two groove riffling?

[olskool]

i mentioned over on the ALR forum. has anybody ever heard of a 2 groove muzzleloader barrel? i haven't, but i think it would work good. they have used them for decades on cartridge rifles and now they even make match barrels with them. i have a friend that is a match shooter and he says they shoot just as good up to about 200yds and they clean a lot easier. and that is my point, they should should shoot as good, you may have to use a tighter patch but it should loader easier and clean up a whole lot better. what are yall's thoughts?

 

[Eterry]

Seems like when they started rifling smooth bore muskets they went with 3 grooves. IDK if 2 would grip the riflings with a prb. And you might have a problem with it stripping the riflings.

I have a Remington 03-A3 with a 2 groove barrel that'll shoot the center out of a target at 100yards.

 

[Pete G]

If two groove rifling work well Harry Pope would have used it, but he didn't.

 

[Zonie]

The British used a 2 groove rifle called the Brunswick around 1838. It shot a round ball with a circumfrencial "belt" cast into it. The belt fit into the rifling grooves to provide the spin to the ball when the gun fired.

Here's a picture of the Brunswick and the ball I borrowed from Wikipedia.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Zonie has it dialed in. They were popular up until around 1860. I have a percussion SxS 40 bore (about 48 caliber) James D. Purdey with deep 2 groove rifling. I haven't found the right load for it yet, but it could be because I haven't been wearing my tweeds when I've been shooting it. As far as I know they're only found in percussion guns. When I bought the gun it came with a single cavity mould, It would have been tough to find one (or expensive to have made) if it didn't come with the mould.