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Thread: Minie ball thoughts

  1. #1
    PoorJack is offline
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    Minie ball thoughts

    In conversation with a fellow team member, we were thinking through the ballistic properties of the minie like a RCBS 575-500 or Lyman 575213 with respect to a solid Lorenz bullet. The math says our bullets are too long generally speaking for our usual twist rates whereas a Lorenz style in 575 should be closer to optimum.

    So question is, has anyone experimented with a Lorenz in 575 with standard twist rates and if so, what were the results? The Wilkinson was brought up in our conversation and it does well for some folks. In my 3 band the first 5 shots were just over an inch at 50yds, but fouling caused it to deteriorate quickly. Revisit the same idea of the Wilkinson, but with two large grease/compression grooves. Comments?
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  2. #2
    Don Dixon is offline
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    The bullets produced by two compression groove "Wilkinson" bullet mould manufactured by Lee for Greg Edington, and the two compresion groove "Wilkinson" bullet mould manufactured by Moose, are simply variations of Ritter von Lorenz's bullet design. Their one compression groove "Wilkinson" picket bullet moulds are simply a shortened Lorenz bullet.

    I have used the one and two compression groove bullets from Edington/Lee moulds in several Parker Hale Pattern 1858 rifle muskets, an S&S Richmond carbine, and paper patched in orginal Muster 1854 rifle muskets and Jagerstutzen. These weapons have a range of twist rates. The bullets have shot well, and without fouling, in all of them. I've shot over a hundred bullets in a single practice session, and the last ones went down the bore as easily as the first, since the Lorenz design is very effective at scraping the fouling out of the bore.

    If you are getting fouling with the "Wilkinson" bullet one of several things is happening. The bullets do not shoot well unless they are sized to no more than .001-.002 under bore size. They require very soft lubricant. You can't fill the compression grooves with lubricant, particularly by using a Lubrisizer. If you do, the bullets can't compress into the rifling. Accuracy goes to hell and they don't scrape fouling well.

    Regards,
    Don Dixon
    2881V

  3. #3
    PoorJack is offline
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    The Wilkinson I experimented with in my 3 band Enfield seemed to be running out of lube. I was using beeswax/crisco and Goex 3f. Things may well be different in my 2 band Colt with Lens and OE, but the Rapine Trashcan shoots into 1in at 50 out of it so I'm not terribly motivated except for the fact that the Rapine seems to be getting unstable at 100yds. So we've been discussing stability of various designs. The Lorenz as originally designed has 2 large compression grooves. The Moose Wilkinson does not. The length to bore to twist ratio seems to indicate the Lorenz to be much better suited to our guns than the standard minie. Continuing down the mathematical path, the lorenz seems to be even more suited in 54 caliber with fast twists (think Sharps).

    So before delving into an experiment, again, has anyone worked with an original type Lorenz bullet in a 58cal musket.
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  4. #4
    Don Dixon is offline
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    Greg Edington's .58 caliber two groove "Wilkinson" bullet was a .58 caliber version of Lorenz's standard .547 Austro-Hungarian Army bullet. As I stated above, I have used it in .577 Pattern 1858 Enfields and a .58 caliber Richmond carbine. It shoots very well, and properly loaded and lubricated is very accurate and does not foul. Edington's and Moose's single groove compression bullet is simply another variation. I made my carbine Distinguished Shooter badge with them, and quite a few points toward bronze and silver Distinguished Skirmisher badges. You just have to know how to shoot them. I haven't used a Minie bullet in a long gun in almost 20 years.

    Regards,
    Don Dixon
    2881V

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    I, too, use the Moose Wilkinson 577-420 in my Euroarms P53 with Whitacre barrel. It is fantastic. Very accurate, and very easy to cast. I no longer use hollow-cavity bullets in competition, either.

    Steve

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    PoorJack is offline
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    The Moose was what I tested in my 3 band Euroarms Enfield, again without much success. If the mold by Edington was much closer to the original Lorenz, is there any way to procure samples to try in a 580 bore and are there any drawings of the Edington Wilkinson available to plug into a ballistic analysis program?

    I'm using the Rapine Trash can and the Lee version in my Colts, PH and musketoon and all of them will stack bullets into one hole at 50yds, but all of them show signs of instability at 100 with group sizes opening up to 4in. If I can get another bullet that will duplicate the 50yd performance and close the 100yd groups up substantially, I'd be in for it.
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    The Moose was what I tested in my 3 band Euroarms Enfield, again without much success
    Stock barrel? And, which Moose Wilkinson? I had little luck with my stock Euroarms barrel, but then, it took a .584 bullet for a good fit so was probably shot out.

    Steve

  8. #8
    PoorJack is offline
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    Quote Originally Posted by Maillemaker View Post
    Stock barrel? And, which Moose Wilkinson? I had little luck with my stock Euroarms barrel, but then, it took a .584 bullet for a good fit so was probably shot out.

    Steve
    Yes, stock barrel. It shoots ok with a Rapine trashcan or RCBS 500, the bullet that I tested is the one pictured on Moose website. I'd like to revisit that bullet in my Colts and PHs. The Wilkinson that is grabbing our attention is the Edington modified design with Krupp nose.
    "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"
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  9. #9
    PoorJack is offline
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    "A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"
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  10. #10
    Don Dixon is offline
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    We keep talking about apples and oranges here.

    The evolutionary bullet concept which resulted in Muster 1854 Austrian ammunition design began in 1848 in Switzerland. The Swiss had been experimenting with .41 caliber “small-bore” rifles, which fired a flat based self-expanding bullet. The bullet had a deep cannelure, so that the force of the exploding powder caused the bullet to compress within its own length. The concept was based upon the inertia of matter. When a bullet is fired, the shock of the powder charge first begins to move the bullet at its base, while the point of the bullet remains briefly at rest. By using a deep cannelure or one or more compression grooves, the bullet will be compressed until its caliber is larger than the bore of the weapon and be expanded into the grooves of the rifling. The shortening of the bullet through compression also increases its stability in the slow rifling twist of the barrels found in muzzzleloading black powder arms. The Swiss eventually used variations of this concept in the Ordnance 1851 and 1856 bullets used in the Muster 1851 family of Swiss Federal rifles [Eidgenossische Handfeuerwaffen]. The .45 caliber Greg Edington "Wilkinson" bullet drawing you made reference to from the MLAGB web site is based upon the Ordnance 1856 Swiss Federal Army design, not on a design by Wilkinson or by Lorenz. Greg intended the bullet to be used in Parker Hale's reproduction Whitworth rifle. (See Schneider et al, Eidgenossische Handfeuerwaffen, 142)

    Henry Wilkinson, a firearms and sword maker in London whose company is famous in recent times as the Wilkinson Sword Company, was aware of the Swiss experimentation. In 1852, prior to the adoption of the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle musket, the British Army held a design competition, for which Wilkinson submitted a rifle and a compression bullet of his own design. The design of Wilkinson’s compression bullet was loosely based upon the Swiss experiments. Wilkinson intended his bullet to be greased and loaded “naked:” that is without using the paper cartridge wrapper as a paper patch. The British Army wanted a bullet which was loaded in the greased paper wrapper of the conventional paper cartridge, however, with the paper serving as a paper patch. In Wilkinson’s design [see bullet number 1 in the drawing below], the compression grooves trapped portions of the paper patch when the rifle was fired, causing the bullets to be wildly inaccurate at distances beyond 300 yards. The trial board suggested that Wilkinson reverse the angles of the compression grooves on his bullet, believing that that way the bullet could be better loaded in conventional paper cartridges. The modification of Wilkinson’s design proposed by the trial board was very similar to the compression bullet design Ritter von Lorenz was developing in Vienna. In the end, the British adopted the Enfield arsenal designed rifle musket and the Pritchett bullet as the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle musket and ammunition system. So, Wilkinson's design was a failure given the manner in which the British Army wanted to use their military rifle musket and ammunition.

    Meanwhile, von Lorenz had been independently working on his own compression bullet designs as part of his design work on a new Wallgewehr [Wall Rifle] and his improvements of the cartridge for the Muster 1842 and 1849 Kammerbüchse [incorrectly called the "Garibaldi" rifle in the U.S.]. The compression bullets did not work in the Wallgewehr because the bullet was too heavy, resulting in violent recoil, and the barrel strength was too low. The design did work in the Kammerbüchse [see bullet number 4 in the drawing below] however, but von Lorenz believed that it would be more efficient in a smaller caliber weapon. This led him to the design of the .547 inch/13.9 mm System Lorenz bullet and the Muster 1854 family of Austro-Hungarian Army rifles [see bullet number two in the drawing below].

    So, Wilkson and Lorenz -- working independently -- developed the compression bullet concept. Wilkson's version was a failure, but since we are English speakers he gets the credit in English langauge sources. Hence Edington's designs and the Moose bullet are styled as "Wilkinson" bullets when they are, in fact, based upon Lorenz's design rather than Wilkinson's.

    Greg played with a number of Lorenz based designs. One had two compression grooves [see bullet number 2 in the drawing below], and another -- which Greg called a "Picket" bullet -- had only one compression groove [see bullet number 3 in the drawing below]





    Critical to the use of compression bullets is bullet fit to barrel. The bullet needs to be sized no more than .001-.002 inches smaller than bore diameter. For this you need to measure the bore with machinist's plug gauges.

    The second critical issue is lubrication. in Lorenz's design the paper cartridge wrapper was greased with pure mutton tallow. There was NO grease in the compression grooves, and no grease migrated through the paper patch. But, the N-SSA will not let us shoot authentic ammunition [i.e., paper patched]. So, we have to shoot a "naked" bullet, and soft lubrication of the bullet is required. I use MCM. If you use a harder lubrication or fill the lubrication grooves [as in the following photograph] the Lorenz bullet WILL NOT shoot accurately.





    Since Greg consulted with me periodicallyu during his development of the modern "Wilkinson" bullet and sent me moulds to test, and I have done extensive historical research on the Austro-Hungarian Army weapons and ammunition, I might have some small knowledge of what I'm writing.

    Regards,
    Don Dixon
    2881V

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