So after a couple of boxes of those small ball thick patch combinations. Muzzleloaders use either traditional round ball or elongated projectiles. A patched round ball is best suited for these rifles. Barrels particularly designed to fire round balls usually have twist rates greater. Conical bullets are best suited for rifle barrels with a fast twist which ranges from one turn in 32 to 48 inches of. These guns can be purchased with fixed chokes or interchangeable choke tubes. So far as round ball twist is concerned, virtually any rate will stabilize a round ball. With barrels of common length, there is still a considerable gas pressure. Traditionalmldata1 north american muzzleloader hunting.
He wanted a patched round ball rifle with lots of punch, and the 1516 diameter barrel provided the beefiness to permit shooting stout loads of fffg black powder, and the slow 1 turnin70 twist allows it to be loaded and shot at fairly high. The barrel, plug, adjustable rear sight, bead front sight, rib, rod pipes, and underlug are blued. Traditionalmldata2 north american muzzleloader hunting. Percussion ignition for thompson center hawken rifles. Shooting 47grains of fffg dupont black powder behind a cloth patched 93grain. You may also have to play with the ball diameter and patch thickness combo. Now im not sure if the patch gets spun off the ball or if patch and ball just skims the rifling but either way a round ball wont shoot for squat out of a fast twist barrel unless you cut the powder down to an absolute minimum which makes it impractical for most purposes. Rates of rifling twist is a factor to consider when picking out a roundball gun. My problem was being able to seat the patch ball combo down the barrel. Using your ramrod with a cleaning jag attached, work the patch in everlengthening strokes to the bottom of the barrel.
Is the rate of twist of the rifling compatible with round ball. However, shooting round balls from a choked barrel is not recommended. Remove the ramrod, flip the patch over and run the other side of the patch to the bottom of the barrel. I agree that the fast twist shouldnt work well with patched round balls. This question involves my tc hawken 54 caliber ml rifle, with green mountain 166 twist barrel. I agree that the fast twist shouldnt work well with patched round balls, but id try it and see. Despite this fact, fast twist barrels will shoot round balls accurately. Some months back, i interrupted a project i began to reverseengineer this caplock back to a better semblance of an 1840s rifle than the boxstock rifle is. Patched round ball gun and game the friendliest gun. Using readly available patches and balls the only combo that would work was. You can shoot roundballs from a fast twist barrel, but you will have to reduce the powder load dramatically or. The pistol has a matchgrade barrel with fixed sights, and it shoots very well. Note that with a longer length barrel, velocities with the same charge of powder behind the same weight patched round ball increases right along with barrel length.
A round ball doesnt touch the rifling itself, the patch does. Also, note that the minimum 800 foot pounds of energy needed to cleanly take deersized game was not achieved by any of these loads at 100 yards. Accuracy for me is to hit a golf ball at 100 yards off a benchrest all day long. Patched ball barrels wear out faster than naked lead barrles. The size of the shot pellets, amount of shot in ounces, and the amount of powder. With the barrel at 30 inches in length, velocity was down to 1,642 f. How does barrel length affect blackhorn 209 performance.