Slow Twist .36 barrel

[paulvallandigham]

Gentlemen: Does anyone make or sell a .36 cal. barrel with a 1:66 or 1:72 inch twist? I have always wanted a round ball rifle in this caliber, but wanted a slower twist than the 1"48 offered by Green Mountain. How about a swamped barrel?

Paul

 

[gmww]

PM FW. I think he picked up a couple of 1:66" .36 cal.

 

[Slowpoke]

W.E. Rayl
Box 91
Gassoway, W.V.
26624
Ph 304-364-8269

1-66 is his standard twist for everything.

 

[bpollock_sr]

you may want to research this a bit. the smaller caliber balls need a faster twist to stabelize them. 1 in 48 is fine for 36 and 40 cal,I'm pretty sure a 32 cal is even faster.

 

[TN.Frank]

you may want to research this a bit. the smaller caliber balls need a faster twist to stabelize them. 1 in 48 is fine for 36 and 40 cal,I'm pretty sure a 32 cal is even faster.

Yep, that's what I've noticed too. Generally, a "slow" round ball twist for a 40 cal would be 1:48 and I'm sure that smaller would be faster as well. When you get into 45-50 cal then you start seeing a 1:56-1:66 twist, guess the heavier ball needs a slower twist so as not to strip the rifling because of the greater mass of the ball.

 

[Slowpoke]

smaller calibers need a faster twist... my 25 cal has a 1-32 twist. I recently shot my new 32 cal Rayl barrel with a 1-66 twist and had to shoot 35 grains to get a good group...... that said, that 5 shot group was under a inch at 50 yard.

 

[gmww]

I believe the .36 barrels FW got were from DC. They were for the Underhammer. They were also very accurate from all of my research on the .36 cal. underhammer.

 

[Old40Rod]

MBS has a line of "slow twist" barrels, but I don't see .36 on their website. Perhaps an email or call will yield more info. The smallest they show on the website is .40.
[url] http://www.muzzleloaderbuilderssupply.com[/url]/

 

[J.D.]

smaller calibers need a faster twist... my 25 cal has a 1-32 twist. I recently shot my new 32 cal Rayl barrel with a 1-66 twist and had to shoot 35 grains to get a good group...... that said, that 5 shot group was under a inch at 50 yard.

It doesn't take much to stabilize a round ball, so any slow twist, up to and beyond 1-90 will stabilize RB very well. The only problem is that it will sometimes take relatively heavy charges to obtain the best accuracy.

An acquaintance shoots a .32 with a very slow twist. That little gun is a literal tack driver at 100 yards, but requires relatively heavy charges to get that accuracy. On the other hand, it is sure death to all sorts of game up to and including coyotes.

J.D.

 

[JOHN L. HINNANT]

Greetings All,

These are all very interesting commentaries. Slowpoke, when Douglas Barrels was making ML barrels, the 1-66" rifling twist was used exclusively in all of their calibers from 32 to 58.

As Slowpoke and J.D. have observed, the heavier powder charges are required to obtain the grouping accuracy. Most any reasonable powder will produce small groups at 25 yards, but past that, and especially past 50 yards, more velocity is required to maintain that accuracy. Upping the velocity means upping the powder charge.

Your observations are astute and quite correct.

In my long post about accurate barrels, I wrote about this very thing, and how some of the old-timers prefer the 1-48" for 40 caliber and smaller in order to not have to use the heavier powder charges to acquire good accuracy.

Keep up the good shooting,

John L. Hinnant

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

 

[CoyoteJoe]

I once built my wife-of-the-moment a .36 with Douglas barrel 1-66 twist. I liked the .36 so well I built myself an "elcheapo" sideslapper half-stock using a Numrich barrel with 1-40 twist. Both rifles would group into 3/4" at 50 yards but at 100 the Douglas barrel opened up to six or seven inches while the Numrich still held a three inch group. As I recall, I was shooting 35 grains of 3f. I never tried heavier charges as that seemed contrary to the purpose of small game and economical plinking.
I personally feel that groove depth should also be proportioned to caliber. The 012-016" grooves we like in a .54 seem way too deep for a .32 and that may be why folks complain of fouling in the small bores.

 

[JOHN L. HINNANT]

Good Afternoon C. J.

You made some very good points, along with good observations.

Everything in the shooting game is a trade off or compromise; regardless if it is PRB, conicals, or centerfire (black or smokeless powder).

Your experience with the Douglas 36 caliber 1-66" rifling is a first class example, and you are quite correct in youR findings.

The 1-66" 36 caliber would have performed better with a heavier powder charge. That would have increased the velocity to the higher level needed to stablize the round ball for that particular rifling twist. BUT THAT IS NOT what you wanted.

In this case, 1-48" rifling twist with .008" - .010" deep rifling grooves would have given you the performance you wanted from a 36 caliber rifle; good accuracy with low powder charges.

At the risk of repeatedly sounding repetitive, I touched on this in my long post on accurate barrels.

Of the 25 plus T-C,s I have shot and worked with since their introduction (no, I did not own all of them, only 2), the consistently most accurate ones were the 45 caliber and smaller bores. The T-C. 1-48" rifling twist with the .006" - .007" is more suited to those smaller bores.

One of the Forum members is proving that with some very fine shooting with a T-C 40 caliber.

Of course every time, I post something like this, that is half critical of the 1-48" rifling twist, I receive much criticism.

However, post like yours tends to re-inforce the experiences of me and many other older more experienced black powder shooters.

Keep up the good shooting and evaluations.

As usual, my opinions and procedures on this subject can be accepted or rejected, used or not used.

Best regards and good shooting,

John L. Hinnant

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

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Some things do bear repeating even at the expense of repeatedly sounding repetitive. :haha: