Author Topic: Been reading Dillin's book  (Read 2482 times)

HardBall

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Been reading Dillin's book
« on: July 09, 2012, 05:25:38 PM »
I've been reading Dillin's The Kentucky Rifle.  It seems there's a bit of jumping back and forth with the information flow as one goes from one chapter to the next making each chapter seem like a separate train of thought.  Several things struck me and was curious to know if this is considered to be merely what Cpt Dillin thought?  Or was it accepted knowledge during the time Dillin wrote this book?

I noticed he indicates rifles of, say, .43 to .48 caliber were quite the norm but he doesn't really nail down a time period.  In one chapter it reads like an "as if" story where he indicates a jump from the large caliber, short, German rifles to the long slender modest caliber "kentucky" style with almost no transition period?

On the subject of gunpowder, I found his book quite interesting.  I hadn't realized that most, if not all, powder was brought from England and France until the early 1800's.  I also found it quite interesting that the "power" of gunpowder and the speed with which it burned were criteria in establishing one powder as better than another.  I wonder if creating a finer granulation of powder was more difficult to do back then?

I found particularly interesting on, I believe "plate 70", where letters from Remington's ballistics lab had chronograffed an original 42", .45cal rifle using "66.5gr of F.F.F.G".  It showed quite uniform velocities averaging about 1575fps.  This was dated, I think, 1912 but I could find no mention of whether the powder, too, was original or of early 1900's vintage.  Whatever the powder's date or brand, my own 42", .45cal rifle clocks 1560fps with 60gr of 2F Schuetzen powder, a bit more with Goex.  65gr of 3F today would clock much higher at around 1900fps.  It would seem that todays 2F powder is quite equal to the 3F powder of at least 100years ago.  I have seen it mentioned on various forums that todays "3F" is equal to what was considered 2F "back in the day".  To me, it would seem the opposite, yes?



« Last Edit: July 09, 2012, 07:49:07 PM by HardBall »

Daryl

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Re: Been reading Dillin's book
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2012, 08:52:02 PM »
Can't say much about speeds of 'old' powder - back when I had 3 pounds of pre:1898 American Deadshot, I did not have a chrongraph, however it was the best powder I'd burned up until that time - year late 1975. I'd been shooting black powder only 3 years, don't know how many pounds, but had gone through well over 300pounds of  telephone junction lead sheathing by then. That American Deadshot was the cleanest shooting, most accurate powder I'd used until then. It routinely gave me 1" and sub inch 5 shot groups at 100yards from my slug shooting barrel. It also won me 6 turkeys at the yearly turkey shoot, limit 3 per shooter over 2 years of using that rifle barrel and powder.

I do know that with today's powders when used in double and singe barrel 1800's rifles with fixed sights, that it takes up to 20% MORE modern powder to make them shoot to the sights. This suggests that the English powders used to regulate those sights, were superior in speed to our powders today. Only the modern Swiss powders seen capable of duplicating the speeds and recoil patterns of the original British loads and make those original guns shoot to their sights - as has been logged repeatedly by Ross Seyfreid in articles over the last number of years. Because Swiss seems to be 15%"Hotter" then GOEX, it would appear that our normal powders today are inferior to the BEST powders of the 1800's.

What powder was used in the gun tested in Dillin's book, I do not know.

Bill Knight might shed some light on this if he's still on this site.

HardBall

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Re: Been reading Dillin's book
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2012, 11:56:43 PM »

Was it the Curtis & Harvey Diamond Grade powder that was so highly thought of? 

I can't remember the book I was reading but it had to do with American Civil War arms.  The author mentioned many of the rifles sold to the Union and Confederacy were not the best Europe had to offer, but the stuff they didn't want to issue to their own troops, blems in other words.  I'm not sure if that was the case or not but I wonder if just prior to, and following, the revolutionary war, lesser quality powder(s) were shipped to us because they figured we wouldn't know any better and if we did, what else could we use? 


Daryl

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Re: Been reading Dillin's book
« Reply #3 on: July 10, 2012, 03:01:05 AM »
Curtis and Harvey #6 rifle powder, I believe.
« Last Edit: July 10, 2012, 03:02:06 AM by Daryl »