.58 cal blackpowder

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schultzie

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Good evening,

Iam looking for some information on .58 cal blackpowder loads. I have a .45 cal kentucky rifle and bought a lyman "black powder handbook and loading manual" that woks well, however my friend has a replica of a civil war era .58 cal rifle that he really wants to shoot. There is no info in the lyman book. The load charts go from .54 cal straight to 12 gauge.

Looking for a reliably safe source of load data.

Thanks in advance, didn't find much on google other then people asking why their goups were so big.

Karl
 
One old rule of thumb used to be to start with one grain of powder for each "caliber", ie in his case, 58 grains, and work up from there. That is a pretty modest load, but don't be too surprised if the best accuracy load is in that range somewhere. Max load would be somewhere in excess of 120 grains, I suspect.
 
The load will depend on whether this "Civil War replica" is a musket or longrifle style. If a longrifle, that would have been designed for patched roundballs (.570 or .572" dia.) then you could start at 60 grains of FFg or even FFFg and work up, 5 grains at a time until best accuracy is achieved and that would likely be in the range of 90 - 100 gr. If a musket with faster twist rate designed for conical bullets then consult the book again for musket loads but probably about the same powder charge to start then work up to best accuracy using hollow based conical bullets.
 
If you are shooting patched roundball, I would think from 60 to 80 or 90 grains of 3F or about 10 grains more of 2F. If you are shooting mini balls, I think I would start with about 55 gr of 2F and go up in 5 grain increments shooting 5 shot groups at 25 - 50 yards. You want to be close enough to be sure of hitting the target as well be able to see a sharp well defined aiming point. I usually use a roughly 2" square on white freezer paper. Square because the top and sides are sharply defined. (I shoot 6 o'clock hold) Alternate is a + with the arms about 1" or so wide and 4-5"long. The most accurate mini load i think is relatively light but also will probably vary with the skirt thickness and configuration

cheers mooncoon
 
Must apologize. Went back into the book again this morning (must have been fresh eyes) and found a comprehensive section on .58 cal.

Thank you very much for your help though. It is very much appreciated.
 
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