barrel torque will also get a discussion going but I have had to change my thinking on this as well as I was in the opposite direction of rifling camp until I saw some video of a shooter using a Sharps heavy caliber rifle and could plainly see the rifle torque the same direction as the rifling.
One thing few know about Pope is that he got his rifling profile idea from another prominent shooter and barrel maker of the era George Shouyen I believe was his name (SP). He did add some small details to the rifling profile to improve it but the basic idea was not really Popes.

 

[M. De Land]

When I was just getting started, I went to lots of the local matches in the Maryland and Pennsylvania area. Many were camp over weekend matches. Especially on Saturday nights, many of the old timers would gather around a camp fire. Besides a few stories and tall tales, one of the things that came up was rifle barrels, smooth bores, types of locks and accuracy. I'd sit in the back with my mouth shut and listen. At first I could barely follow the discussion, eventually, I could understand what they were saying as they said it, and later, understood enough that I could learn from it. The guys at the camp fire argued like crazed lunatics at times. Sometimes it seemed like they were going to take a swing, but never did. I learned from some of the greats of the time. names many alive now barely remember. Ron Griffie of Death Wind Rifle Works, Pat Miller of Bowie, Md., Kit Ravenshear, a couple of brothers from Reading PA, that cut slug gun barrels, built slug guns and won many matches, an old Guy I knew only as Tecumseh, The fellow that owned Pennsylvania Rifle Works, A fellow named Bernie that manufactured mule ear locks, Hoppy Hopkins of H&H barrels, Some of the better shooters, too Mike Bell, A guy named Linwood Dawes, who suffered an eye injury and could no longer shoot as well as he once could. There was a fellow that came up from the Shenandoah Valley to matches named Woody.. I was fortunate to hear a few of the best debate their views on target shooting and fine accuracy. I have owned target rifles and pistols by some notable makes, Pat Miller, Yazel, Roberts, I even had an original target muzzle loader by a great German gun smith and Target shooter, Emil Pachmayr, several times 200meter European offhand champion around 1900.

This forum is like those camp fires, many of the old leaders are gone. We have those who spout off things that may or may not be true based on their limited knowledge about barrels and ignitions. Many know little beyond the old rule of thumb that fast shallow rifling for conicals, deeper slow twist for round balls.. Yet target rifling may have a fast twist for small bore offhand and pistol shooting with round balls. If a person says something makes no difference in accuracy, what is their basis for saying so?. A guy who shoots clay birds off a fence rail at 50 yds, saying it, doesn't mean much. Has he tested it over a hundred shots off the bench at 100 yds? Did he keep track of the differences to know which was better. If something makes consistently, a group an 1/8 of an inch smaller at 100 yds is that a difference worth considering? Too a match shooter that 1/8 of an inch is huge. Matches are won or lost based on number of x's. an 1/8 inch out can easily determine winner or loser.

Some personal thoughts on rifling profile I hope to investigate when I retire is making the bottoms of the grooves with the same radius of the increase of the diameter over the bore diameter. It seems to me that this profile in conjunction with radius-ed groove corners would promote the tightest purchase and most efficient gas seal of a linen patched ball as opposed to flat bottoms and square corners or full radius (round groove) rifling.