Smaller diameter ball results

[doulos]

Shot some ..562 balls out of a .58 colerain barrel today on a Stith Hawken.  Was using .017 pillow ticking with a bit of dawn and water and alcohol lube just dampening the patches. And actually ringing them out to get any excess moisture out. With 95 grains Goex FFG accuracy was very good at 60 yards 4 shots touching and another 3 touching about half inch higher. Patches showed a small spot of burn through in one small spot. Loading was very easy without cleaning and results were similar with Swiss ffg. in 85 grains but not quite as tight of group.  No hard crud ring which is usual when using.570 balls. But also never get burn through with similar wet lube.  I did not expect it to shoot this well with such a loose fitting combo.
Is this common to have a much looser combo shoot better?
I’m assuming the harder starting combination I tried was causing me to not be as repetitive in my loading and pressure when setting the ball.     .

[wolf]

good for you! using the dawn lube. i have been pushing it for a while. i started using .440 balls in my 45 SMR. i get the same accuracy as .445 but i do use a white denim patch. i tried the .18 pillow ticking with bad results. it loaded like a dream, but accuracy stunk! with the denim patch it still loads slick, and accuracy is great,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[Tenmile]

When I got my first muzzleloader in 1959 I loaded with the wooden ramrod that came with the rifle. It loaded pretty easily. I didn’t know about range rods. It was a 28 cal fullstock percussion. I used a Dixie mold and used blue jean material for patching. I remember it was pretty accurate. I think many people load a little too tight nowadays, myself included. If you are hunting you are probably using a looser combination. I think you are on the right track.
Lynn

[Pukka Bundook]

The .562" is all I have ever used in my .58 Don Getz barrel.

Shoots better than I can hold with 20 though tight Irish linen pillow case patches lubed with deer tallow.
Loads well all day with the odd spit patch now and again between shots. That with the normal ramrod.

No burn through with those patches.

[Bob Roller]

I cobbled together a 58 caliber flint lock and as an experiment I bought a .562 mould and used 80 grains of OLD DuPont 3fg and no really noticeable loss of accuracy was seen.That barrel was a GM one inch by thirty six with a breech I made The distances involved were 50  100 and 250 yards on our club range.To me the 25 yard range is for pistols and when this test was done was about 20 years ago.I was surprised by the 250 yard accuracy.The target was a white rock that stuck out of the hill and about the size of a basket ball and three shots and three hits.The tests with the surplus vintage 1953 military patches did have a sharper sound and that was with the old .575 Lyman mould and only pure lead.I like the 58's for paper punching or plinking and hope someone can offer an English half stock flint lock sporting rifle an maybe left and right styles.
Bob Roller

[doulos]

The lube was not the typical dawn lube that people are using. There was just a spritz of it in a spray bottle with water and alcohol. I believe it was more the .562 balls than anything. I believe the burn through would go away with a slightly heavier material or mink oil lube. I have to fiddle around some more. I was just surprised because the most common wisdom seems to be that tight fitting combos give the best accuracy. I had shot great groups with .570 balls before with this rifle but they weren’t this easy loading. And I would get a crust ring buildup.

[Daryl]

I've found in using a progressive depth rifled barrel that there must be some obturation of the ball. I think it smaller calibres, this doesn't happen as patch thickness and ball diameter needed to seal have to be tighter. In the progressive depth barrel I had (Musketoon), even though there was .008" deeper rifling at the breech (land diameter didn't change), the patches NEVER burned & were reusable. This barrel had a .574" bore diameter with .003" rifling depth at the muzzle, but .011" deep at the breech. This barrel had the typical 5 grooves and 48" rate of twist for Enfield rifles.
I started off using .575" balls from a 4-cavity Shiloh mould, then switched to .562" balls with the same .0225" denim patch- yeah, those .575" balls were quite tight, but once in, loaded very nicely and gave me 5-shot 3" groups off the bags at 100meters (109yds). I bought a used .570" mould that actually cast .574" balls. I used that one in the SxS double rifle I had at the time, and continued to use the .562" balls in the stubby Musketoon.
The point of all of this, is that the patches were re-usable, even though the bore was not filled to the bottom of the grooves. That was not possible due to the progressive depth of the rifling:deeper at the breech than at the muzzle. Thus, the balls must be either heavy enough, or tight enough that there is obturation. If there was no obturation, the patches would have burned up by gas blow-buy in each of those 5 grooves.
Doulos, your burn-through was likely due to the .017 patches in the .580" bore.  A 10 or 11 ounce denim would likely shoot better and not burn.
Jo-annes Fabric stores listed both 10 and 11 ounce, last time I looked.

[Dphariss]

We when I built my first and only 58. Back about 1969. .562 was all there was.  Used pillow ticking.

[Daryl]

By 1976/7, Lyman was making .575" moulds as that was what I used in the S.Hawken Taylor built me.
@!*%, should NEVER have sold that rifle.
They shot amazingly well, but it took a LOT of powder to shoot good groups at 100 yards.

[Dphariss]

By 1976/7, Lyman was making .575" moulds as that was what I used in the S.Hawken Taylor built me.
@!*%, should NEVER have sold that rifle.
They shot amazingly well, but it took a LOT of powder to shoot good groups at 100 yards.

The 58 flint that I built I used to shoot 120 gr of FFF back when I was a kid.
I have a lot of guns I sold back in the day for various reasons. One was a 54 cal swamped barrel kentucky Don King built for a friend and I traded into a few years later. I also had John Bairds DK flint hawken for a time. Big Timber #1.  The Kentucky went to pay for a doctor bill and the Hawken for something else. Dunno where either one went to. A guy named Bernie Kendall ended up with the Kentucky. Done had even engraved the lock’s bridal on this one. To quote a line from the mini-series “Shogun” (the original) “Thats froth in my life’s wake”.
I did get a BP rifle back that I built for myself in 1989 last Dec but it loads from the wrong end to discuss here.

[Daryl]

I actually sold this rifle to my hunting buddy when my shoulder was so bad I couldn't shoulder it, due to torn cartilage.
I was so happy to be able to buy it back, 3 or 4 years later for the same as I got for it. I asked Brad why he was doing this
and he noted "I'm tired of listening to you whine.  (he also didn't like shooting it, preferring the .54 Hawken he built himself.)
It's my Match Rifle.

[Bob Roller]

We when I built my first and only 58. Back about 1969. .562 was all there was.  Used pillow ticking.

Dan,
In 1953 I bought from E.M.Farris's gun shop, Lyman mould blocks for less than $4 and they were new ,575 and I still
have them.My first round ball gun came in 1958 and was made by Bill Large.It was 33" long with a 1 in 44" eight groove
barrel.Very accurate and I loaned it to a friend who set a 50 yard offhand record of 50-4X with the short barrel and 17A
front sight and a rear sight from Marbles Sights.The .575 ball was started with a short starter that seated the patched
ball and then loading was finished with the "broom handle" and 65 grains of DuPont 3fg pushed the ball from under the
front sight and down range.Later on I made another 58 with a 36x 1and1/8 ATF,silver butt plate and trigger guard and
the same style single set trigger I used on the first one.In 1960 the sights were changed to a Malcolm long telescope and
that made it possible to go beyond short range shots and using hollow base bullets, good hits were made at 400 MEASURED yards
and not "hunter's yards". .
The reason I bought the mould was in 1953 I had an Enfield 58 caliber carbine with a 25" barrel and used it patched with old shirts
that were done for.The 58 caliber ball worked  well but that gun was no match rifle but it started me into muzzle loading guns and
making locks and triggers.
Bob Roller

[Daryl]

This is my 1970's Hawken made by Taylor, picture taken at the Terrace range. All the targets are 100yards.
In those days, I could see no benefit to shooting closer.
These may have been Minnie "ball" targets or round ball. I experimented more in those days, than today. I had several sizes/weights in them
and modified all of them to thicker skirts.  The 570gr. Minnie mould came out at 675gr. The OS Minnie came out at around 480gr. or 490gr instead of 460gr.







Here's a 50 yard group shot from my SxS Kodiak .58. The load is on the page.
That's another gun I should not have sold. The group is 6 shots, counting the flinch.