Barrel Length, .54 cal round ball rifle.

[frogwalking]

I am making a caplock round ball rifle, .54 cal.   The barrel is a 15/16" Green Mt. with 1 turn in 70 inches.  My question involves shooting the finished rifle and is this:  What difference in actual shooting, ie. accurany and velocity, is there between a barrel 30 and 36 inches long?  PC has nothing to do with this rifle, and the barrel is too light for a target gun.  Weight  vs. performance is the issue.

 Thanks.

[Joe S]

Roughly speaking, you gain about 10 FPS per inch, so the difference would be about 60 FPS.  So, not too much.

[galamb]

You can check out this link at rice barrels.

Their test was with a 50 cal but should be somewhat indicative. They started with a 44" barrel, shot it, cut it down 2", and did it again until they got down to 30".

Here's the link http://www.ricebarrels.com/velocity%20test.html

[SCLoyalist]

In my old Lyman Black Powder manual, for .54 cal,  100 gr of Goex 3F in a 28" barrel measured 1605 fps, same charge in a 34" barrel was 1662 fps, and in a 43" barrel 1740fps.

[WadePatton]

You can check out this link at rice barrels.

Their test was with a 50 cal but should be somewhat indicative. They started with a 44" barrel, shot it, cut it down 2", and did it again until they got down to 30".

Here's the link http://www.ricebarrels.com/velocity%20test.html

what happened at 36"?  Everything else looks linear and normal.

Oh i see, it was the 1566fps shot.  That one throws the numbers, ignoring it makes everything look more "as expected".   Wonder what caused that shot to measure faster than NINE shots from the barrel when longer? 

[frogwalking]

I weighed the buttplate at 9 oz.  I better install it to see how the rifle  balances before cutting off the barrel.  I guess balance is more important than weight.  I have a neighbor who can recrown the barrel if I cut it shorter.

Thanks,

Frog

[smylee grouch]

Longer barrel-longer sight radius.  This will in theory will give you more accuracy, how much is debatable.

[frogwalking]

Longer barrel-longer sight radius.  This will in theory will give you more accuracy, how much is debatable.

Of course, you are right, but it is quite easy to calculate the difference.  I plan on using a peep sight on this one anyway as my eyes no longer make good use of open sights.  Since I have been locating my rear open sight halfway down the barrel in order to see it, either way this will be an improvement. 

[WadePatton]

...  I guess balance is more important than weight. ...

Thanks,

Frog

I agree.  I would not hesitate to add weight to achieve balance where removing weight would be a less viable option-for anything carried further than the range.

[Gene Carrell]

Ignoring an extreme, more weight in general will aid in reducing felt recoil and forward weight will aid in steadying the rifle for offhand shots. I would install sights and shoot for a day before making a decision to shorten the barrel. Hard to put it back on. Just use it "in-the-white" without thimbles for awhile. (Just my opinion.)

[tuffy]

Ignoring an extreme, more weight in general will aid in reducing felt recoil and forward weight will aid in steadying the rifle for offhand shots. I would install sights and shoot for a day before making a decision to shorten the barrel. Hard to put it back on. Just use it "in-the-white" without thimbles for awhile. (Just my opinion.)

Yeah, unless you got yerself one o' them thar barrel stretchers!!!

[Dphariss]

In my old Lyman Black Powder manual, for .54 cal,  100 gr of Goex 3F in a 28" barrel measured 1605 fps, same charge in a 34" barrel was 1662 fps, and in a 43" barrel 1740fps.

The problem here is in the powder used. I am sure they used different lots of powder across some of these tests since some of their data cannot be explained otherwise. If from the Moosic plant the powder could be somewhat different from can to can and even in the same can more often than not. If they used this powder from a new can in one barrel length and powder from the bottom 25% of the can in a different barrel length the data is suspect. By the time Swiss arrived it was not unusual to find 10-15% of the charge would be dust in the bottom 1/3 of a can of FFG. ML shooters would not notice this it only really manifested itself as the powder being a little dusty or when dropped into a cartridge case with a 30" tube. Then one would see dust on top of the powder since it fell slower through the tube. I threw away a lot of powder because of this.  This dust was the result of the powder being made with ground water (as opposed to sterile water used when the plant had steam heat) contaminated with sulfur oxidizing bacteria. During high water periods the powder was better since the bacteria count would be lower. I used to get messages from Mad Monk telling me what lots to buy.
Current production Goex is better both in saltpeter used and in the water as well. Powder variations are common in all the base line powders. This is why Swiss and to some extent Schuetzen is  more popular with serious competition shooters. Swiss is much more uniform when one buys more powder, its not graphite coated and is never dusty.

Dan

[Dphariss]

The Rice test probably used powder from the same container given they only used about 1/3 of a pound of powder. Its probably Minden powder not Moosic.
Its also pretty predictable. My first Ed Lyman book is not.

But Rice might know more about loading and shooting a ML than the people that did the Lyman test. Another potential avenue for variations not related to barrel length.
Dan

[Standing Bear]

IMO there is not much practical difference. I prefer a longer sight radius and more muzzle weight. Even at 66 years I'm still a large man so a little extra weight in a rifle is not noticed. Would a deer laugh off a lung shot because muzzle velocity was 100 fps lower?  Would 100 fps have made enough difference in placement to make up for miss estimated range.

To that end, my elk rifle is a .54 GM 1" drop in on a Renegade stock. Some call it heavy, I don't. A 42" barrel half stock wouldn't look right to me. I use a 42" full stock .50 w 15/16 barrel too. What is the weight difference?  I don't know and don't care. Just like the .54 ball for bigger game.

It's your gun not ours.

TC

[Jerry V Lape]

Looks like the results for the 36" group and the 34" group were transposed. 

[jamesthomas]

I have a 33" barrel on my .50 cal. and I find it takes 70 grns. of 3fff KIK to shoot a 2" group at 50 yards, to me I think it has a sharper(harder) recoil than my brother 42" barrel, but a PAST Pad helps out a lot. If I was you I would leave it as long as possible unless it is unwieldy, then I would shorten it by 1/2 or 1" sections until it just kinda "hangs" on the target then I would stop cutting and leave it as is. Btw, It looks like I'm going in the opposite way. My first rifle has a 33 1/2" barrel, my next is a .40 cal. 36" Mark Dehass squirrel rifle, and now I just purchased that .40 cal. 38" Colerain swamped barrel off the want ads for a future project, it will be my first swamped and Colerain barrel.

[Vomitus]

 James, I went thru this.  I stopped at 50&1/2 inches. My shortest rifle is 42 inches, a .54. I call her "Stubby",lol.

[Daryl]

LB - overcompensating again.

[moleeyes36]

[/quote]

...By the time Swiss arrived it was not unusual to find 10-15% of the charge would be dust in the bottom 1/3 of a can of FFG...

Dan
[/quote]

I remember reading a post several years ago (possibly on the old MLML) where the author said he would pour a new can of powder into an empty, cylindrical cardboard oatmeal container, add pieces of clean cotton jersey cloth (like from tee shirts), and roll it back and forth.  He would then take out the pieces of cloth, which would be coated with dust, replace them and repeat the process until the cloth pieces came out relatively clean.  I believe his claim was that this cleaned a lot of the dust from the powder and made it cleaner burning. 

I never tried it and don't know if his claim is true or not.  However, I thought at least on the surface it sounded logical.