minie question

[Scott Semmel]

I came into possesion of a box of .50 caliber 360 grain pure lead minies from a Lee 50-360-m mold, or so the box says. I have been a PRB only shooter for some time but playing with these at the range is inticing. Thing is, I know didly about minie balls other than they probably won't work in my 66" twist barrels but I have some dusty old TCs with 48" twist I thought they might work in. My understanding is too little powder won't flare the skirt and seal the bore and too much powder will flare the skirt beyound the dimentions of the bullet and not give reasonable accuracy. What load should I start with?

[Dphariss]

I came into possesion of a box of .50 caliber 360 grain pure lead minies from a Lee 50-360-m mold, or so the box says. I have been a PRB only shooter for some time but playing with these at the range is inticing. Thing is, I know didly about minie balls other than they probably won't work in my 66" twist barrels but I have some dusty old TCs with 48" twist I thought they might work in. My understanding is too little powder won't flare the skirt and seal the bore and too much powder will flare the skirt beyound the dimentions of the bullet and not give reasonable accuracy. What load should I start with?

40-50 grains or so. Better to melt them into RBs.

Dan

[Artificer]

Scott,

I have no clue if this will help you, but Minie' Ball shooters in the North South Skirmish Association commonly use between 28 1/2 to 32 grains of powder in .58 caliber rifled muskets for the best accuracy out to 100 yard shooting.  That is about half the "Original Regulation" charge of 60 grains of powder.  There is plenty of force there to spread out the skirt of the ball and not overstretch them, as you mentioned.  So maybe you can start at about 1/2 the normal powder charge you use in the rifle?  

There is something I should mention as a caution, though you probably realize it.  With "half charges" you REALLY have to be careful the ball is seated correctly on the powder.  The longer length of the Minie' ball in your rifle and shorter powder column will be a different distance from the muzzle than your PRB and normal charge.   So there is a danger you could leave open space between the powder and ball, if you don't keep that in mind.

Something else, I don't know if your barrel may have any kind of a hollow chamber in the breech for powder aka any kind of a patent breech plug or rebated breech.  I owned a TC in the early 70's, but sold it in the 80's.  Just looked it up on line and I THINK the breech does have hollowed chamber.  What I DON'T know is how much powder it takes to fill up that hollow chamber and that could be VERY important for how little powder you could use and not have open space.  Maybe someone else can give you that information.

[Artificer]

Dan posted his reply while I was typing.

You wouldn't have to worry about not having enough powder if you began with a 40 grain charge he suggested.

Gus

[stuart cee dub]

The thicker the skirt the more powder you will need to upset and flare the skirt .
3f works great for those half charges that the minie rifle shooters use , but some the skirts are pretty thin on some of those minie bullets.
Minie balls ,while they can carry a lot of energy downrange ,also drop like the proverbial rock even out to 100 yds. If the n/ssa and the Nmlra musket match #D shooters were not shooting at specific known ranges their targets might show conciderable vertical stringing as they figured out the trajectory for an unknown distance.
Round balls shoot much flatter .Less guess work especially for hunting .
Try them anyway . 
 

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

My Hoyt competition barreled 2-band enfield is a 1/56 twist and shoots the RCBS 58-500-M  Minie' very well. So does my 58 caliber rifled trade gun which also a 1/56 . Some of the 3-band Enfield origfinals have a 1/72 twist. The critical aspects are a close fit of the ball, a tailored charge, and a soft lube. My gun produced 8" in drop  at 100 from the 50 yard sight picture and the 40 grain fffg Goex charge produced 825 fps  4 yards from the muzzle. The ball weighed 530 grains.  Lon

[Daryl]

Hmmm - the PH Enfield's are supposed to be as per the original gauges, ie: progressive rifling depth of .008" deeper at the breech than at the muzzle, and 48" twist in Musketoon and 2 band rifle, and 78"twist in the 3 bander.  My Italian Musketoon's 24" bl. has this pattern rifling, .003" at the muzzle and .012" at the breech and a 48" twist.  With 75gr. of 2F, it produces 1,304fps av. and is quite accurate at close range. The best I've done at 100 meters off the bags is 3", but with practice with the short sight radius, I expect to improve that using round balls.  50 yard groups are a single ragged hole, just over an inch in diameter - both 5 shot groups.
I tried some 440gr. R.E.A.L. Lee bullets in pure lead which engrave very nicely at the muzzle on 3 of the 4 bands(tapered) just as they are suppoed to, lubed with a soft beeswax/olive oil mix, shot without wiping and they shoot into 1 1/2" at 50 yards off the bags using 90gr. 2F GOEX. Minnies are no where near as accurate in this rifle as the Lee cast bullets which are behind the round ball - natrual progression or rather loss in acuracy as one deviates from round balls through the slugs.

 If minnies would be loaded that engrave a couple thou., they'd be more accurate, just like the REAL bullets, which engrave .001", then .002" then .0035" on the successive bands, yet are easy to load every shot, even with heavy charges & no wiping. The looser bullets are, ie; with greater windage, the least accurate of any projectiles and the looser they are, the greater the chance of them moving off the charge prior to discharge & becoming obstructions rather than projectiles.

One good aspect of the Enfields comparred to the US variety of .58 rifles, is the English patterns have tighter bores, ie: normally .577" instead of .580".  The little Italian musketton I have, has a .574" bore, which is better yet.  The most accurate round balls for it are .575", with a .017" denim patch.(8 ounce) Snug going in, then loads easily down onto the powder and VERY accurate. The same patch and a .562" ball shoots well, too, and still better than the slugs.

[BrownBear]

For what it's worth, I've been shooting some of the Lee Improved .575 minies over 80 grains of 3f through a couple of different 58's with good results.  I'm not talking "target" accuracy, but I'd be plenty happy to use the load on game (2" at 50 yards).

[stuart cee dub]

The Lee ''trash cans'' work pretty good too on stubborn rifles that refuse to shoot the more traditional shapes .
Daryl brings up a good point on the rifling. The depth of the rifling is an issue which the engrave- at- the- muzzle bullets address and can solve sometimes. Getting a minie to shoot out of a round ball barrel with its deeper grooves would depend a lot on how well the skirt on a particular bullet fills the grooves on a particular barrel. Shorter bullets will work better with slower twist rates like the Buffalo bullet pattern.

Even getting  a barrel intended to shoot minie balls well might take trying several bullet styles.
Some Minie molds run over 100 dollars when you do find a bullet style that works really well.
Actually ,buying the gun is the easy part.

So please( IMHO) don't drive yourself crazy trying to get your current  gun round ball gun to shoot cylindro-conical  balls Scott .
If it works? Great! ,if not, the melting pot .
 

[Daryl]

Good advice, Stuart.  I have one of the Lee moulds and tried them in my .50/70 Sharps Carbine, cast in pure wo alloem to expand properly as well as WW and patched in paper and patched with teflon.  None of them were worth a hoot. The skirts are pretty thin, BTW.  Anybody want a mould?

[Scott Semmel]

Thank you all- My intention is to play with them at the range with guns I haven't shot in years, retired folks need to keep busy ya know. I have no intention of switching from PRB. The price was right (free) and afterwards I will be able to say I tried Minies. Thanks again

[BrownBear]

.... retired folks need to keep busy ya know...

I resemble that remark!  My favorite geezer in our local geezer gatherings is quite the philosopher.  He sezz "Retiring means you have the freedom to be a kid again.  So do it!"  Playing around is what it's all about.  Just beware of the Darwin awards.  There's a special category for us geezers!