Hard Lead and Forsyth rifling!

[Bsharp]

For best accuracy, the bore likes to be clean.

Dirty barrel, the second or third shot will start to fly.

First shot clean bore, 4""s left.

Moved out to 50 yds. Used a front sight Hood!

With a light swabbing, the next shot, there is a 4 shot group at 1.1/2"s of first shots.

The second shot starts to move around.

Hard lead .610 ball and a .020 patch with Hoppe's, 125FF Goex.

A different lube may be completely different, but anyway, the barrel will shoot hard lead.

Rice .62, 104 twist, 32"

[Hungry Horse]

 My question is why use hard lead? I would think soft lead would be more accurate.

  Hungry Horse

[Badenpowell]

And I was just thinking what a neat way to use up range scrap ...

[Bsharp]

And I was just thinking what a neat way to use up range scrap ...

I have 400 pounds of reclaimed range lead!

[Hungry Horse]

 Seems like that hard lead will put a bunch of unnecessary wear and tear on a Forsyth rifled barrel. After all one of the reasons these barrels aren’t more popular is because of the narrow lands, they wear out faster.

  Hungry Horse

[Bsharp]

A .610 ball with a .020 patch, there is no wear on the rifling from the ball.

[Hungry Horse]

 Every time a shot is fire out of a rifle barrel there is wear. 125 grains of 2F is going to accentuate that wear. With hard lead there is going to be no give, which will make your patch the abrasive. Patch lubes help, but don’t eliminate the abrasion.

  Hungry Horse

[Bsharp]

Good thing that I have back-up barrels.

I will look for wear as I shoot.

Any thoughts on how paper patched round balls will wear on the bore?

I am going to make up some Tapered Paper Cartridges and shoot some of the hard lead, to see how it groups.

[Badenpowell]

Just off the top of my noggin, I would think paper would be much more abrasive than, say, a linen patch.

[Bsharp]

The paper cartridge is just for back-up shots. Not the main load.

With the paper cartridge you can easily reload in 8 seconds.

The most important part is getting the 'fit'.

Just a snug snap with the thumb, pushing the cartridge in.

Then check point of impact.

[Bsharp]

3 shots at 50yds. 125FF, .610 Hard Lead, .022 patch.

1.1/8"

Mild load and patches look great.



edit:

Going to try 100FF next, see how that load groups.

[Badenpowell]

Boy, not a thing wrong with that group. Just out of curiosity, do you know the actual hardness of the lead you are using to cast with? A post over on castboolits suggests that range scrap often falls in the 9-12 range on the Brinnell scale, but can of course be very inconsistent. I have not tested mine.

[Bsharp]

This is scrap range lead of unknown harness. [should be mostly hard birdshot]
My thumb nail will not scratch it.
I need to buy a set of pencils for testing.

[Hungry Horse]

 Or you could swap it to a cartridge shooter for soft lead.

   Hungry Horse

[Bsharp]

Tried 100FF and had two touching and two fliers!

The 104 twist doesn't seem to be stabilizing the ball.

HH, I like your idea!

[hanshi]

The hardest lead is exponentially softer than barrel steel.  And BP powder blast is the same in every bore.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it....lessin of course I git proved rong. 

[Bsharp]

This is scrap range lead of unknown harness. [should be mostly hard birdshot]
My thumb nail will not scratch it.
I need to buy a set of pencils for testing.

I was mistaken about the lead, it is from the indoor range.
22 bullets and pistol lead.

[Dobyns]

It doesn't matter if its indoor or outdoor lead, if you can't scratch it with a thumbnail, its too hard.  According to my thumbnail, 15bhn is about as hard as I can scratch. 

I've shot "hardened lead" only because I had a quantity of cable sheathing that obviously had other stuff in it.  As it changed from solid to liquid, the "other than lead" would float to the top, and I would skim that off.  I had it analyzed and there was tin, antimony, and copper in it.  The residuals that I cast roundballs from shows 9-10 bhn on my tester.  Its not as soft as I would like, but works OK even in the 6 groove Colerain barrel with its wide lands.

[yulzari]

As Forsyth himself noted; he used both hard and soft lead balls for different game. His peers equally so. Samuel Baker used a 10:1 lead/mercury to both harden and increase the weight.

Given that it is the patch which should be engaging the rifling and not the ball, hard lead should not be an issue.

[Daryl]

Seems like that hard lead will put a bunch of unnecessary wear and tear on a Forsyth rifled barrel. After all one of the reasons these barrels aren’t more popular is because of the narrow lands, they wear out faster.

  Hungry Horse

I think perhaps these barrels aren't popular (yet) is because most guys don't hunt large game or at ranges that requires heavier loads.
The slow rate of twist normal for true Forsyth-type rifling, usually shoot best with more powder than shooters today are willing to use.
The so-called Forsyth rifling of today is too deep in my opinion to truly benefit from the narrow lands and wide grooves & slow twist.
With a slow twist, the rifling need not be deeper than about .006" which will allow a substantial patch to take the 'heat' so to speak, coupled
with an easy loading ball 1 bore size smaller, maybe 2 bore sizes smaller in the 20 bore.
As for them being not as long lived as any other rate of twist, I don't believe that for a second. Who here has worn out a barrel? I mean really
worn out the barrel, not just shot one slick, as our late friend Roger Fisher did, with 45,000 shots in a Don Getz bl. Roger roughed the barrel a bit
and it was back to winning again.
I would think a true .620" with Forsyth rifling, might shoot well with a .595" (22bore) ball & a .024" canvas or 10 ounce denim at .021". That is, if the
rifling is .008" or shallower. It might even work with a barrier between powder and patched ball, with an 8 ounce denim patch.

[R.J.Bruce]

Anyone here shot a .62 caliber Forsyth rifled barrel with a 1:72" twist extensively? Curious as to the amount of the powder charge necessary for the faster twist? I know from reading here that the slower 1:95" & 1:104" twist Forsyth barrels require some pretty hefty powder charges in order to achieve decent accuracy.

Been considering a 25"-27" long, Rice, .62 caliber, Forsyth rifle barrel, Jaeger-style, swamped octagon, but without the parallel waist. Just a straight taper to the waist where the barrel starts to flare out to the muzzle. Colerain calls it a T.W. Pistor profile. With a 1:72" twist. 1.312" breech diameter, 0.890" waist diameter, and a 1.050" muzzle diameter.

Would kinda like to be able to keep powder charges under 150 grains, and to be able to utilize wheel weight metal for the balls. In addition to pure lead.

Probably utilize an English Sporting Rifle stock design to minimize the recoil. Not sure what flintlock I like more, Chris Laubach's German flintlock; or Jim Kibler's round-faced English flintlock.

Since this will be a contemporary hunting rifle sporting a recoil pad for my osteoarthritis, I'm inclined to go with the 1740's German flintlock. I just like its looks more. Single trigger. Iron-mounted, rust blued, and then rubbed back to grey.

3/8" diameter ramrod pipes, and a 3/8" hickory ramrod with 10-32 brass tips on both ends so I can utilize one of Dave Crissalli's, Gunner's Mate 10-in-1 flintlock tools.

A Daryl Sapergia-style brass bead front sight coupled with a Lowell Haarer-style, tang-mounted, ghost ring rear sight. Haven't figured out what kind of rear sight to put on the barrel.

Sling swivels up front & in the rear. 2" wide sling.

[Hungry Horse]

 R.J. I think even a 1 in 72” twist is going to require a hundred grains of 2F. That being said, a barrel that short is likely to be too short to allow that size charge to burn completely. I think you are going to have to consider either a smaller caliber, or a faster twist, or a longer barrel, to get the optimum performance.
 The slow twist is used to increase the long range accuracy, which isn’t usually a factor at hunting range. .62 caliber is a massive bullet for the average deer, and really is only needed on elk, moose, and dangerous game. JMO, good luck.

  Hungry Horse

[Daryl]

RJ Bruce - sounds rather short to me, but whatever you want & it will work.
1 in 72" is the same twist rate of the various Zouave and some other military .58's.
The Enfield 3 band rifle had a 78" twist - a .577.

72" is really not that slow and not much slower than the common 66" twist.

Val Forget's .58 that he took to Africa had a fairly short barrel on it, 28", I think, maybe 26"? and he used 175gr. 3F in it, with a 675gr. slug, IIRC.
He also had a 24" modified Zouave by Navy Arms called the Buffalo Hunter (again, taxing my memory) and in that one he also used a slug and 150gr. 3F.

My 31" bl. gave fairly evenly increased velocities up to 200gr. of 2F, with patched round balls.

The larger the bore, the more powder can be consumed in the shorter barrels. Forsyth himself thought that 24" to 26" was all the barrel
needed (for dangerous game powder charges) for 16 through 8 bores and that the larger bored guns could be made shorter yet, as short
as 22".

[Bsharp]

With lead .620s in the 32" barrel, I am getting 1500 fps with 125FF, and 1800 fps with 200FF.

The 125FF has hunting accuracy at 50 yards, have not moved to 75 or 100 yet.

Hoping that 75 yds will be the farthest shot!

[Daryl]

My .682" pure lead balls got 1,300 fps with 110gr., 1,550fps with 165gr. & 1,700fps with 200gr.
330gr. (a loading error) produced a mere 1,770fps. All with 2F GOEX.
31" bl. 66" twist.