.54 Bridger Hawken with a 1-48" twist barrel

[Herb]

I built a second close copy of Bridger's Hawken, including the 1" in 48" twist barrel, custom made by the Oregon Barrel Company.  One and 1/8" by 33 1/8", rifle weighs 11 1/4 pounds, like Jim's. Some shooters get their knickers in a knot over the matter of twist, saying that a heavily loaded ball will skip over the rifling of such a "fast" twist, which is good for only light loads.  Thus this demonstration.
Bottom targets were shot with 50 grains of Goex 3F and Goex 2F, note the velocities are nearly the same, with the Goex 2F faster- based on only two shots (chronograph trouble). (You can left-click the image to bring up a larger one, and left click the + sign for a sharper image).

Notice that the velocities and spread are the same on these two targets, even with different patches and over powder wads.  And the first shot with the bore cleaned but not fouled, or fouled with a different powder and charge, gives a low reading.

The linen patch, wool over powder wad and 120 grain measure.

This is a heavily recoiling load, which I would not use in hunting.  I like 100 grains.  And Daryl, I wore that Oehler 35P chronograph out for the second time.  I called Oehler, they had replaced the printer mechanism 10 years ago and will rebuild my machine and check the cables and sensors.

[Daryl]

That's good news, Herb - Oehler has good customer service.

Interesting tests.

How do you manipulate the mic.'s barrel for the thick measurement?

I know you scrunch the barrel down hard for the thin one.  I tried that
and my 14 ounce denim read .003".
 Run with the ratchet tightener, it was .030" and with the caliper tines
 compressed as hard as I could between finger and thumb, it was .034".

[Herb]

I use a $5 one-inch micrometer made in Germany, got it from Herters probably in early 1960.  I turn the small spindle down until it clicks, take that reading, and then turn the main barrel down with my finger tips for a crushed reading, which is what happens when the ball is seated.   My grip of steel is not enough to bend the frame, not even after about 25 years of shooting black powder.  I am going to cast some .526 balls with Carney's mold, so I'll be able to use thicker patches.  But this linen held up with that over-powder wad of wool.  I think I can shoot all those shots into one fat hole if I shoot at a more centered target so I can see the rear sight better.  But-  it ain't much fun to shoot this heavy load.

[JPK]

Thank you Herb, it’s always nice to get real data rather then “I think” data.

[Hungry Horse]

Herb, I’ve got a question that has bothered me for years, and your likely the guy that just might have the answer. Years ago a friend and I went to our local gun club range to test some new targets before our monthly shoot. My friend was from Montana and had a nice old fullstocked Hawken replica with a .54 bore, and a 1 in 66” twist. I had a Dixie York fullstock in .45 cal. With a 1 in 48” twist. One of the clangers we were testing was an old buzz saw blade hung from a chain. Since it wasn’t all that thick, we elected to hang it at two hundred yards, so my buddy would’nt poke holes in it with his .54. He fired a shot, and the clanger swung wildly, but showed no damage. So then I took a shot with my .45. To our amazement, when the saw blade quit swinging around, there was a hole knocked in it. Now it wasn’t a round bullet hole it was kind of squarish and more broken than a true bullet hole. We both tried a second shot with similar results. I have alway pondered over if it was the bullet size, or the twist rate, that made the difference. And if it was the twist rate could that be one of the reasons so many of the big old plains rifles were 1 in 48” twist?

   Hungry Horse

[Herb]

Interesting experience, HH.  It was not the twist.  It may be that the .54 had more surface area to distribute the force and the .45 less, making it more concentrated.  I would not think that could be the explanation, but it may be.  Relative velocity may be a factor, was yours a lot faster than his? 

[Hungry Horse]

 Herb, I would have thought the velocities would have been similar, he was shooting 85 gr. Of 3F, and I was shooting 60 gr. Of 3F. Maybe the concentrated force of the smaller ball did the damage. Thanks

  Hungry Horse

[longcruise]

Maybe the 45 balls were harder??

[Roger B]

I have an old Douglas 1" .54 1/48" barrel from Golden Age Arms that is an excellent shooter. The one thing is that it doesn't like FFg for some reason. The 34" barrel seems to max out at about 80grs of FFFg. After that, accuracy goes down & recoil goes up. The rifle is a rather light Hawken style & if I'm relaxed holding it I swear I can feel some torque when it fires. I find nothing wrong with 1/48 in a round ball gun as long as the barrel has deep, round ball, rifling. My experience with more shallow rifled 1/48 barrels is that they will shoot well with round balls, but the patch &ball combination needs to be tight & they need to be swabbed between shots for best accuracy. Other's experience will vary.
Roger B.

[Daryl]

Maybe the 45 balls were harder??

That is entirely possible, Mike, as well as the .45's were going faster due to the MUCH greater initial speed, almost double.  In my .45, 85gr. 2F gave over 2,200fps. 75gr. 3F gave the same 2,200+fps.
A .54 shooting 60gr. 3F will be starting the ball out at about 1,100fps, maybe.

Too, with the hold not being round, sounds as if it had a 'fractured' area or a super hard spot - with a lucky hit on that spot.

[Herb]

On July 1 (top photo above) I intended to shoot 50 grains of Goex 3F, but the can in my shooting box was empty.  So I used the lid pouring spout 50 grain cap to measure Goex 2F, thinking it would be close to 50 grains.  I later weighed charges from that cap and they averaged 53.7 grains of Goex 2F, which gave the 1275 fps, faster than G3F.

That can of Goex 3F was the last of a 25 pound bulk bag I got at Cooney's in Hobbs, NM in August 2008.

So I opened a new black plastic can of Goex 3F and weighed the charges.  My 50 grain measure now held 54.5 grains.  The measure that held exactly 100 grains of the Cooney powder now holds 109 grains of the new powder.  I had to re-cut all my Goex 3F measures.

Now the new 50 grain cap holds only 47 grains of Goex 2F.

This is why I make weight-corrected measures, so my powder charges can be accurately duplicated by anyone else who wants to, and so I know how the  powders compare to each other.  I thought Swiss 1 1/2F was a hot powder until I weighed its charge from a 100 grain Goex 2F measure and found the Swiss weighed 118 grains.

[Daryl]

Yes- the Swiss powder has a much higher specific gravity.  I found the volume of 78gr. of 3F GOEX is equivalent to 85gr. Swiss 1 1/2F.

[Daniel Coats]

Yes- the Swiss powder has a much higher specific gravity.  I found the volume of 78gr. of 3F GOEX is equivalent to 85gr. Swiss 1 1/2F.

Curious if it's that or if the two powders stack differently. Have you tried checking that with a drop tube? Pouring powder down a rifle barrel is essentially a drop tube and I don't recall ever hearing of anyone checking that variable.

[Daryl]

That was using a 30" drop tube, Daniel. Same volume as they loaded to exactly the same height.
Now, how Swiss 3F and 2F fit into this scenario, I do not know.  My test was with GOEX 3F and Swiss 1 1/2F.

[Hungry Horse]

 O.k. The balls used in this instance were all cast from the same lead source, so they were the same hardness. Rogers mentioning feeling the rifle torque jogged my memory of a friends rifle that did the same thing. It was a big half stock of questionable architecture, built from parts from Dixie Gun works. The barrel on this beast was heavy, long, and .58 caliber, with a 1 in 48” twist. The stock on this gun was a little on the narrow side, had no cheek rest, but I have shot big bores since of similar dimensions that didn’t behave like this one. It torqued noticeably when fired with 85 gr. Of 2F, so now I’m thinking that if it torques at your shoulder, it quite possibly torques upon impact. If it does torques upon impact, it could generate more damage on a target, and could translate into more knockdown power on game. Maybe the old timer knew this, and thats why so many large caliber plains rifles are 1 in 48’ twist.

  Hungry Horse

[Herb]

Daryl, I just checked my Goex 3F 80 grain measure against Swiss 1 1/2F.  Both poured from the can directly into the measure with no tapping or settling.  Five of Goex averaged 80.16 grains and five of Swiss  averaged 83.9 grains.  I could see when I had a little more or less powder in the measure.

[Daryl]

In modern bullets, more twist usually spells out more rapid expansion. 
More rapid expansion would not be a good thing for punching holes in steel.
Less expansion with a faster moving ball(bullet) is what punches holes in steel.
Velocity is transmitted to the surface, and a plug of steel is blasted out of the steel- normally.
Because the hole was not round, that means it was stressed already - stressed by being brittle
or pre-fractured on those lines that it broke. The faster moving ball simply hit that spot - imho, of course.
However, the ball turning once in 4 feet, or once in 5 feet makes little difference on target. That difference in
rate of twist is immaterial, I'm sure, in this instance.
When the gun torques, the torque is opposite to the direction of twist.  With a right hand rate of twist, the stop
action pictures show the gun torquing to the left. IF the ball was still in the barrel and effected by that, the result
would be to reduce the rate of twist of the ball. However, the ball is gone by that time as witnessed by the smoke
issuing out the muzzle - at least in what I saw.

[Daniel Coats]

As an odd consequence old buzz saw blades running around in the wild are not to be found and determined to be extinct, just saying.

[stretchman]

Herb great looking rifle.  Growing up in the 80s, almost all competitive shooters at the club my dad shot at cursed the TC 1-48” twist.  Many of the state champs used the TC Hawken, but the barrels were replaced with slower twist Green Mountain barrels.  I wonder if the issue with the TC barrels had more to do with the shallow lands produced by button rifling?  Out of curiosity, do you plan on testing your rifle at 100 yards?

[Pukka Bundook]

Herb,

Very interesting test and results.
A .54 I had years ago with a 32" barrel shot very like yours;
For target I used 60 grains Go  2F, and just doubled it for hunting.
It too had a 1~48" twist, and shot just as well with the heavier load as the light one.
Good tight linen is important I think,  and mine you coudn't see the sun through hardly. It was old pillow-case I was using back then.  Irish linen.

Thanks again Herb, great job!

Richard.

[Herb]

Thanks, all.  When I get my chronograph back, I'll shoot 120 grains of Goex 2F for a velocity and accuracy comparison, and I can do that at 100 yards.  There is no reason for ball stability to change at longer ranges. 

[Daryl]

The TC .50 I had in 1972, did have the "supposed to be normal" .004" deep rifling, by measure. When I wrung it in 1973, (short started and fired) the replacement barrel they sent also had .004" rifling.  The TC .50 of Taylor's (1970) had .0025" to .003" depth of rifling & buddy Tommy's rifle had .0015" rifling depth, also a 1970 rifle, I think.
Mine shot best with .495" pure lead ball and .022" denim patching and would shoot up to 110gr. for best accuracy at 100yards.  I shot the rifle pretty much only at 50 and 100yards, as well as at
the white rock at Squamish B.C., but that was later - about 1975 and a different .50 Bauska barrel w/ 38" twist and 90gr. GOEX, .022" denim and .495" ball. It had .010" rifling depth.

[Panzerschwein]

It’s guns like these that are the real Hawkens.

The TC, CVA, and imported “Hawkins” knock offs do absolutely nothing for me. But there is wonderful beauty and strength in the design of the original Sam and Jake Hawkens.

[Daryl]

It’s guns like these that are the real Hawkens.

The TC, CVA, and imported “Hawkins” knock offs do absolutely nothing for me. But there is wonderful beauty and strength in the design of the original Sam and Jake Hawkens.

I agree wholeheartedly, but it was the CVA's and TC's that got a lot of us started and still do today.  Yes, it didn't take long to see the downside of the shallow button rifled
barrels & to change to something much better, along with starting with a piece of 3"x 10" deep wood instead of the 2"x6" boards TC used. However, they were the starter
for many of us.  I was fortunate in having Lester H. Hawkes as a mentor, early on.  What a guy and a ML builder from the 50's. Les was the one who got me started on deeper
 cut rifling that he said was "proper" for a muzzleloading rifle.  He also coined a phrase I heard john Bairde use in the late 1970's about some people "He's on a long learning streak".
Aren't we all.

[OldMtnMan]

It’s guns like these that are the real Hawkens.

The TC, CVA, and imported “Hawkins” knock offs do absolutely nothing for me. But there is wonderful beauty and strength in the design of the original Sam and Jake Hawkens.

I agree it is a proper Hawken. However, not everybody wants to pay the price they cost or lug around an 11+ lb gun. The old MM used horses to carry the gun.

Without the knock offs we probably wouldn't have so many muzzleloader hunting seasons. Although I wish we had more primitive muzzleloader seasons.

Also, if someone wanted to use a more PC gun for the fur trade era he'll use a flintlock longrifle and not a Hawken. It took me a while for that to sink in but I accept it now. The most PC group you can find who's PC to the core is the American Mountain Men. Not one of them uses a Hawken. I'd love to be one of them but i'm too old now.