Have you checked out the bullets in Ned Roberts' The Muzzleloading caplock rifle?

32 ballard xl wrote on Sep 19^th, 2012 at 6:37pm:


Yes, have tried several style picket bullets similar to the ones pictured in Roberts book. Patched with paper and cloth. Have not been able to get good accuracy with them. Could  manage many five shot groups with four in a small cluster and the inevitable flyer. Always a high flyer about six inches and to the right. One problem is obtaining the correct linen cloth. They dont make it anymore. 

I'm pretty sure My German Franz Dischler rifle used a short GG bullet. Plain base bullets exactly like the pictures posted, shoot good. The hollow base bullets are better. Best so far anyway. 

Green plastic sabots and copper bullets :question Going to pretend you didnt write that DW. 

         Joe. 

People who take the time to read books are not stupider. 

I started out using the picket style bullets because all of my original percussion schuetzen rifles have a picket twist. The slowest being 55 and the fastest at 24.  I thought the picket bullet with a cloth patch would be the best because of less than perfect bore conditions. The Dischler rifle does have an excellent bore with about a 40 twist. The short GG HB bullets are really working. Next step is to try the short GG bullet in the  other rifles.  Thought I was lucky because my rifles have fairly standard bore dimensions like .430, .410, .400, .377. And one oddball .395.  
Unlucky part is not finding hollow base bullet molds in these diameters.   

Will have to make my own. Good winter projects. Thought about making a die and punch to swage a hollow base into an existing bullet. By the time you go to all the trouble, might as well just make the correct bullet mold. Think I've read Roberts book half a dozen times. Picture is a picket bullet I've tried in my John Meunier rifle. Just fair accuracy. Might try it again if I find some tight weave linen cloth for patching.

          Joe. 



      

They load and shoot okay. Just not very accurate. Not with todays patching material. The light weight of the picket - sugar loaf bullet may contribute to the flyers. Not enough weight to create enough pressure?  
The patch holds the bullet central in the bore.   

I shot the bullet pictured above, paper patched, loaded from the muzzle in my 40/50. Rifle has a perfect bore.  Accuracy at one hundred yards was the same as from the Meunier rifle. 



            Joe.

Joe,
Here is something you might want to try. I made this mold for my 38 cal Douglas barreled slug gun. I made a faults muzzle much like you have pictured and timed it to my 6 grooves (3 paper patches) so the paper patches came together in the groove.

The mold is a piece of 1.25 round stock with a spring loaded brass plunger that forms the nose. In this way you can vary the length to suit the twist.

The bullet is a bore rider or Mann type bullet. I used a .100 long base band of groove diameter and a bore riding section .001 over bore. Mine has wide lands and for narrow lands, I'd recommend .002 over bore diameter and maybe .15 - .200 base band. The best thing about this mold is that everything can be changed with it. The base band is at the start of it and can be lengthed (deepened) or faced off to shorten. You can shorten the plunger to increase the length or shim under it to shorten.

I was the only one that cast bullets and did not swage two piece bullets. Also the only person that did not use a tradition faults muzzle.

These scores were as well as I did and my last shoot. The 10 ring is 2" @ 200 the X, 1". Half that @ 100. All matches were straight black, I did try 15% duplex loads in practice with the same or a little better accuracy but, I didn't have to clean between shots. 

Frank

32 ballard xl wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2012 at 4:50pm:


Thats the way I understand it too. Roberts lays it out very well in his book.  Do you think shooters then, (offhand shooters), began shooting out to 40 rods with the long GG bullets? Were they shooting shorter distances with the short picket bullets?

My .40 picket bullets weigh about two hundred grains and at the limit for length for twist.  How they shot them out to 40 rods with good results is a mystery to me.  Once I get a GG bullet shooting accurate in the .40 Meunier,  will have to give 200 a try.  Am thinking if theres any wind at all, I'll have my hands full.

                 Joe. 

I've talked with Ted Thoreson quite a bit about picket bullet accuracy at 200 yards.  Ted told me it's very iffy when the wind blows.  A large caliber heavy picket rifle .50 and bigger has a huge advantage over the .38s and .40s and will shoot to 200 better. Ted told me that his Billinghurst picket rifle had shot some good targets out to 200 but very seldom. Ted said the bullets are too short and too light for consistently accurate shooting at 200 yards. I made my picket molds to Teds recommendations.  Have shot many five shot groups with four in a small cluster and a flyer.  Ted also told me that to get the best accuracy from a picket bullet loaded with cloth patch, it must be very fine linen. If I could find fine linen at .004 thickness, I'd give the picket another try. 

I'm not talking about bench rest picket rifles, Frank.  I knew Larry Bloomer but we didnt talk much about slug guns and nothing about percussion schuetzen rifles. 
Percussion schuetzen rifles, are usually about .40 and have a slow twist. This of course limits the length of the bullet which limits bullet weight to very light and wind sensitive.

I'm going with the GG HB bullets frank.   

         Joe.