45 minnie

[410-er]

Years ago I got a 45 cal Minnie ball mold.Has anyone tried it out of a TC and how did it do.Poured some and dipped bases in 50/50 mix of Bear fat and bees wax.
Plan on experimenting with a 45 TC Seneca and a 45 TC Hawken this winter.

[satwel]

I bought a .45 Minnie ball mold. Tried shooting them in my TC flintlock Hawken with no success. 1/3rd of the minnies keyholed. The other 2/3rd were scattered randomly all over the paper target. I don't think they were expanding to engage the rifling. I was going to experiment with heavier powder charges but I lost interest.

[Mad Monk]

I bought a .45 Minnie ball mold. Tried shooting them in my TC flintlock Hawken with no success. 1/3rd of the minnies keyholed. The other 2/3rd were scattered randomly all over the paper target. I don't think they were expanding to engage the rifling. I was going to experiment with heavier powder charges but I lost interest.

You are going to find that the minnie in you T/C is sensitive to both the size of the powder charge and the grain size powder you are using.  How much so will depend on how thick the skirt is on the bullet.  The original Civil War design minnie had a very thin skirt.  They were using a large grain size slow burning powder.  If you put too much pressure n the base of the bullet, as it moves up the bore, the skirt will flair out as it leaves the muzzle.  That will kill accuracy.  You may notice that when T/C designed the MaxiBall they did not use a hollow base design.  This allowed for the use of faster burning powder in a smaller grain size to increase velocities.  Going back 35 years in ml shooting you would see a number of minie bullets with different skirt thickness.  The thicker skirts allowing for larger powder charges and/or finer grain size powders.  You must alter the design of the minnie base if the gun is to be operated at higher pressures to gain higher velocities.  In these short barrel length T/C rifles you don't have the barrel length to let the pressure drop before the bullet leaves the muzzle and the amount of gas pressure on the bullet base skirt as it leaves the muzzle will determine how much flair is produced in the skirt.

[satwel]

Mad Monk,
Your explanation makes perfect sense and confirms my suspicion about why the minnies didn't work in the TC Hawken. They do have a fairly thick skirt compared to the .58 minnies I shoot in my Enfield musketoon and Pattern 1858.

[Daryl]

The beech and thus muzzle pressures developed in the .45 (and .50 cal rifles) are very much HIGHER than what you are or would be developing in the TC's - which in turn is disastrous on the skirts as they leave the muzzle, thicker skirts or not - no matter.

As well, the .45 Minnies were VERY long - TOO long for the .48" twist in the TC's.

If you have to shoot a slug, buy a Lee R.E.A.L. mould for the 200gr. and it should work fine. The 220gr. might shoot OK as well, being only slightly longer than the 200gr., but still very much shorter than the hollow based minnie ball.

[Scota4570]

I played with the Lee 50 cal wadcutter shape minnie in a TC.  Never could get any accuracy at all.  Gave the mold away.

[Daryl]

I tried those as well some year back,  just to test them - & again in a BP ctg. rifle - useless if one is interested in accuracy.

[Hungry Horse]

Reasonable close range hunting accuracy can be attained with MAXI BALLS, or Lee Real Bullets, and the knock down power is pretty good. But, the problem comes on the second shot, if needed. The shallow rifleing that allows you to use a bullet, don't capture the foulings, so the next shot is hard to load, and sometimes nearly impossible to seat on the powder. I see very little gain with bullets, and a lot of negatives. A round ball will be more accurate, and easier to load. JMO.

  Hungry Horse

[410-er]

Sounds to me like I need to save the powder and set one up with RB's and one up with maxis and forget the minnie.

[Daryl]

If you are going to shoot a bullet, regardless of suggestions to the contrary - get the Lee R.E.A.L. bullet. Forget about the Maxiball and Minies.

My .45 was easily loaded with the REAL for 10 shots in a row- no wiping, and with accuracy sub 1 1/2" at 50yards - from a 60" twist. I then loaded a normal patched .445" ball with .022" denim, fired that, then was able to shoot another accuracy, 10 shots with the R.E.A.L. bullets.

When I had a TC rifle in the early 70's, all I shot for a year was Maxiballs - I NEVER had to wipe the bore, but I did fill those huge stupid grooves with Crisco shortening - bit messy, of course,  well - there ya go.

The R.E.A.L. bullets are more accurate and better suited to the 48" twists.

 Note the fellow from Australia Taylor wrote of, shooting his moose just this last fall. The R.E.A.L. bullet went straight across the moose, double lunging it, whereas MAXIBALLS rarely go in a straight line after they hit moose.  I have read some guys say they work fine on deer - I do not know this from my own experiences as I've never shot a deer with one - or a moose - I use round balls in round ball rifles. 

One of the fellows who used TC Maxiballs and had poor luck on the moose with them, we got switched over to patched round balls and he started killing the moose with one shot, rather than wounding them, ie: through both lungs out to 75 yards. He then, he was a happy moose hunter.