Accuracy in a BP rifle

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procyon

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This afternoon I took my .50 Hawken to the range and bagged some paper targets with .490 round ball. I noticed that as the afternoon wore on I was less and less of a danger to the center of the target. I was swabbing between shots with a lubed patch but that was all that I did. Was my decreasing accuracy due to fouling build up or something else? If it was fouling buildup, what should I do to keep it at bay? I was using prelubed patches .010 thick and measured powder. By the end of the session I was unable to hit a 6x6 target at 40 paces.
What is going on?

Blake

Nothing like hitting a 2 liter water filled milk jug with a .50 cal to make a splash!!!!
 
try swabbing between rnds with moose milk on a patch, lube alone probably just ain't cutting it. I make mine from dish soap water and about 1/4 windex put in a spray bottle.
 
Use a spit-patch between shots, then flip the patch over and swab again.
You might also want to try .015 patches...you might not be engaging the rifling enough with the .010, as the fowling builds up. Is this a 1:48 gun?
 
Never liked prelubed patches if grease based.
I have used spit ( literally , chew the patch till wet ) and only have to swab every 18 to 20 shots. Accuracy appears to stay in line.
Some carry pre - moistened in a baggie ...use a water based recipe.

cheers
Tony
 
Some guns need more cleaning than others. Try a more serious cleaning after 20 or 30 rounds.

I would be also take a good look for things like loose sights or a missing barrel wedge if accuracy or point of impact goes to hell fairly quickly.
 
I think for swabbing the bore to be effective, you need to use something water based on your cleaning patches. Fouling is very water soluable and not particularly oil/grease soluable

cheers mooncoon
 
Windshield washer fluid is supposed to work good to wet your patch with. Never tried it myself yet (haven't been able to find range time for my 'smoke poles').
 
i use TC bore butter on everything that get stuffed down the pipe and not usually have a problem with fouling nor cleaning. use a thicker patch, most fabric shops have pillow ticking, (i've even seen a couple that mark the ticking thickness in 1000ths on the price tag). and for the ultimate accuracy throw a charge from your powder measure onto a scale and weigh the charge. then weigh out 15-20 similar charges for range use, putting them into small individual containers.
 
It's a 1:48 barrel and I think I will try some .015 patches if I can find some. There is a limited selection is a small town.
I'll lube with the TC bore butter and see how that goes.

Blake
 
procyon said:
This afternoon I took my .50 Hawken to the range and bagged some paper targets with .490 round ball. I noticed that as the afternoon wore on I was less and less of a danger to the center of the target. I was swabbing between shots with a lubed patch but that was all that I did. Was my decreasing accuracy due to fouling build up or something else? If it was fouling buildup, what should I do to keep it at bay? I was using prelubed patches .010 thick and measured powder. By the end of the session I was unable to hit a 6x6 target at 40 paces.
What is going on?

Blake
Click to expand...

I really doubt that it's the lack of five thousandths of an inch of patch thickness, ball not engaging the rifling. For one, I think you'd notice if the ball fell down the bore effortlessly. For two, round balls don't need to be spin stablized. They're spheres, if lose stability and they tumble end over end....they are still spheres.

I also tend to doubt it's fouling. If the ball + patch required a five pound hammer to get down the bore, and so deformed the ball, I think you would have mentioned that, right?

Are you using a rest that locks in front and rear? ? Are you flinching? I had the same problem, first I was bang on, then I started going all over the place.

Dry firing is good practice. When I started shooting my flinter, I used to put way too much powder in the pan, then I started to flinch and couldn't control it.

I cured it by shooting lots at home, with a piece of wood in the jaws. you can also use a cardboard shield on the gun, so you can only see the sights, not the muzzle flash. That way you can find the most accurate load first, and deal with the other more difficult variable (the shooter) later.

P.S. I really hope that you are using butcher paper, or a large cardboard backstop so you can see your fliers, and it isn't just a matter of maladjusted sights!
 
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Bobby Ironsights said:
I really doubt that it's the lack of five thousandths of an inch of patch thickness, ball not engaging the rifling. For one, I think you'd notice if the ball fell down the bore effortlessly. For two, round balls don't need to be spin stablized. They're spheres, if lose stability and they tumble end over end....they are still spheres....!
Click to expand...

spheres or conicals, they are all more accurate with spin. you just don't have to spin a ball as fast as a cone/cylinder to stabilize it(patch and ball barrels are 1in 72" twist). Knuckle balls in baseball are thrown without spin and they float all over the place, fastballs have spin and track straight.

remember .005" more on a .490" ball will increase over all diametre to .520 instead of .510. A ball doesn't have to free fall down the barrel to be loose and not engage the rifling properly. I know a people that use .020 or even .025 patches, this is what works best for their rifles.

For the best accuracy, especially off hand, do not restrain the rifle from recoiling freely, clamping it down while sighting in will get you on paper, but your POI will change when you switch to off hand positions.
 
Yes....and No.

I've got my university level physics just like anyone else, and if we really want to go there...we can, but rifling and spin, at very short range, doesn't impart any "accuracy" benefit to a musket ball.

I put accuracy in brackets, because when the layman talks about accuracy, he really often means precision instead.

So.... lets get into it then.

The baseball analogy is inapplicable, to our situation. Baseballs aren't spheres, they're lumpy spheres because of the stitching, and it's the uneven and unpredictable airflow over the surface of the ball which causes the erratic motion. This effect is serious, because the angular rate of movement is very fast compared to the linear rate of movement, because the ball has a relatively large diameter (surface area of 27 square inches), and spins quickly, the ball is thrown relatively slowly, at most, 160 feet per second. It's also easy to move a baseball around because it's just not that dense, in comparison to the large surface are it has.

If a baseball was made of lead or steel.....any spin a pitcher could impart wouldn't really alter trajectory over sixty paces.:eek:

The fastball isn't "accurate" because it's spun, it flies to the same point of impact because the pitcher holds it at the same place, and puts the same spin on it every time. If he doesn't put the same spin on it, then it won't impact in the same place.

Now, a musket ball would be no more accurate (technically, precise, as opposed to accurate) if spun, than not spun at all, but random spin, will put a musket ball off point of aim slightly due to the magnus effect.

But since the musket ball is almost a perfect sphere, has a small diameter and therefore a very small surface area(0.7 square inches), and the distance we're talking about, (40 paces) is negligible in relation to the linear velocity, and the density of the projectile is vastly greater, spin is just not going to come into play.

The magnus effect is just not going to be able to move the point of impact of the small, smooth, dense ball at forty paces, in air, unless you were able to impart ungodly fast, and random rates of spin.

*** If you want, we can continue this, and get into the math over at the sciencemadness forum, and have good peer oversight. I used to be a regular there when I was a pure sciences major, and there's alot of clever fellows who can catch any mistakes we might make.***
 
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Smokepole said:
Rifling was invented well before bullet shaped projectiles. There must be a reason for that.
Click to expand...

Wikipedia says they were invented about the 15th century, and that it was likely they were originally "soot grooves"

Smokepole said:
One needs only to shoot a smoothbore to relise how important rifling is to a round ball.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree with you more. The National Muzzleloading Rifle Association publishes it's aggregate scores and records, and holds competitions regularly. It's very seldom that anyone ever sees a modern precision smoothbore muzzleloader, and it seems to be a less popular competitive category, even among muzzleloader fanatics, but they are made, and take suprising scores in the hands of skilled riflemen.

The record for benchrest flintlock, rifled, any type sights is 50-3X, Branch Meanley, 2005.
The record for benchrest sighted smoothbore flintlock? 50-3X, Jim Tucker, 2001

Suprised?:eek: I know I was when precision smoothbores were discussed on the muzzleloading forum!
 
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I don't claim to know it all on this but have had good results after watching TC World Of Muzzleloading. They recomend never lube but to clean barrel between each shot. One wet patch [TC bore cleaner / Moose Milk] then one dry patch. This is using saboted bullet and no it dosn't gide easily down the barrel but is consistant each shot unlike lubing which will vary shot to shot. To tighten groups play with powder load [Less powder more lead] . I started at 100 GR pyrodex and was all over the target. Lowered load to 92 GR and now have good cosistant grouping at 100 yards.I must admit this is using a modern muzzle loader but it has worked well for me.
 
"Soot grooves", maybe, but I think rifling has its roots in fletching on arrow shafts. The knowledge of spinning a projectile was already established before firearms were developed. Its a natural proccession to apply it to firearms, especialy since early cannon were loaded with arrow-like projectiles.
I would have a hard time believing rifling in fireams was invented as a seperate endeaver from other projectile science, even if Wiki thinks so.
 
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Yes I am surprised. What range is the match shot at (how far away are the targets?) BTW, I've never even seen a tapered bore smoothgun before.
I have shot a lot of standard smoothbores though, and accuracy is not even close to a rifle with a round ball and a proper load.
 
prescion vs accuracy

Bobby Ironsights said:
Yes....and No.

I've got my university level physics just like anyone else, and if we really want to go there...we can, but rifling and spin, at very short range, doesn't impart any "accuracy" benefit to a musket ball.

I put accuracy in brackets, because when the layman talks about accuracy, he really often means precision instead.

So.... lets get into it then.

The baseball analogy is inapplicable, to our situation. Baseballs aren't spheres, they're lumpy spheres because of the stitching, and it's the uneven and unpredictable airflow over the surface of the ball which causes the erratic motion. This effect is serious, because the angular rate of movement is very fast compared to the linear rate of movement, because the ball has a relatively large diameter (surface area of 27 square inches), and spins quickly, the ball is thrown relatively slowly, at most, 160 feet per second. It's also easy to move a baseball around because it's just not that dense, in comparison to the large surface are it has.

If a baseball was made of lead or steel.....any spin a pitcher could impart wouldn't really alter trajectory over sixty paces.:eek:

The fastball isn't "accurate" because it's spun, it flies to the same point of impact because the pitcher holds it at the same place, and puts the same spin on it every time. If he doesn't put the same spin on it, then it won't impact in the same place.

Now, a musket ball would be no more accurate (technically, precise, as opposed to accurate) if spun, than not spun at all, but random spin, will put a musket ball off point of aim slightly due to the magnus effect.

But since the musket ball is almost a perfect sphere, has a small diameter and therefore a very small surface area(0.7 square inches), and the distance we're talking about, (40 paces) is negligible in relation to the linear velocity, and the density of the projectile is vastly greater, spin is just not going to come into play.

The magnus effect is just not going to be able to move the point of impact of the small, smooth, dense ball at forty paces, in air, unless you were able to impart ungodly fast, and random rates of spin.

*** If you want, we can continue this, and get into the math over at the sciencemadness forum, and have good peer oversight. I used to be a regular there when I was a pure sciences major, and there's alot of clever fellows who can catch any mistakes we might make.***
Click to expand...

talking theory without real world data is just a good guess...I prefer..... dueling, my rifled musket vs your smoothbore at 40 paces(or distance of your choice), 10 shots, any position, 1 grain of black powder per 0.001" caliber, smallest group gets bragging rights.....
 
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Smokepole said:
Yes I am surprised. What range is the match shot at (how far away are the targets?) BTW, I've never even seen a tapered bore smoothgun before.
I have shot a lot of standard smoothbores though, and accuracy is not even close to a rifle with a round ball and a proper load.
Click to expand...

To tommy, I'm sorry, I don't own a competitive smoothbore, or a competitive rifled musket for that matter, but I was talking real world numbers, we don't have to "duel", NMLRA is the real testing ground and I highly doubt I will get any bragging rights there. Do you think you would? If you missed the post two down from the huge one you quoted, read it through, the world records are the same, and they don't shoot for group, they shoot for score.

As to tapered smoothbores, and smokepole, I was told the standard range is 50 meters for those two competitions, but they do have other shoots from 25-130 commonly, and the best rifled muskets v.s. the best smoothbores don't show any advantage until at least 75 yards, and there was a smoothbore shoot tagging 2 1/2 foot targets out at 345 yards IIRC.

I was quoted a taper .003 from stem to stern so I doubt you'd notice it, they said that the bore is simply bored from breech to muzzle and then the wear of the boring tool compensated...

I was also told that the single greatest reason that a modern smoothbore "rifle" doesn't measure up to a modern rifled rifle accuracy standards is that rifled rifle barrels are bored, and taken seriously. When you buy an affordable smoothbore for re-enactment, or to shoot, you just get DOM (drawn over mandrel) tubing that has been gauged for size, and you have to find a custom maker to get a proper bored barrel. The DOM is supposed to be totally safe and strong enough, but not precise, and certainly not target grade.

Secondhand too, is that finding a "proper" load for a smoothbore is much harder than a proper load for a rifled musket.

I was told that if I ever did want a very accurate smoothbore musket, Henry Krank and associates of Pudsey, West Yorkshire can have one made for me, but if I have to ask, I probably can't afford it. I checked out their online stuff, and that's probably true. :eek:

P.S.
Can't chat anymore, need to study, test tomorrow, still need to read two chapters.....
:runaway:
 
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