Technical advice needed for oversized rifled musket bore...

[stretchman25]

Several years back, I purchased an Armi Sport 1842 rifled musket. The only comercial mold available was the Lyman which cast around .694" The bore on my rifle is close to .700". I made an expanding die which flared the skirt of the minie ball to .698 -.699". In theory, the idea was good. The minie ball started in the bore with resistance but after the first inch in the barrel, it would nearly fall to the breech on its own weight with a clean bore. Groups at 100 yards would be sporadic. At times a decent group would emerge but then a flyer would end up 6"-7" outside the group. At a loss, I tried paper patching the undersized minie ball. Results with the paper patched minies was better than those with the expanded or flared skirts but consistent accuracy just isnt there. Is there any other idea out there that I may be overlooking or do I need to give in and have a custom mold made up for this particular rifle?

I have never experimented with the .69 rifled musket, so I have no idea what to expect for accuracy at 100 yards. I know with with several 58 caliber rifled muskets that I have 3" groups at 100 yards with proper sized bullets can be pretty typical results.

[hobbler]

Message sent.

[hobbler]

By the way, what kind of paper were you using?

[Hal]

I have to say, when I first got involved in bullet casting, I used off the shelf moulds, but struggled with bullets that were all too often undersized. Oversized and you can size down. Not much you can do for undersized except hope they will obturate. I finally gave in and bought a custom made mould and realized, that price only hurts once. I (and my wife) quickly got over what I had to spend on a mould and now have quite a few custom moulds. One, I even designed myself. Accurate Bullet Moulds will allow that and while a lot more than a Lee, the price is not a whole lot more than a Lyman or RCBS if you go with aluminum. Anyway, I have come to expect that buying a custom mould just goes along with buying a "new" gun.

I did luck out on my latest one and found that it shoots .535 round balls fairly well. Had some of them on the shelf.

[gemmer]

Send the barrel to Bobby Hoyt. He'll reline it to .687, perfect for Moose's .686 semi wadcutter.

[marv762]

i lucked into an old ideal mould that casted out to 69.0 i had a friend make me a deeper base plug and it shot pretty good. if you cant get the right mould you should have Hoyt reline the barrel to a smaller diameter. mine shot a ragged hole at 50 and 100 yards.

[Carolina Reb]

69s shoot really well, however, the repos often have bedding problems. Once Bobby fixes your barrel, check the bedding. The breech area, and especially the tang, needs to be well supported by the stock. Drop the barrel into the stock, don?t put on the bands, and tighten the tang screw. If the muzzle lifts out of the stock tip, you need to glass bed the barrel.

[hobbler]

stretchman,
My Armisport has a .696" bore. Soo kinda slightly large :confused:

This is from a Lyman mold reworked to suit.
Got an extra plug too for slightly thicker skirts so I could load it up for longer range plinking, dinosaurs, Fords, Chevies, gophers, whatever.

http://i.imgur.com/cdPChmL.jpg (https://imgur.com/cdPChmL)

[John Holland]

Stretchman25 - If you are a Face Book user look for the page "Rifle-Musket Shooter's Club". It is hosted by a nice fellow by the name of Robert Bradley. He is a gunsmith/machinist and makes a great copy of an original .69" caliber Minie Ball mould which has a deeper cavity which is also copied from an original design, thereby reducing the weight of the bullet. The reports from users have been very favorable. In my opinion, his prices are reasonable, too.