Pritchett bullet, and matching rifle....

[TFoley]

I'm sure that there are folks here who know about the Pritchett bullet, the brainchild of the man whose idea it was in the first place. Much has been written about him, in particular by Brett Gibbons in his book 'The English Cartridge'. But did you know that he also designed the optimum three-groove rifling for his baby?

And built rifles for the richer elements of the British Volunteer movement to shoot them in?

Why am I coming up with all this? Well, I have a chance at buying one of his rifles, made by his company in London, and, apparently, it's in very fine fettle, as well. Is there anybody else out there who has one of these rare pierces of military history? If so, I'd be grateful to learn any details you might pass on about shooting it.

TIA

 

[TFoley]

If anybody is interested I have now gotten permission from the vendor to post images of the Pritchett rifle I mentioned above. Not the sharpest, I know, but these are taken from an Acrobat conversion of a pdf.

 

[nkbj]

Looks nice.
.577 caliber?

 

[TFoley]

Yessir. The Pritchett bullet - a long, smooth-sided bullet, featured in your recent Civil War. It has also become a generic name for any such bullet.

 

[nkbj]

With the issued as-wrapped ammunition, know what the finished diameter actually was?
As in how much windage was there for the skirt expansion to take up?
I'd seen the dimensions for the different versions of Prickett bullet molds and it had made me wonder how much expansion the ammunition was designed for. Made me wonder about how thick the wax lube coating was too.