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?
