Casting Minieballs

[Gavno]

A couple of Newbie's questions on bullet casting...

I've done some smokeless powder bullet casting before (mostly .357, and a little .45 Colt), and after buying a 415 grain Minieball mold, something just belatedly occurred to me about it.

Do you have to put minieballs for black powder shooting thru a sizing die? Or after lubeing, can they be shot just as they leave the mold?

Next question...

I picked up a round ball mold at the same time. I know that balls are cast from dead soft (100%) lead, but what about Minieballs; dead soft, or alloyed with some tin?

Finally... 

This may be a dumb idea, but maybe not...  lemme know.

How about creating a hollow point cavity (more a dimple, really) in finished minieball noses (these will be flat) with a drill press, to increase expansion? Good or bad idea?


Thanks,


Mr. T.

[The other DWS]

the dead soft lead, and the low velocity work well enough together to create massive damage

 I doubt that a dimple in the end would really make a difference.    In my experience a little bit---just a few percent of tin might help fillout and square the grease grooves on a minie'  but I'd keep it well under 10 percent.  the whole idea is that the hollow base skirt will blow out to fill the rifling  while allowing a sub-bore major diameter for fast easy loading.  making them hard may cause them to not expand--defeating the purpose of the bullet.

I would not worry about sizing,  pan-lube and shoot'm  assuming you ahve the right diameter for your rile

[wvmtnman]

Though others here will probably have beter advice on the subject, I have a little experience in the area.  With minie balls, I have had better accuracy with them being made from pure, soft lead and sizing them.  Find out what the diameter of your bore is and undersize the minie a little.
I have a couple repro civil war muskets.  The bores on each are exactly .580.  I size my minies to .578.  As stated before, the skirts will expand when the rifle is fired.
     As for making a hole in the end to turn it into a hollow point, I did that a couple times.  (I was around 14 or 15 years old)  Because of the soft lead, the hollow point does not matter.  The skirt part of the minie ball will flatten out.
                                                                         Brian 

[frogwalking]

Hollow point minieball?  When we were teenagers, Chuck and I drilled a 1/4 inch hole in the  nose of a bunch of minieballs, pulled the bullets out of a similar number of .22 shorts, replaced the powder in the .22 with 4F black, glued the .22 case in the cavity so that the primer will be the first thing to hit when the minie lands. 

Ok,  yes we did have a ramrod with  a 3/8 inch hole in the middle of the business end, and we loaded very very carefully; and the old saying that God looks after fools drunks and teenagers held true for us.  I do not recomend that anyone in their right mind try this today.   

In all reasonable reality, a 500 grain hunk of lead about 9/16 inch diamter hurtling along at 800 or 900 ft per second does not need to explode when it hits something.

[Daryl]

Hollowponting them is a waste of time.  I have tried many minie rifles, all .58's and .57's. Every one of them shot better and very much flatter with round balls.  I gave up the minnie as useless for hunting or target shooting.
Minnie's, unlike round balls, have to be pure lead.   That is, with the proper sized ball and patch, any alloy can be shot form most calibres.  The closer the minnie is to engraving on the lands as it's loaded, the more accurate it will be.  to match what I've done with these guns with round balls, the minnie's have to be about .001" LARGER than the bore size. Narrow lands benefit from the minnie's being .002" larger than the bore.

[The other DWS]

What's the twist rate for your rifle?

I'm not sure what the rifling rate was in the original CW era rifled-muskets that were practically designed around the minie' bullet.   

  My guess is that you'd need a twist somewhat faster than that used in most round ball guns.  I may be very wrong on this but I doubt they'd stabilize very with the 50 and 60 inch twists you'd find in a typical 58 cal long rifle

 My percussion schuetzen (which I'm bringing to Louisville Saturday) is rifled at a 1/22 rate with a 45cal bore.  from a little experimenting I did before winter shut me down It's really happy with minie' bullets and probably way too fast to work with a patched round ball.

[Gavno]

Twist is 1:48.

[Gavno]

BTW, it's .54 calibre.

[Dphariss]

Hollow point minieball?  When we were teenagers, Chuck and I drilled a 1/4 inch hole in the  nose of a bunch of minieballs, pulled the bullets out of a similar number of .22 shorts, replaced the powder in the .22 with 4F black, glued the .22 case in the cavity so that the primer will be the first thing to hit when the minie lands. 

Ok,  yes we did have a ramrod with  a 3/8 inch hole in the middle of the business end, and we loaded very very carefully; and the old saying that God looks after fools drunks and teenagers held true for us.  I do not recomend that anyone in their right mind try this today.   

In all reasonable reality, a 500 grain hunk of lead about 9/16 inch diamter hurtling along at 800 or 900 ft per second does not need to explode when it hits something.

But at that velocity placing a shot at any range other that the one its sighted for is problematical.
There are valid reasons why the Minie was only popular with the various militarys. One was its accuracy which was not good and the other was its dismal trajectory.
If you read Forsythe's "The Sporting Rifle and Its Projectiles" it will cover the advantages the RB has over the minie and will explain how to make functional explosive bullets that have a delay to allow pentration.
Its downloadable from Google Books I think. Anyone shooting a ML, especially hunters should read this. It has a measure a 19th century science but Forsythe was a hunter and the things he relates about trajectory, killing power etc are as accurate today as they were in the 1850s. The trajectories he plots are accurate for the velocity levels currently obtained with similar rifles with similar powder charges.
Dan

[varsity07840]

Pure lead minnies are a must, sized .001-.002 undersize to the bore diameter. I'm of the opinion that even a small amount of tin will make casting easier but hurt accuracy. Case in point. I shoot a Hoyt relined original 1842 rifled musket with a bore .687. I shoot a .686 pure lead minie. The musket is a tack driver. I had the occcasion to use some lead shielding from a jobsite to cast some minies. Supposedly it was pure. First off, the recoil from the first shot was noticeably less than normal. Fouling about 6" ahead of the breech was bad and accuracy was not nearly as good. I couldn't figure out the problem until I tested the lead. Soft, but not pure. I went back to my original stash of pure lead and everything retuned to normal.

Muskets with a slow twist( 1/72, etc.) can shoot roundballs very well, but if it has progressive depth rifling, a thick fiber cushion wad may be needed to take uo the windage in the deep grooves at the breechend while allowing a patched ball to be started at the muzzle where the grooves are only around .005. For hunting, at normal woods ranges. I prefer the minie in my .69s and .58s.  They are accurate, hard hitting,  and much faster to reload if you need too. While I have had success with prbs,
I've never liked the thin metal ramrod for running a ball home, especially in a hurry.

Duane

[Daryl]

Duane - I-too was skeptical about achieving good accuracy from the progressive depth rifling of the PH Enfields with round balls until I tried them. The 3 band, of course, with it's 3 groove, 78" twist shot very well right off the bat - 80 to 120gr. 2F.  It was the first gun tried with progressive depth rifling. The next several were 2 band with 5 groove, 48" twists and progressive depth rifling. They shot splendidly with from 80 to 100gr. 2F - no wads, just a good patch which was easily loaded due to the re-crown of the muzzle - they are way too sharp without polishing and removing that edge.
Recently, as in last year, I aquired a Musketoon, 48" twist 3 groove and it is a tack driver - ie: 2" to 2 1/2" at 100 meters and a 1" hole at 50 yards - using patched round balls.  It's progressive depth rifling, nor the short sigth radius being a negative factor and it does not need wiping for an entire day's shooting.

[varsity07840]

Daryl:

Last year I bought and original smoothbore 1842 that someone had cut down to
musketoon length for a very cheap price. The stock and hardware were in very nice shape and all it needed was a new front barrel band to make it a nice facsimle of a true musketoon. I went  a bit further and had Bob Hoyt reline and rifle it and I put a rear sight on it. It groups about as well as my full length '42 with minies and your
post has convinced me to give prbs a try. It's a neat stalking gun.

Duane

[TPH]

What's the twist rate for your rifle?

I'm not sure what the rifling rate was in the original CW era rifled-muskets that were practically designed around the minie' bullet.   

 

Twist rate for the original US .58 caliber Rifler muskets - M1855, M1861 and M1863 - was 1 turn in 72 inches. Worked very well with the original Burton bullet, our version of the French Minié.

[Daryl]

Twist rate for the original US .58 caliber Rifler muskets - M1855, M1861 and M1863 - was 1 turn in 72 inches. Worked very well with the original Burton bullet, our version of the French Minié.

I found they work splendidly with patched round balls, which actually incease their use for hunting, being better killers than minnies. Impacting, breaking bones and disrupting tissues is only 1, no 3 of their benefits over minnies. The 4th and most important of all is flatteness of trajectory.
The only area where the minnie shines over the patched ball, is in trajectory past about 200yards- if that is an advantage. They do load easier, but fast loading isn't necessary for hunting, anyway.  If it was important, a paper ctg. made up with the proper sized ball throws that argument back into the round ball's court - or about even at worse.