Round balls in a 14 groove barrel?

[Dennis Glazener]

I want to try shooting a 38 caliber ML target pistol that has 14 grooves instead of the normal 6 -8. I would like to load it with a patched round ball but wasn't sure if this type rifling is designed for shooting patched round ball. Anyone familiar with this type rifling? Here is a link to photos of the pistol/bore
 
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=28411.0
Dennis

[Hungry Horse]

Rapahanack Forge made wall guns during the American Revolution with this type of rifling. A couple of modern companies that built T/C lookalikes had twelve groove rifling, and shot round balls. It all depends on the rate of twist.

                      Hungry Horse

[Shovelbuck]

A friend of mine had one very similar to yours and shot it with a snug fitting unpatched ball. Strangest thing I ever seen but his targets were very impressive and he won a lot of shoots with that pistol.

[Dennis Glazener]

A couple of modern companies that built T/C lookalikes had twelve groove rifling, and shot round balls. It all depends on the rate of twist

Guess I will just have to twist a few down the barrel to see.

A friend of mine had one very similar to yours and shot it with a snug fitting unpatched ball. Strangest thing I ever seen but his targets were very impressive and he won a lot of shoots with that pistol.

I had not thought about that, might have to try it.

[Dphariss]

The grooves are too deep but "poly groove" barrels were very common especially in the larger bores.

Dan

[Dphariss]

The comments on Forsythe do not agree with Forsythe's own writings.
The reason they were using light charges (45 gr in a 67 caliber rifle) was that the twist was so fast that anything more would strip.
The 2 groove rifle let them use the fast twist without stripping.
Forstythe used twists of 96"  or slower and shallow grooves and could shoot 5 drams of powder. Rifles of this sort were very effective. But most makers did not want to make them because the twist was, to them, too slow.
Personally I would not care to shoot a tiger or elephant with a 67 caliber rifle (a one ounce ball is .662) using only 45 +_ gr of powder.

Dan

[Daryl]

exactly - Forsythe did note that many sportsmen simply loaded their "fast twist rifles" with large charges and used them as if they were smooth bores, simply to gain the power needed for dangerous animals.

Forsythe also noted that he himself has such a fast twist rifle, a 13 bore with a 3 foot twist that stripped if he "gave it more than 1 1/2 Drachms of powder" - and that with that charge, it's trajectory was 13" over 100yards- which possess absolutely no point blank range. 

Thus, we know although he used the word Drachms he actually meant Drams.  A Dram carryed 1/16th ounce or 27.34gr. weight of powder, whereas a Drachm is actually an Apothecary's measurement equaling 60gr. weight.  Thus 1 1/2 Drams, ie: 40gr. of powder would indeed give about a 13" trajectory and would not be a hunting charge, for anything other then bunnies. (it works for them BTW - even in an 11 bore, whereas I used 30gr., ie: 1.1 Drams in my 14 bore for them)

In the same Tome, a quote of Samual Baker's referred to a hardened 14 bore ball using 4 1/2 to even 5 Drachms of powder.  He most certainly was talking Drams as well, not a real Drachm.  The resulting 5 Drachms wound have been 300gr. of powder, which was actually a 6 or heavy 8 bore charge, not a 14 bore charge.

This is 5.13 drams with a 9 1/2 pound rifle.

[Dennis Glazener]

Took the pistol with me yesterday to check my deer rifle out (hadn't fired it since last year). A couple of friends went with me to also sight their rifles in. Spent almost all of my time helping them with their rifles (dang p'cussing rifles!) and just before we had to leave I pulled my Dickert out and realized I had the wrong cleaning jag with me (8X32 jag won't work with 10 X 32 threads!) and tried to wipe the bore with an undersized jag only to lose the patch in the bore with nothing to get it out with. So I pulled the pistol out then realized that my adjustable charger would not adjust below 50 grains of powder. So I lay the .350 ball in my hand and covered it with 3F, then used a .015 patch. I suspect it was about 25 grains of 3F. Only shot it twice and all I can say it was on paper at 25 yards. Will try it later with thicker patch and a decent ram rod to seat the ball. The pistol is really fun to shoot, look forward to seeing how it does with some serious testing.
Dennis

[Daryl]

"It" happens, Dennis - just laugh about it and prepare and better luck next time!   

[Dphariss]

In running Forsythe's trajectory figures for his 14 bore through a ballistics program years ago I came up with 1600 fps for the 5 dram load.
The same charge of FF Swiss (Forsythe's 5 drams is within 3 grains of my 140 gr charge)  gives virtually the same velocity in my 16 bore flintlock though his rifle was a percussion and had a shorter barrel than my 30".
Back in the days of ignorance I did see how he could get 1600 from a ball this heavy with this light a charge based on 54 cals and such using higher ratios of powder to ball weight. But with a one ounce ball 1/3 ball weight gives enough velocity to penetrate an Indian Elephants head from side to side.
When I first read Forsythe  Goex was the only game in town other than the blasting powder grade being sold by C&H for a time and Goex would not produce the velocity the Swiss will. The C&H blasting grind required about 1.5 time the weight of Goex.
Then we have granulation. I think Forsythe was using something very much like FFF Swiss. It was Hall's #2 and #2 is the designation used in Europe for our FFF Swiss. But this is supposition. But C&H #6 was like F today and #2 was much like FFF.
Also by Forsythe's time the powders were much better. I have found that in my Nock breech that powders that produce flakes of fouling in the bore will clog the breech in 2-4 shots and not allow powder to the antechamber. This tells me that perhaps the British were making some pretty good powder by the end of the American Revolution. At least for people that could afford it.
Forsythe is a wealth of information in a small book. It has a lot of 19th c theory on internal ballistics true. Still the external ballistics is repeatable today.
It is also interesting in that Forsythe was actually out doing things as was Baker (who from accounts stole his second wife after being outbid for her in a slave auction I have also heard he had bought her). Baker really was a world wide big game hunter Africa, India, Ceylon and North America. He was the driving force behind the development of the 577 BPE. So when people in such as Forsythe and Baker talk of hunting in the ML era their comment carry authority.

Back to lower quality powder and large flakes of fouling. I think this may be the result of unreacted sulfur (not milled  fine enough) but I lack the knowledge to say, seems like this is something I read in the piles of copies of old book pages and writings from Mad Monk. This could be the reason for the feather in the vent in the kentucky rifle and the somewhat large vent to accommodate it. Just a thought. The better British guns had what was essentially a modern vent design and the vent was not large compared to surviving Kentuckys unless intended to self prime and were invariably Gold or later Platinum lined by swaging the metal into the iron/steel vent. Or so I have read.
I would love to find an 1850s unopened container of Hall's #2 just to find what it really was like.
Forsythe, from reading his comments did not use coarse powder. In warning against "priming" nipples he comments that if the powder was not to coarse a little would come into the nipple anyway. I have no idea what diameter the holes in the nipples were or if they were eroded from use but it sound like the nipples had pretty big holes or the powder was pretty fine.
Gotta run

Dan

[Daryl]

I find if I use 2f in my .40 flintlock, I will eventually get pan-only fire due to flake fouling blocking the vent - but - it NEVER happens with 3F powder in either rifle. If I remember to pick the vent after or before priming, it only missed fire if I screw up.