Micro-groove rifling on an original New England rifle

[Bob Roller]

I like that Lang rifling.  Wide grooved with narrow lands.  I hope modern makers take note.  Narrow, deep grooves are a blight in my opinion.

Alexander Henry and Joseph Whitworth showed us the advantage of wide grooves and Bill Large did so later.The Whitworth was a hexagon with a long bullet configured to it and later tests show that ordinary cylindical,elongated bullets work as well in his system.
I had a Whitmore rifle with 10 or 12 grooves a Whitmore scope and it was a 40 caliber with a round ball twist and gave superb accuracy but the scope prevented my using it in shooting matches.I was not interested in cutting dove tail slots for regular sights.The barrel was made from a Remington Cast Steel blank and had a false muzzle.If these long ago makers got superb performance why can't it be re[eated now??
Bob Roller

[Cody B]

 I don’t know how to share a link but if you go to utube and look up Wendy Mcclung Roane county mountain man he shows an original jaeger rifle with micro groove.

[varsity07840]

I had a percussion Westley Richards 16 bore stalking rifle with 10 lands and grooves.

[Bob Roller]

I remember reading about grooves in barrels were to trap fouling and then someone figured out how to spiral them and after that,the first accurate shot was fired from some now obscure rifle.That might have come from "The American Gun" in the 1960's and I will look at them to see if that's part of a story.Whitmore's rifles with 12 grooves proved their superiority before 1860 and if I had the facilities of Bill Large and the current group of barrel makers I would see about a prototype and test it.Bill Large was aware of Whitmore's rifles but never explored the barrels with more than 8 grooves.
Bob Roller

[Uncle Miltie]

This rifle was built in 1885, 18 lands and grooves, .0025 deep.  Uses a lead bullet cross patched with paper.

[Daryl]

Generally on these barrels is the rifling considerably shallower than on traditional barrels ?  Whenever someone says “micro groove “ my mind automatically thinks marlins RF and CF barrels which have very shallow groove even by modern standards of that type of rifle

The barrel of Taylor's Lang rifle was made in 1853 or thereabouts- maybe 1852. The depth is .010" - approx. maybe .012", just a guess. It would be easy to measure.
Modern microgroove aka: Marlin, is very shallow.

[Dphariss]

These are from my 1896 edition of “The Gun and It’s Development”







I love how they still thought that slow twist ideas  for RB rifles were “experimental” at this time and probably from earlier editions (this is from the 6th). Even though a slow twist (1/4 turn in a “2 ft 6 in barrel) was used in the army issue Baker rifle of 1800. The 20 bore barrel apparently outshot all comers at 300 yards. I believe it was 8 grooves. All the barrels listed in “British Military Flintlock Rifles” were 8 groove but one with 7 and all had grooves .015” deep but one which was .01 deep. Forsythe had rifles made by at least the 1850s for hunting in India that used slow twists from 8’ 6” to 10’ and very narrow lands and heavy charges of powder (compared to what Greener  listed  above for the 16 bore, which charge would be useless for anything but short range deer hunting. Forsythe used 5 drams in a 14 bore rifle. Which would give about 1600 fps and adequate penetration for Indian Elephant.
Marlins “Micro-groove” barrels were/are VERY shallow so much so that they were not very reliable with cast bullets unless very hard. Burt this was developed long after lead bullets were abandoned in factory ammo for the calibers Marlin offered.

[Steeltrap]

I don't have the depth measurements of any given "brand" of rifling.....but all I can say about shallow groove cut rifling is.....I'll run...not walk away from any firearm that has such a rifling cut. I've owned two in my life. A T\C kit rifle, and a Marlin micro-groove. Neither shot well no matter what load\patch\powder charge or lube type used.

JMHO

[Daryl]

Nice condition!! WOW. Weren't some of the earlier Halls, carbines maybe, .69 cal. & smoothbores?

[Steeltrap]

Some firearms are just plain INTERESTING to look at. That one would fall under that category!  Nice rifle!

[Dphariss]

I don't have the depth measurements of any given "brand" of rifling.....but all I can say about shallow groove cut rifling is.....I'll run...not walk away from any firearm that has such a rifling cut. I've owned two in my life. A T\C kit rifle, and a Marlin micro-groove. Neither shot well no matter what load\patch\powder charge or lube type used.

JMHO

Grooves for a CLOTH patched bullet need to be .008" deep and probably no more than .012".
TC was making barrels for their "naked" bullets and this shallow, brass suppository depth rifling, does not work well with a cloth patch. Also I think they were button rifling them which mandates shallow grooves.
The shallow grooves were just one problem with the T/Cs there were others but only the old "Buckskin Report" magazine detailed them.

[Daryl]

Back in the 70's, 3 guys I knew (all cops) had those TC's, Taylor, myself and friend Tom. Taylor's barrel had something like .0025" deep rifling, mine was .004" and Tom's was .0015".
We, at the time were all shooting the Maxiball. We did not know what a dismal failure it would be on heavy game (moose). Tom had to use a cigarette paper around his maxiball
to keep it in the barrel. We discovered this while walking along the path (wide game trail) under a huge slide. I just happened to look at the muzzle of Tom's rifle and the bullet
was sticking 1/2 way out.
They were buttoned, for sure.
Nass Valley (BC) Bear Hunt 1973