RIFLE TWISTS

[JOHN L. HINNANT]

Greetings Halftail,

First, I must respectfully disagree with you. I do believe you can shoot that well if not better. The step is in believing you can, then eliminating the restrictions that stand in your way.

Yes, I do cull, sort and weigh. All but two of my 50 caliber rifles definately require a .500 size ball to maximize accuracy. Since A .500 size of my quality requirements cannot be purchased, it is necessary to cast them.

After casting, comes

1. VISUAL INSPECTION

2. WEIGHING AND SORTING

3 BALLS ARE SORTED INTO THREE GROUPS.

The balls that weigh out plus/minus .2 of a grain in the median are kept as match quality.

The few that weigh heavier are kept fot match shooting too, but not in the same shooting session.

Those that are just a bit too light are kept for for 25 yard Offhand Practice.

Those that are very light are thrown back to be recast.

At this time, I do not weigh and sort swaged balls, although I might start; just to see if it will make a difference in a very accurat Cross-stick Rifle. This barrel does not like a .500 ball, but has a real love affair with the .495.

I am at a point where age is starting to take a point or two off of my Offhand scores, so like many men who want to stay in the shooting game, I am gravitating more and more to the bench and Cross-stick matches.

Now those boys are the real technicans of round ball shooting, although some take to it like they have been doing it their entire life. No such luck for me; I will have to attack in my usual manner, hard work.

A good friend of mine says that a particular brand of swaged balls weigh out much more consistently than others, but can still stand a bit of sorting by weighing.

My posted targets were all shot with my cast, sorted, and weighed balls. I personally cannot shoot those kind of groups without weighing and sorting the ball. I do not PERSONALLY KNOW of any other high scoring shooter who does not weigh and sort their cast balls.

Shooting swaged balls Offhand is another story. I have (and many others) do not have that much (if any) problem with them.

I hope this information will prove helpful.

Best regards and good shooting,

John L. Hinnant

If you are not an NRA Member, why not? I am carrying your load.

 

[Halftail]

John Hinnant,
Thank you very much for your very helpfull reply!

 

[JOHN L. HINNANT]

Good Afternoon PittsburgHunter,

If we are talking about the same Story, 10-12 years back, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon shooting one of his full custom Story rifles.

It belonged to a down-the-street neighor, was of very traditional halfstock design with a Story Mule Ear lock. Barrel was a Bill Large 45 caliber, 1-48" rifling twist with .012" deep grooves; grooves being a bit wider than the lands.

Got to run; domestic demand.

'I will return"

Best regards and good shooting,

John L. Hinnant

 

[gmww]

Greetings Halftail,

First, I must respectfully disagree with you. I do believe you can shoot that well if not better. The step is in believing you can, then eliminating the restrictions that stand in your way.

Ahhhh... the little train that could. John is correct. A lot of competition is mind over matter. Be it against someone else or simply yourself.

:thumbsup:

 

[JOHN L. HINNANT]

Good Evening Halftail, again,

The barrel was a 15/16's ACTF x 32' long in 45 caliber. It was stocked with a gorgeous piece of fiddle back maple and shot as good as it looked.

With the DEEP GROOVE (.012") RIFLING, the 1-48' rifling twist shot a range of powder charges from 50 - 80 grains of 3FFF Goex Black Powder with equal accuracy from 25 - 100 yards. And the accuracy was as good as any of my recently posted targets, maybe some, a touch better.

Of course there was significant difference in point of impact on the target at 100 yards.

I have always taken the opportunity to shoot ANY rifle if given the chance. This has afforded me the opportunity to shoot many more rifles than I would have ever been able to own and shoot.

Halftail, the Good Lord willing, I would welcome the priviledge to shoot your rifle.

That is about all, I can tell you about the one Story Rifle I was able to shoot. It was in my possession for about six weeks, therefore, there was ample time to thoroughly test it.

All in all, it was a very fine example of the craft, and shot as well as a person could hope for. Two more Story's have been examined by me, and they too exhibited the high quality cratsmanship. Unfortunately, I was unable to shoot them.

Best regards and good shooting,

John L. Hinnant

If you are not an NRA Member, why not? I am carrying your load.

 

[Slake]

tis an interesting thread. John L., for whatever it's worth I am a member of the NRA {and the NMLRA}. I know what you mean about carrying the load of those who are not. I salute you for pointing it out. I hope those who are not take heed

 

[faw3]

Happy to see you state " give the op to shoot any rifle" hope your not to worn out after Brady to shoot one or two......dozen (kidding) :rotf: :v be with ya all John , Fred . One Q ? is the gain twist a slug only barrel now days? :hatsoff:

 

[JOHN L. HINNANT]

Good Evening Fred.

Afraid I cannot give you much information on the current status of gain twist rifling. I did have a short limited discussion about this topic with a friend who is into making high quality match grade barrels. This was back in mid-February. At that time, his opinion was they were not any more accurate for the patched round ball, than the uniform twist rate.

Being much harder and more time consuming to make, He had to charge considerably more to the customer, so he would no longer make a barrel with this type of rifling.

The last time I did any research on gain twist rifling, the general consensus was if this rifling was of any advantage, it would be with a breech loading cartridge rifle, and even that did not have any hard or solid evidence, only imperical evidence.

My friend was in agreement with that.

Best regards and good shooting,

John L. Hinnant

If you are not an NRA Member, why not? I am carrying your load.

 

[faw3]

Thank you much Ive read Pope, Ned, Cline, and others, and no one had a clear answer back then, one would try this then that, but nothing new in the last 50 years? or so FRED :hatsoff:

 

[fho]

I don't think that gain twist will shoot any better than uniform twist as you can only shoot a hole. I do think that gain twist will shoot as good with less powder, the reason is the grooves keep the bullet tight as the lead angle is always different.

Pope made a barrel that had gain twist with a tapered bore and drouped corner rifling. The corners were deeper than the center of the groove. The big end of the barrel is the muzzle.

olie

 

[paulvallandigham]

Gentlemen: Harry Pope designed the Gain Twist to shoot bullets, not PRB. This was in the days when they were trying to get flatter trajectories using hard alloy cast bullets, and Harry found that if you start the bullet in a barrel that has a slow twist, and then speed up the rate of twist as the bullet travels down the barrel, he was able to shoot the bullet faster, with more spin without distorting the shape of the nose of the bullet. He was loading his bullets down the barrel with a false muzzle, even in cartridge guns, then. Some of the records set with Gain Twist barrels still stand. Ironically, the only government to adopt the Gain Twist for a military rifle was the Italian Government, in 1891, when they brought out the 6.5 Carcano rifle, made famous in 1963 when Lee Harvey Oswald used one to kill President John F. Kennedy. The early cartridge used the first smokeless powder in a military cartridge, and also used a long steel bullet, that only has a lead core in the back 1/3 of the length of the bullet. The front 2/3 of the bullet is solid steel, to keep soldiers from carving the noses of bullets with " X's" to make them expand on impact, in violation of the recently signed Geneva Convention on Small arms.

 

[faw3]

I'v thought about that load from the front like "P" did and have a shell of powder at the other end, sounds crazy till you see a pic of his 200 yd 10 shot 1 hole job! (calling it a job cause he had to work to do that) And the famous Credmoore match that the " yanks beat irish, proof of superior breach loading rifles " a line in a old paper said, not that Irish hit the wrong bull, but the kicker is the best US shooter was muzzle loading his rifle?? Cant shoot them with X on a soft bullet, but can drop a nuke on em! Sounds a bit ??? Dumb? :shake: Fred :hatsoff:

 

[paulvallandigham]

MUch of 19th century foreigh policy sounds so silly these days. Even pre-1992 diplmatic rules in the 20th century seem questionable today. But, then, Daytime battles between foot soldiers is almost obsolete, too. Enjoy those WWII movies, and documentaries. That time will not pass here again.

 

[ResearchPress]

Gentlemen: Harry Pope designed the Gain Twist to shoot bullets, not PRB.

William Ellis Metford designed gain twist rifling that was introduced in 1865 with his successful long range match rifle, as manufactured by George Gibbs. The rifle also used hardened expanding cylindrical bullets. Metford's gain twist rifling (which I think he may have patented) was designed such that "the growth of the rotating or tortional movement should be exactly proportional to the growth of the linear movement of the bullet." Metford also contended that that this form of rifling minimised any tendency for the bullet to strip the rifling. A secondary advantage was the shearing force on the paper patch ensured that this immediately fell away from the bullet as it left the barrel.

Metford barreled rifles had a great deal of success in both muzzle and breech loading rifles in the 19th century. Were they 'more accurate' than the uniform twist Rigby which (adopted Metford's shallow rifling and hardend bullet principle)? Based on observations today of shooters using both rifles, I can't see any dominance of one over the other.

Credmoore match that the "yanks beat irish, proof of superior breach loading rifles" a line in a old paper said, not that Irish hit the wrong bull, but the kicker is the best US shooter was muzzle loading his rifle??

Fulton of the US team loaded bullet for his Remington from the muzzle. The Irish had one bull on a wrong target, scoring zero. Less widely reported is that one of the US team had a defective round of ammunition and the bullet did not reach the target.

The only way the US team could get acceptable accuracy from their breech loaidng rifles was to clean between shots. After the 1874 match at Creedmoor, there was a four man team match at 1000 yds. 25 shots each person, no cleaning permitted. The Irish with the M/L beat the US team with their B/L 321 to 201.

David

 

[paulvallandigham]

David: Thank you for that historical information about Gain Twist. I am sure you meant to say"...tendancy for the rifling to strip the bullet.", instead of the reverse.

The bottom line, is that gain twist offers no real inprovement in accuracy, but with the available equipment, sights, and machining equipment in that day, these inventors did fine work. As to the Match lost to the Irish, its obvious that the U.S. rifle team did not work with developing breechloading rounds that would clean the barrel between shots. I suspect that much of the problem was due to the limited capacity of the casings, and the available powders. If you can only use Black Powder, you have to sacrifice velocity to put a filler behind the bullet, like corn meal, to scrub the barrel with each shot. The advantage obviously goes to a Muzzle Loader because you can custom load each round in the barrel, and there is always plenty of room for " extras ". If you don't practice with the lower velocity load, at long range, any wind will play havoc with your sight settings for the higher velocity loads, particularly windage settings.

The reason we have long range shooting matches is to test the shooters and their chosen loads under the most extreme conditions. We marvel at the accuracy of long range rifles because there are so many problems that have to be solved to score a hit. I am reminded of the book(Marine Sniper?) on Carlos Hathcock, the Vietnam War sniper, and the kind of weather problems he had to dope out to take a long shot.

 

[faw3]

Mr Hathcock was a most unusal man, my "little brother" was asked by the familey to post his death , and obit on web, a really nice guy to the end. Fred :hatsoff:

 

[Zonie]

Although it is digressing a bit, one of the prime reasons which I've read that Pope and others used the muzzle loading bullet was that by doing this, the engraved lead from the rifleing was left on the front of the bullet, leaving the base of the slug pristine.

 

[***Sean***]

Here is some shootin with a TC Hawken 1 48 twist .54 cal.Shooting PRB 70 grains RS and TC Maxi-Balls 460 grains with 100 grains RS

The maxi-balls with 100 grains RS deliver a pretty nice kick

First time I tried those. One maxi-ball in the bulls eye and 2 round balls found there way home. This was at 50 yards on a bench rest. Pretty easy to tell the maxi-balls from the round balls. The maxi-balls punch a clean hole.

 

[faw3]

I must of forgot that one. :hmm: :hmm: :hmm: Fred :hatsoff:

 

[John Taylor]

I have had several people ask if I can match the gain twist on the Colts. Seems the 1851 used a 7 groove gain twist. I don't believe gain twist helps, if you think about it the rate of spin would be increasing as the volocity is increasing. It would probably work better to install a gain twist barrel backwards so the bullet starts with a fast spin when it is moving slow and as it picks up speed it is not adding to the load on the rifling that would help it not to strip. Just me thinking out loud