Why tighter fitting loads?

[flehto]

This topic is in response to comments made in another post....."32 cal. RR groove size"  and I'm really confused {nothing new there} as to why we use tighter loads compared to yesteryears.

If in fact in 1780 or in any year long ago, did the shooters actually use looser fitting  loads and  tolerate blowby and inaccuracies judging by today's results w/ looser loads?

From a historical perspective I'm lacking info on just what they did use years ago asre looser or tighter loads and why generally do we in modern times use mainly tighter loads.

W/ the deep groove rifling { approx..016} found in modern bbls, a thicker patch is necessary to seal the grooves to minimize blowby, if in fact the grooves are really sealed. Saw some shots of a PRB being shot and the pic was taken  at the muzzle and blowby preceded the exit of the PRB from the muzzle.

We use short starters to help in pushing the tighter loads  we use  and then use RRs that are larger to complete the loading and according to some, the short starters were not used yrs ago and the dia. of the RRs used then were smaller.

Were the shooters of yesteryear unaware of the results from using loose loads or were not concerned w/ the results? Or....was the rifling not as deep as on our modern bbls?

Today we use RBs that are .005 undersize of bore size and use thicker patches to seal the grooves.... all in an attempt to achieve greater accuracy  and efficiency of load. What kind of accuracy did the shooters of yesteryear achieve w/ their loose loads which by modern thinking should have been lousy and if not, why?

I'm puzzled as to why we don't use bbls w/ .010  deep grooves that wouldn't require thicker patches and tighter RBs.....010 is quite deep enough to  "grab" the PRB and make it follow the rifling down the bbl.

If the shooters of yesteryears achieved acceptable accuracy w/ their loose loads, why can't we?........Fred
   

[conquerordie]

We can, but modern shooters are used to accuracy out of modern guns. Without thinking we want the same from our flintlocks. Its instilled in us nowadays. Some won't accept anything but the tightest group. Personally I believe they loaded looser than we do.  I guess the question is if you can accept the difference in accuracy between looser and tighter loads, then I'd go looser. Toss that short starter and range rod in the closet.
Greg

[rich pierce]

Fred, excellent topic. Here is my confusion:

It's pretty clear that a tight fitting patch/ball combo is needed for high accuracy.
Numerous period accounts of American riflemen in the Revolutionary War indicate high accuracy that would challenge many shooters today. Hitting modest sized targets at 200 yards.
We don't have period evidence of deep barrel coning or short starters.

So it is hard to reconcile how our predecessors loaded without short starters to get the accuracy chronicled in period accounts.

Either period accounts were exaggerations or they loaded tight loads.

I don't think difficulty of loading has that much to do with deep grooves. Tight loads are hard to load if you're not a burly Canadian, whether deep or shallow grooves. I do see how thick patches are needed to fill the deep grooves and prevent blow by.

[OldMtnMan]

If we had someone shooting back at us. We'd use looser faster loading loads too.

[bob in the woods]

There was a recorded shooting contest back in the 18th C , where a David Higginsbaugh { spelling ?? ] after " testing his powder ",
hit the end of a hogshead [ barrel] 100 times out of 100 shots at 100 yards.   Great shooting.   I looked up a "hogshead" barrel, and found out that they held 54 gallons  , [ that size was standardized in the mid 15th C ]    .   Today, a group of that size would be unacceptable.  Unfortunately, no mention was made as to how often be cleaned his barrel [ or not]  or changed or snapped a flint, or wiped his lock.    When hunting with my ,54 rifle, I  first load with a .535 ball , however, my loading block is filled with .527 patched balls for subsequent shots if needed.  They shoot almost as well in my rifle, the difference being of little consequence  at the distances usually encountered in the woods.

[flehto]

Rich Pierce.....thicker patch thickness in req'd if the grooves are to be mostly  sealed, but I don't think in modern MLing bbls w/ .016 deep grooves, the grooves are sealed.....but this is something that we can live with.

Modern shooters find that loose loads aren't accurate, so if as presumed, the shooters of yesteryears achieved good accuracy w/ loose loads, how did they achieve it  and w/ all our modern technology, why can't we?

Unless as you hinted, the loose loads provided quick shots at close ranges  and the longer shots weren't on target that often.

Believe me when I say I'm befuddled at this  contradiction.

My first build was a .45 flint LR and it has to its credit 100s of head hit squirrels and to achieve this kind of accuracy was easy in the Douglas shallow grooved bbl . I formerly was into handloading CF cartridges w/ all its complications and was amazed at the ease of achieving  "head hitting" accuracy so easily in a MLer.

My historical, technical knowledge of rifles of yesteryear is next to nothing, but my confusion concerns the achieved accuracy or lack thereof of loose loads back then. Have never read any "real" info on this.....only "romanticized" accuracy.

Due to the contradiction presented, there's some factor that's missing.....and my guess is that the bbls of yore weren't as deeply grooved as are ours.  The topic concerns "hard" VS "loose" loading...and so far I'm still awaiting some explanation  as to why we can't achieve  the "fabled" accuracy and easy loading of yore using loose loads......Fred     

[OldMtnMan]

Who says they were accurate back then?

[Lee44shootercnb]

Time period......
With time it improved
From what I have also read...the size of the target in the early days
Then the CW changed everything for the time period

"The Pattern 1853 Enfield (P53) rifle was manufactured by the Royal Small Arms Factory from 1853 to 1867, with approximately 1.5 million being produced. It saw service all over the world, but most famously in the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, and on both sides of the American Civil War. It had an adjustable ladder rear sight made with steps for 100 yards (known as the “battle sight”) range, and for 100 yard increments up to 400 yards. For distances farther than that, an adjustable flip-up blade sight was graduated from 900 yards to 1,250 yards. The official maximum range was 2,000 yards, but later trials revealed it was only effective to 1,450. British soldiers were trained to hit a target 6 feet by 2 feet with a 2 feet diameter bull’s eye. The target used from 650 yards to 900 yards had a 3 feet bull’s eye, with any man scoring 7 points with 20 rounds at that range being designated a marksman; hitting the target was worth a point, hitting the bull’s eye two points."


"To prove they were capable, the eager volunteers had to pass a rigorous shooting test—place 10 consecutive shots in a 10-inch bull’s-eye at 200 yards. Newspapermen flocked to Weehawken to see the exhibitions and write accounts about the training. When the sharpshooters moved on to Washington, still greater numbers came to see Berdan, who was commissioned a colonel, and his marksmen. President Abraham Lincoln even visited the camp, accepting an invitation to fire at some targets."


"Southern officers foolish enough to present themselves in the open also made inviting targets. On one occasion General Porter sent for some of Berdan’s men because the general wanted a Confederate officer on a distant earthwork “killed or driven away from some engineering he was pursuing.” A sharpshooter was assigned to see what he could do. Once the target was pointed out to him, the marksman found a good position, took careful aim and fired. He missed. Adjusting his range, he tried two more shots, missing both times. Guessing that he was firing too low, the marksman increased the angle and discharged his weapon. This time his target fell— reportedly more than 1,000 yards off."

The above are from
http://www.historynet.com/killers-in-green-coats.htm


Go to this site
http://www.2ndusss.com/research-library/harpers-weekly-august-24-1861

COLONEL BERDAN AND HIS SHARPSHOOTER

[Bob Roller]

Who says they were accurate back then?

The average (I hate that word*) squirrel gun or hunting rifle in the day of the long rifle
probably would get a solid last place in today's competition with it's possibly funneled
bore and a ball 2 calibers undersize.It could do "minute of deer,bear or Indian" and
that was satisfactory.As time staggered by and "civilization" grew there was time and
maybe money to develop better barrels (Remington Cast Steel) and men of inquiry
like Brockway,Whitmore,Warner,Ferris and others began to find better ways to make
barrels then accuracy started to come into a focus sorta/kinda like we have today.
In our times,for round ball guns Claude Turner,Jack Weichold and Bill Large were
predominate and later,today, Rice,Green Mountain,Ed Rayl are the leaders with fine
barrels at a reasonable cost.
I was close in distance to Bill Large and he was a firm advocate of the very tight load
and was thinking only of the competition shooters and the accuracy of his barrels is
well known. I have shot clover leaf groups at 100 yards with common open sights
and this was 50 years ago. A .535 ball,pillow ticking patch dampened with "Black Solve"**
and a .535 bore,short starter and 120 grains of DuPont 3fg did the trick consistently.This was a
Hawken styled rifle I finished on Thanksgiving day of 1967 and tested that day as well.
I built a similar rifle but with drum and nipple in 58 caliber and mounted an original Malcolm
telescope sight on it and got under 2" groups at a measured 200 yards with round .575 balls
and a .575 bore and 100 grains of Curtis and Harvey 1fg which was in granule size like
our DuPont 3fg.I never tested it with the hollow based Minie bullet.
Returning to the old makers of the 19th century my opinion is that the best and most accurate
rifles were made by N.G.Whitmore with 12 groove slight gain twist barrels.I all but begged
Bill Large to copy them but he never got onto the idea.
Today,my association with black powder is limited to making a lock or trigger for some types
of muzzle loaders and I have no real interest in shooting them in competition or any place else.
Load tight,load looser and find out which works best for the ideas you have in mind and what
acceptable accuracy should be.

Bob Roller

*Average defines the best of the worst or the worst of the best.
** Black Solve may or may not still be available.It was a concentrate
that came in a small bottle and made about a full quart of patch lube
and bore cleaner. It was green and looked like anti freeze.I used it on the mentioned pillow ticking and on
GI bore cleaning patches for the M1 Garand. I bought 1000,000
of them from Wes Kindig in the late 1950's and used them for YEARS.
Perfect size for both the 54 and 58 caliber barrels.

[WadePatton]

Who says they were accurate back then?

95 percent of the "home range" popping I hear these days is done at such rapid rate that I'm quite certain ACCURACY is NOT the primary pursuit of most modern gun owners.  They like to hear noise and smell burned powder. 

My point is that we aren't your average shooters. We are a different crowd, but often try to relate our notions back onto the "average shooter" of that day.  Then again, average shooting was not something to be recorded in writing for us to pour over and analyze.  But these days every third shot is on video somewhere, with all the freak occurrences/incidents/accidents and bests and worsts shared and reviewed by masses of shooters, quite unlike some small forgotten groups of plinkers and marksmen of the past (who may or may not have had a literate man in their company). 

Methinks our records of the past are rather skeletal (relative to the whole) and that there is a good bit of room for interpretations- which of course will vary by interpretor.

I suspect that "minute of man" or "minute of game"  was the primary motivator in the way back.  Or "minute of hogshead bbl" as mentioned above.

Also, I use a ball starter, I will have no thing to do with a "short" starter.     

Semantics and psychology converge.   

[Daryl]

I wrote this for the other thread- in building, but agree, it should be here.

Tighter loads shoot more accurately and effectively clean the last shot's fouling as they are loaded, so there is NEVER any fouling buildup in the rifling.

I don't know about David, however in my .32 barrel with bass ackwards (for today) rifling (narrow grooves wide lands), I used a .311" 99% pure lead ball with .0235" mattress ticking for patches. It loaded easily and shot reasonably well.

I wanted better accuracy, so I bought a Lee DC .319" mould which casts .320" from each cavity using the same dead soft lead. I use the same patch as those little balls form into the rifling along with the patch, every easily and load nicely with the 5/16" hickory rod. This barrel has a .320" bore, with .008" rilfing.  Hornady 0 Buckshot measuring .320 was difficult to load as it has 3 to 5% antimony in it - useless for me for use in a rifle as it is too difficult to load tightly.

A friend needed that barrel more than I did, so I gave him that narrow groove rifle barrel and bought a .36 barrel from Jason at Rice.  I use a .350" round ball (already had the mould from 1970's) and the same mattress ticking patches, I measure crushed at .0235". I do not need a short starter to put these into the wide grooves and narrow lands of this barrel. I simply choke up on the rod and press them into the bore- they conform very easily and load just as easily.  Like ALL of my rifles and the smoothbore, I never have to wipe the bore while shooting THAT day. My guns only get cleaned after the shooting is over.

Here is a picture of the muzzle of the .32 bl.  You can see the wide lands, narrow grooves, but also the radiused muzzle crown that makes loading tight combinations easy.

[hanshi]

A couple of things come to mind.  For one thing just how did they load back then; and how deep were the grooves in those iron barrels.  And while there's no concrete evidence of "short starters" that long ago, perhaps they may have used other methods of starting the ball in the muzzle.  Before my hands became painful I had little problem starting prb in the muzzle just using the ram rod.

Considering the wood rod under the barrel, I, personally, have no use for loads that can't be seated without a risk of breaking it.  I do prefer "tight" prb loads though maybe "snug" is a better description.  Some lubes render these tighter combinations much more friendly than others.  Depending on the rifle, patch thickness of .020" to .022" and .025" denim works quite well.  The barrels, themselves, range from one with .006" grooves to .010"/.012" for the square cut bores.  Those with round bottom cuts are about .016"/.018".  Snug combos, IMHO, are preferable because they keep the bore cleaner so that wiping between shots isn't necessarily needed. 

[hanshi]

"Black Solve" is still available, Bob, if I'm not mistaken.  I've used it quite a bit and still have a modest amount left; I found it to be a great lube for shooting, though maybe not for hunting.  The only criticism I have about it is that, like most other water based lubes, it does have a tendency to dry out faster than some other lubes and can leave a rust ring  if one's not careful.

[OldMtnMan]

More than likely they cut patches at the muzzle. It's simple to use the handle of the knife to get the ball started. That may be all the ball starter they needed.

I find myself doing this and it works good. No starter needed for a hunting load. A target load is different and might have been back then too. Maybe all that qualifying was done with tighter loads or conicals.

[flehto]

The general concensus is that loose loads are inaccurate , but why is this?

Daryl mentioned the fact that his tight loads more or less clean the bore and he doesn't clean until he's finished shooting. He might have a point but  I load tight and after so many shots, it's impossible to load.


If we take a .500 bore and neglect the depth of the grooves for now and use a .490 RB  w/ a .015 thick patch, the patch undergoes  some compression of the .010 between the RB and the land and some of the .010 is imprinted into the RB.... this is sufficient for the PRB to follow the rifling. This load should also be easier to load.

Now if the grooves are .016 deep as in many modern bbls, the above combo doesn't seal the grooves at all and in fact there's a gap of .006 between the patch and groove bottom which allows a lot of  blowby to occur.

If the grooves are only .010 deep,  this same combo has the patch just touching the groove bottom.....which will still allow a certain amount of blowby to occur.

Both of the above groove depths require thicker patches in an attempt to seal the grooves, but then the PRB is harder to load....especially the bbl w/ .016 deep grooves.

When the patch thickness is of insufficient thickness to imprint the RB, the PRB   more than likely won't follow the rifling resulting in lousy accuracy. But who does this?. Not many I would guess...whether in 1780 or presently.

Still can't reconcile the difference in easy and hard loading and the accuracy of both at different times in history....Fred



 

 

[OldMtnMan]

You're forgetting that the ball expands in the bore when fired. That fills the grooves.

[oldtravler61]

  Whether the gun prefers a tight load or loose. To me it doesn't matter. It's the amount of accuracy you are trying to achieve or are satisfied with for that particular gun.
 Back in time there firearms were what fed there families an kept them alive. Now day's we have a tendency to over think everything. IMHO. Oldtravler

[Hungry Horse]

I believe that many modern made muzzleloader barrels are rifled much deeper that the average gun of the past. The deeper the rifleing the tighter the patch ball combination must be to seal the bore. Relatively shallow rifleing will seal the bore through the obturation of the lead ball, while deeply rifled barrels will not. Rifleing twist also plays a part in this complicated issue.

  Hungry Horse

[Sharpsman]

Being as how I ain't got no Injuns afixin to take my scalp ......I ain't worried about loading fast so I use a tight patch and wipe betwixt shots!

[flehto]

OldMtnMan....the amount of RB expansion when the load is fired is negligible and contributes next to nothing as far as sealing the grooves......Fred

[Daryl]

flehto- "Daryl mentioned the fact that his tight loads more or less clean the bore and he doesn't clean until he's finished shooting. He might have a point but  I load tight and after so many shots, it's impossible to load."

That is an interesting statement.  The gun's ease of loading the way WE all do it here, never changes all day.   It's easy for 10, 20, 75 or more.  I do not understand if a person has a smooth barrel interior, rifled or not, how the fouling can buildup or loading become difficult with a tight combination.  It simply stays the same never changes, from the 2nd to the 100th.

[OldMtnMan]

OldMtnMan....the amount of RB expansion when the load is fired is negligible and contributes next to nothing as far as sealing the grooves......Fred

Why would that be? A conical expands and seals with no patch. All the ball has to do is expand enough for the patch to seal. How else can a loose fit even work?

My point is how tight the PRB is when loading doesn't mean it's only that tight coming out. You can't judge how it loads as that being as tight as it will be when fired. That wouldn't work. I've seen pictures of the ball coming out the muzzle and it was hardly what i'd call round.

[WadePatton]

Methinks the "trick" to easy loading after "self-wiping" tight loads -that some may miss-

IS having enough thickness of patch material to carry enough lube to _effectively_ wipe the bbl upon loading.

In other words (IOW), if you are "tight loading" but yet having an issue with increasingly difficult loading, then maybe a smaller ball and thicker patch would rectify your situation and allow you to shoot as Daryl and many others do.

Obturation is the word for that pressure-induced shortening of the ball during firing. It's going to vary by load and ball composition, but always be a real factor. Maybe not for squibs.

[OldMtnMan]

I always forget how to spell that word and I was too lazy to look it up. I knew someone would post it.

[flehto]

The conicals that expand only do so because of their thin skirt, like the Minie balls.....or the theory of the MaxiBall is that the smaller dias compress and force the dias that contact the bore to expand. This has nothing to do w/ PRBs which don't expand  to any degree upon firing. .....Fred