General discussion > Black Powder Shooting
Hooked breeches less accurate ???
Skychief:
While talking with a friend about the merits of different rifle designs, he made an interesting comment. He claims that the hooked breech designs are inherently LESS accurate that a NON-hooked breech. He explained that the hooked breech design can rarely be as "tight" as conventional breech/tang arrangements. I wanted to build a rifle with a hooked breech (think T/C Hawken, Seneca like), mainly for ease of getting the barrel off with the removal of a wedge or two for a qiuick and thorough "bucket cleaning". Please give me your opinion about the claims of my friend.
Are hooked breeches inherently less accurate than other arrangements?
jmforge:
--- Quote from: Skychief on July 31, 2009, 04:43:03 AM ---While talking with a friend about the merits of different rifle designs, he made an interesting comment. He claims that the hooked breech designs are inherently LESS accurate that a NON-hooked breech. He explained that the hooked breech design can rarely be as "tight" as conventional breech/tang arrangements. I wanted to build a rifle with a hooked breech (think T/C Hawken, Seneca like), mainly for ease of getting the barrel off with the removal of a wedge or two for a qiuick and thorough "bucket cleaning". Please give me your opinion about the claims of my friend.
Are hooked breeches inherently less accurate than other arrangements?
--- End quote ---
Unless I am misinformed, the 1000 yard English target rifles from folks like Gibbs, Henry, Rigby, etc. all had hooked patent breaches. You don't
get much more accurate than those in a ML'er! ;D
roundball:
Personal Opinion.
I've never seen any scientific test results supporting that they are less accurate.
I think the occasional individual will get the idea that "uhmmm, if I remove the barrel, then reinstall it, it might be sitting an eyelash off from the previous position, therefore it would be inaccurate".
The problem with that thinking is that both sights are on the barrel where they always remain in alignment no matter how many times the barrel is removed and reinstalled.
Its the same principle as Remington's successful cantilever rifled shotgun deer barrels...the scope mount is on the barrel, not on the receiver, so no matter how many times the barrel is removed from the receiver for cleaning the bore & scope relationship never changes.
Ben I. Voss:
Skychief, go for the hooked breech if that's what you want - properly fitted-up you'll never know the difference in accuracy. That's been my experience, anyway.
rsells:
All my life I have been able to shoot Hawken rifles more accurately than any other type of rifle I have built and have never felt I was at a disadvantage. I have never been able to figure out the reason unless it is the weight and balance of that type of rifle. The last Hawken I made for myself, I sold it before working up a load. The customer asked me to work up a load and sight it in for him. As to date, it is the most accurate rifle I have ever made. It was a .50 cal. bore and had an H&H straight taper barrel, 1 turn in 48 rifling, and would shoot groups that were one elongated hole at fifty yards off a rest with open sights and my old eyes. What a bummer!! I should have shot this one before I let a customer talk me out of it. I can't say that hooked breeches make rifles less accurate. I am sure there could be issues if things aren't assembled correctly and the barrel and breech are not inlet properly. However, there could be issues with standard breeches as well.
Roger Sells
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