I had a thread over in the Gunsmithing Category highlighting a couple of custom smokeless muzzleloaders that I built. (http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php/503138-Custom-Smokeless-Muzzleloader)These are very unique and efficient fire arms that enable shooters to increase the effective ranges and virtually eliminate the inconvenience of constant cleaning between shots.
These firearms are not everyone's cup of tea and that's fine, I'm not trying to convince anyone that these are the latest greatest or bestess muzzleloaders out there, I have shot and still own percussion and some of the earlier inline smokers but right now these are my choice of guns for both earlier muzzleloader as well as regular firearm seasons and I just like shooting them.
They are not without their challenges, which is why I started this thread. There has been some interest expressed on some explanation as to some of the procedures to adapt bullets to be suitable for this application.
These rifles that I'm using were designed for smokeless powders , the barrels and other components are all designed for smokeless powder, please don't use smokeless powder in a gun that isn't designated as such.
These guns are also designed to use bullets that don't sit in a sabot , they are used sabotless with full bore projectiles. This leads to one of the biggest challenges to get the smokeless powder to ignite. Smokess powder needs to be under pressure to fire and in order to have adequate pressure a good seal has to be formed between the powder and the bullet.
since all of barrels have a slight variation in size the bullets have to be sized to each barrel.
Sizing dies are expensive and one die will not fit all requirements since different bullets size differently depending on the bullet construction and thickness of the jacket etc. There are adjustable sizing dies available, these are refered to as Full Form dies and they are made with a section of the barrel drop of a particular rifle and the bullets are sized or formed until an exact fit to the bore is achieved , striations are embossed in the side of the bullet and these bullets have to be indexed to the rifling of the firearm.
There are other adjustable dies available which are referred to Smooth Form dies they are the same just lack the lands and grooves of the barrel. The other option is plane old sizing dies which are fixed and size specific with no adjustment available.
I started out with these and still use them on occasion , the problem is if they make the bullet undersized for a particular bore the bullet is too loose for ignition. If this occurs all is not lost, bullets can be slightly enlarged by knurling the bearing surface of the bullet. There are commercial knurling tools available but the same effect can be achieved by passing a bullet between two flat files, the coarseness determines the size of the knurl and therefore the amount the bullet is enlarged.
If I use bullets that have been full formed, I just load the bullet on top of the powder charge and go. If I'm using smooth formed bullets then I use a greased veggie wad between the bullet and powder it assists in providing a better seal for combustion.
Here's an example of a .458 nosler bullet that I modified to a spire pt. and knurled, I also concaved the base to help with obturation since these are very heavy jacketed bullets.
Here's a pic of a recovered nosler bullet with good obturation and expansion ( accuracy was also very good)
Here's a pic showing various bullets that have been Full Formed for a particular bore, notice the striations on the side of the bullets, the settings on the dies were all different for the different bullets.
Here's a pic of a .458 nosler 300 gr. bullet that I formed to a spire pt.
These firearms are not everyone's cup of tea and that's fine, I'm not trying to convince anyone that these are the latest greatest or bestess muzzleloaders out there, I have shot and still own percussion and some of the earlier inline smokers but right now these are my choice of guns for both earlier muzzleloader as well as regular firearm seasons and I just like shooting them.
They are not without their challenges, which is why I started this thread. There has been some interest expressed on some explanation as to some of the procedures to adapt bullets to be suitable for this application.
These rifles that I'm using were designed for smokeless powders , the barrels and other components are all designed for smokeless powder, please don't use smokeless powder in a gun that isn't designated as such.
These guns are also designed to use bullets that don't sit in a sabot , they are used sabotless with full bore projectiles. This leads to one of the biggest challenges to get the smokeless powder to ignite. Smokess powder needs to be under pressure to fire and in order to have adequate pressure a good seal has to be formed between the powder and the bullet.
since all of barrels have a slight variation in size the bullets have to be sized to each barrel.
Sizing dies are expensive and one die will not fit all requirements since different bullets size differently depending on the bullet construction and thickness of the jacket etc. There are adjustable sizing dies available, these are refered to as Full Form dies and they are made with a section of the barrel drop of a particular rifle and the bullets are sized or formed until an exact fit to the bore is achieved , striations are embossed in the side of the bullet and these bullets have to be indexed to the rifling of the firearm.
There are other adjustable dies available which are referred to Smooth Form dies they are the same just lack the lands and grooves of the barrel. The other option is plane old sizing dies which are fixed and size specific with no adjustment available.
I started out with these and still use them on occasion , the problem is if they make the bullet undersized for a particular bore the bullet is too loose for ignition. If this occurs all is not lost, bullets can be slightly enlarged by knurling the bearing surface of the bullet. There are commercial knurling tools available but the same effect can be achieved by passing a bullet between two flat files, the coarseness determines the size of the knurl and therefore the amount the bullet is enlarged.
If I use bullets that have been full formed, I just load the bullet on top of the powder charge and go. If I'm using smooth formed bullets then I use a greased veggie wad between the bullet and powder it assists in providing a better seal for combustion.
Here's an example of a .458 nosler bullet that I modified to a spire pt. and knurled, I also concaved the base to help with obturation since these are very heavy jacketed bullets.
Here's a pic of a recovered nosler bullet with good obturation and expansion ( accuracy was also very good)
Here's a pic showing various bullets that have been Full Formed for a particular bore, notice the striations on the side of the bullets, the settings on the dies were all different for the different bullets.
Here's a pic of a .458 nosler 300 gr. bullet that I formed to a spire pt.
