.58 Fastest Twist

[hobbler]

What is the fastest twist known to have been used in .58 caliber arms?

[FedericoFCavada]

The Royal Navy Pattern 1858 two-band rifle had five grooves and a 1 in 48" twist.
According to Øyvind Flatnes's book, From Musket to Metallic Cartridge some of the Dano-Norwegian jäger patched round ball .59 cal. rifles had eight grooves with a 1 in 25-in. twist. Obviously, that's not a CW arm. I am frankly unsure about the myriad French, Prussian, Belgian, and Austrian rifle muskets in .58 caliber.

[hobbler]

Ah. I remember something about target matches where the guys with 48" twist being penalized for advantage over their slower twist brothren.

[Jim Wimbish, 10395]

Euroarms decided to outdo the Royal Navy with a 2 band Enfield that I bought back in the late 90's. I calculated that it had a 1 in 38 twist. Why it was ever made with that fast a twist, I'll never know. Probably a mistake. After playing around with the barrel for a while, I gave up on it and bought a replacement barrel from Whitacre since it couldn't be relined.

[hobbler]

Thanks for the input. Interesting about the 38" twist. Was the twist too fast? Was the rifling not set up for minies?

[R. McAuley 3014V]

Large Bore (26-bore) Whitworth was one turn in 20.

http://www.n-ssa.org/vbforum/showthread.php/8157-The-Whitworth-Rifle?highlight=whitworth

[Jim Wimbish, 10395]

The spin created a lot of drift. I used a long heavy bullet which handled the rifling OK, but the drift caused the bullet to shoot about six inches to the right at 100 yards with the fixed front sight. It was more trouble to deal with the drift than it was worth, so I just replaced the barrel since it couldn't be relined. I prefer slower twists in 58 caliber arms with 3 land and groove rifling. I don't like shooting anything faster than about 1 in 56.

[hobbler]

Again, thanks.