[ Post a Response | The Black Powder Forum - Message Board ]
Posted by R.B. on 6/16/2006, 9:50 pm, in reply to "Rifiling"
71.114.191.164
There is a way to measure the twist rate in your rifle. It involves counting the revolutions of the ramrod while loading or something like that but I don't know the details. You might ask on this forum. I don't want to give you any wrong info. There is also a way to measure groove depth but I don't recall that either. If I knew the make of your rifle I could find out for sure. I assume it is a replica.
If you subtracted the land to land diameter from the groove to groove diameter and divided that by 2 (the patch fills the groove on both sides of the ball), you would have the groove depth. Of course you would need to center the measurement using a micometer so this info wouldnt help you much either but I tried. Shallow grooves (.007 or less ) are used for shooting bullets in a barrel with a fast twist or.... large caliber roundballs in above .58 cal. barrels with slow twist. The shallow grooves are to ease loading the huge balls. Otherwise for roundballs the grooves are deep (.010 to .016 or so). Sometimes there is special rifling with narrow lands and wide shallow grooves. This is meant for huge balls ( Forsythe rifling ) or...... barrels with a 1:20 or so twist rate meant for shooting .45 or so elongated bullets. These elongated bullets are often patched with paper patching. The Whitworth Enfield hexagonal rifled barrel is indeed a twisted smoothbore by the way. There are no grooves. Alex Henry rifling is a later version with lands and was somewhat easier to load.
Message Thread:
« Back to thread
Black Powder Forum and Message Board - For all blackpowder pistols, rifles, revolvers - authentic weapons, replica / reproduction black powder guns, all makes - Colt, Remington, Ruger, Enfields, Zouave, Kentucky, Le Page and more...
