twist ?

[Rifleman1776]

Twist seems to be about 1 in 60” as expected for a .50.

Quote above hijacked from Rich Pierce in the for sale forum. Now, we all know there are few members here as knowledgeable about things ml as Rich. I'm not criticizing the comment but I do find it interesting. The "as expected" part throws me some. Personally, I believe for a .50 any twist from 1:48 to 1:66 can be an effective 'X' hunter. My experience (probably not near as much as Rich's) has shown me no one twist, like 1:50 might be "the best". What say the jury?

 

[rich pierce]

Good catch - I was thinking chunk guns in .50. Most chunk gun shooters like to crank the velocity. 120-130 grains of 3F is not unusual.

 

[longcruise]

1:60 seems like it works pretty well across a broad range of charges. I have a 1:60 54 that shoots accurately from 50 3f up to 90 3f. Probably lower or higher too. But I probably don't come anywhere near the ability of the chunk shooters.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

Originals were 'generally" one twist in the length of the barrel.

 

[Nav]

A round ball is so stable it hardly matters. ANY twist fully stabilizes the ball. That’s why even a smooth bore can give acceptable groups within reasonable range.

 

[cannonball1]

The last muzzleloader barrel I purchased from Green River was after they had gone out of business and was sight-unseen. That old Green River barrel was one of their last. A 45 caliber and I made a Leman Trade Rifle out of it for my son. He shot round balls out of it and the grouping was only fair. The deer hunting laws with a ML changed one year and my wife drew for a special hunt which outlawed a 45 caliber with a round ball. A conical bullet on the other hand was legal. I knew she couldn't handle a 11 lb. Hawken. What to do? Then I thought of my son's 7 lb. Leman and ask him if she could use. We took that gun to the shooting range and with that only fair shooting round ball gun and with a grease unmentionable gun bullet, it shot circles around most of my ML guns. Mind you this was 20 or more years ago and just the other day I asked my son to see what twist it was. To my surprise it was a 48" twist. I never knew the old Green River barrel company ever made such a twist. Most of their barrels were slow twists.

 

[ETipp]

Quote above hijacked from Rich Pierce in the for sale forum. Now, we all know there are few members here as knowledgeable about things ml as Rich. I'm not criticizing the comment but I do find it interesting. The "as expected" part throws me some. Personally, I believe for a .50 any twist from 1:48 to 1:66 can be an effective 'X' hunter. My experience (probably not near as much as Rich's) has shown me no one twist, like 1:50 might be "the best". What say the jury?

I saw that in his listing. Wasn’t that on a GPR?

 

[TCMonts]

Velocity twist and projectile length all work together to determine accuracy. It's really more about bullet length and rpm, but rate of twist and velocity determine rpm. A low velocity pistol load can benefit from a higher rate of twist even with a round ball. high rates of twist and high velocities can be detrimental to the accuracy of a round ball for a variety of reasons but is required for long range heavy bullet shooting.