Author Topic: shooting a 1in38 .54  (Read 7043 times)

ottawa

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shooting a 1in38 .54
« on: April 21, 2009, 05:36:17 PM »
Friend just picked up a .54cal Hawken style rifle with a 38twist barrel can he shoot RB or is that too fast a twist? i know this barrel is for the modern  sabots but i know some guys shoot a fast twist in Pickett rifles.
Thanks Ben

Offline Longknife

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2009, 05:48:37 PM »
Yes, just shoot a lighter load.....Ed
Ed Hamberg

Offline Roger Fisher

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2009, 09:17:43 PM »
Yes, just shoot a lighter load.....Ed
Probably ok at close ranges; but I would expect a problem with stripping if loaded up enough for longer range shooting.  Just my opinion!

Daryl

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2009, 02:20:58 AM »
That barrel, and I hesitate to say it, will probably shoot exceptionally well with a very short slug - like a Lee R.E.A.L. bullet. Lube with SPG or Lyman's black Powder Gold lube or a mix of Beeswax/Vaseline or Beeswax/olive oil- about 50/50 for the last two.  The bottom 2 or 3 bands will be a sliding fit in the bore an the top one will engrave - easy loading and accurate. My Musketoon .58 with 48" twist shoots them well, so the 38' in .54 should do likewise. 

With round ball, try about 80gr.of 2F to start. Make certain the crown will allow a tight combination or stripping will surely happen before a decent hunting load is found. Paper can be 'killed' with light loads.  I'd at 80gr. incease in 10gr. to 15gr. increments until accuracy goes.  80gr. 2F in that barrel will likely only give about 1,320fps.  I'd use 2F instead of 3f as the ball will start a bit slower, and may hold the rifling better than if the same velocity in 3F is used. This seemed to be the case back in 1860 and is probably still true today.

Offline Dphariss

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2009, 09:29:12 AM »
Myself I would turn the muzzle round, make a guide starter, a swage and shoot cloth patched pickets about 1" long out of it.
Perfect twist for a picket. Probably shoot 100 gr of BP.
Nipple erosion is a problem though.

Dan
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Offline JCKelly

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2009, 03:16:42 PM »
Heretical thought.

If the ball strips the rifling when loaded hot enough to go lengthwise through a T-Rex--
Cast the balls of modern hard alloy mean for a .45ACP. That is, lead + tin + antimony. Both tin and antimony are needed for best hardness.

Of course no one should use such a ball in a muzzle-loader.
In my youth a modern shooter friend of mine bought an Italian perc pistol with, well, most generous phrase would be "micro-groove rifling" He could not shoot it worth squat, using soft lead balls like we all know are necessary.

Being a .45ACP guy at heart, he cast up a bunch of balls with that alloy. Being an excellent shot, Mr. Burton then beat all the black powder guys with their custom-made muzzle-loading "race guns" of that time.

Soft lead can strip. Harder lead is harder to strip. 

Just a thought.
 

Daryl

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2009, 05:31:22 PM »
JC- interesting observations and thoughts. About the shallow rifling and bullet/ball alloy.
  Taylor's Shilo Sharps, a .45 3-1/4" bought eons ago, had .0015" rifling depth. Yeah - 1 1/2 thou.  We tried for about 7 years to find a load it would shoot. Up until that time, he did use the rifle for hunting moose, but had to use jacketed bullets with black powder and was rewarded with amazing accuracy - watch him shoot it - as small as 3/8" 3 shot groups at 100 meters (several such groups in a row) with tang and globed pin-head using 500gr. Hornady RNs & 100gr. 2F.

  We tried bullets as hard as we could cast, even using high speed Babbitt at about 28Brinel, then oven heated/quenched & hardened WW running even a bit more than that as well as everything in between pure lead and Babbitt - both paper patched and groove & lubed.  Nothing would shoot except those jacketed bullets. Moose died but we still couldn't find a cast load to shoot -  from 400gr. to 540gr.

THEN, I bought "The Paper Jacket" - read it, made some suggestions and we were then successful. Taylor's reground a drill,  bored out an old smaller calibre mould and cast up some 400gr. pure lead, well-undersized bullets. We wrapped them in masking tape and we had a 1 1/8" 5 shot grouping rifle with cast bullets and black powder.  We also tried normal paper patching as well as larger bullets but that particular rifle wanted that truncated cone 400gr. FN wrapped in masking tape.  My own .45 3 1/4" at the time, a Hoch barreled Rolling block liked normal paper patching and a 580gr. from a 4 cavity mould we re-cut.  Both these successful bullet combinations were pure lead, and when patched, ran .451" at the most, barely touching the rifling when loaded. They could be each be shot up to 20 times without cleaning without any loss in accuracy. A single dry patch wiped all the fouling from the bore - there was no buildup. We used lube balls as per the book's directions - beeswax/Vas also rubbed on the paper patches.

I surmise the BP loads effectively obturated the bullets to the bottoms of the grooves just about instantly upon ignition - gripping the bottom of the grooves as hard as possible and reamining hard pressed due to the pressure behind. Neither barrel fouled - we were elated - of course.

The results we obtained were polar opposite to the normal thought of the day, in that as hard as possible is necessary for shallow rifling - it looked that way due to the jacketed experience, but the undersized, pure lead wrapped in paper proved there are generally other possibilities.

ottawa

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2009, 06:39:37 PM »
I was thinking along the lines of a papper patch as I've seen witworth shooters doing it to keep the leading down but that maskingtape idea that's cool might just have him give it a try

Daryl

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2009, 09:31:09 PM »
My rifle didn't like masking tape - only Taylor's did. Good luck, Ottawa.  If it works, it's an incredibly easy method of patching. Just start with a straight edge on the tape, wrap around the bullet 2 times, then run an exacto knife down the line of the starting wrap and pull the overlap off. We used strong tape with good adhesive as we didn't want the tape to come off in flight. 

ottawa

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2009, 03:40:56 PM »
at this point we will try all ideas cant hurt to try new thing only one we mite not try yet is the picket  bullet till we see where we stand hes not that big into ML but im working on him he mow has 2 rifles one of them plastic thingingys and this .54 im hoppen ill get him hooked on the 54 then he can get the bug and finde that wood and still are more fun and maybee soon a flinter  ;)i doo have hime going with me to the logcabin to look at parts for a build  i need to make a small cal rifle on the small in size for my daughter she bug me more for that thing then her brothers do for games LOL

Daryl

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2009, 04:54:37 PM »
The 38" twist may be a 'do both' gun as I noted - light loads with round balls for playing and short slugs for serious shooting.  I'd even try the 450gr. Hornady Buffalo bullet or whatever it's called, but of course, recoil goes up with weight. Then there's the nipple burnout with bullets to consider.

Offline hanshi

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2009, 08:40:17 PM »
Nipple burnout?  This is new to me.  Could you elaborate?  I shoot & hunt exclusively with prb but have fired a few conicals on the range just to see where they hit; probably no more than 24 over the past 20 years.
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Daryl

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2009, 08:47:22 PM »
Guys shooting slugs, ie: picket bullets as well as the longrange muzzleloading slug guns use platinum lined nipples as normal steel nipples will burn out in 20 shots.

Offline hanshi

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2009, 09:07:46 PM »
I'm guessing we're talking about much heavier powder charges?  Since I'm strictly flint & shoot prb exclusively, it's basically hypothetical for me.
!Jozai Senjo! "always present on the battlefield"
Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.

frontier gander

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #14 on: April 25, 2009, 09:13:14 AM »
my nephews cabelas hawken .45 has a 21"  barrel with a 1:24 twist.  We load it with 70gr pyrodex RS, .440 round ball, .015 and a felt wad. Does excellent out to 100 yards.

Daryl

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #15 on: April 25, 2009, 05:53:01 PM »
Ottawa- I don't think I mentioned it before, but years ago, I had a 38" twist Bauska barrel in .50 cal. With short slugs, it would hold 1" to 1 1/4" at 100yards off the bags. This means a ragged hole for 5 shots, every time. I used only a tang sight and blade front.  To do that, it took a 370 to 450gr. bullet and 75 to 85gr. of 2F.

  I did notice the nipples burning out fairly quickly, primarily due to the weak coil springs utilized in the lock on my rifle. When the cock bounced up to 1/2 postion upon firing, which isn't very high on that lock, I'd replace the nipple.  I don't remember how many shots I got, as I was shooting a lot then, 3 or 4 times a week and packed a good supply of nipples all the time.

Offline Dphariss

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Re: shooting a 1in38 .54
« Reply #16 on: April 25, 2009, 11:58:07 PM »
Guys shooting slugs, ie: picket bullets as well as the longrange muzzleloading slug guns use platinum lined nipples as normal steel nipples will burn out in 20 shots.

Thats about right.
I shot out a nipple in about 10 rounds on a Sharon Hawken with maxi-balls. I was testing penetration not accuracy and I could not do penetration at 150 since I could not hit the 24x24 target. But the twist was way too slow.
I was also using FFFG powder which I would not do today.
After this the hammer would go to 1/2 cock with the PRB too.
I had an underhammer slug gun I built years ago that would eat them pretty quick with 70 gr of either FG or FFG (can't recall which) and a 520 grain bullet.

Dan
He who dares not offend cannot be honest. Thomas Paine