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General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: JCKelly on June 14, 2017, 11:40:45 PM

Title: 1856 Ord Dept Strength of Rifle Bbls
Post by: JCKelly on June 14, 2017, 11:40:45 PM

Nah, none of that odd Kelly stuff
This one's for real, been approved by Sec'y of War Jefferson Davis, May 31, 1856
Reports of Experiments with SMALL ARMS for THE MILITARY SERVICE by OFFICERS OF THE ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT, U. S. ARMY

Y'otta read it. Lots of good stuff on rifling, number of grooves even vs odd, & groove design. Different designs of elongated bullets as well as round balls.

For this test all rifles were loaded with Minié bullets -

(https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi63.tinypic.com%2F2wfv7dk.jpg&hash=8dd56515baf27a045aa795fffcaddb023e533833)

Don't Try This At Home - with your "modern steel" barrels!!!!!

Rifle-musket (new) - is the Model 1855, Springfield Armory
Harpers Ferry Rifle is what we now call the Mississippi, originally .54 cal, re-bored & rifled to .58 cal
Altered musket - a .69 cal smoothbore, altered by rifling it.
The .58 cal rifles were loaded with 500 grain bullets and 60 grains of musket powder;and the .69 cal a 730 gr. bullet and 70 grains of powder.

Title: Re: 1856 Ord Dept Strength of Rifle Bbls
Post by: Carl Young on June 15, 2017, 07:14:10 AM

That's interesting, thanks for pointing out this book. For convenience, it can be accessed in full at:
https://archive.org/details/cu31924030757474 (https://archive.org/details/cu31924030757474)