James River's Enfield Navy Rifle

[Southron Sr.]

What is the Rate of Twist and Number of Grooves found in the barrel of James River's Enfield Naval Rifles? Their P-60/61 Enfield Short Rifles?

THANKS!

[Wayne M Clark]

The one I have is 1/60 with 7 lands/groves. The barrel was rifled by Mr. Hoyt on an English Parker Hale blank. I can't comment on the bore size.
W. Clark

[Eggman]

I am curious about the James River rifles in general and Bobby Hoyt barrels in particular. How do the barrels compare to regular factory issues in terms of groove depth, best bullet selection, and powder charge. It seems like the extra number of rifle grooves would necessitate a larger powder charge to get the minie skirt to engage. Or mabe a thiner skirt. If the grooves are deeper than the relatively shallow factory issues the problem would seem to increase. I have a Hoyt liner in an original Spencer which as the saying goes "drives tacks," but since the bullet is driven into the rifling none of the above applies.

[robertdeans72]

Hi there,
I have an P60 Army Short rifle and it is barreled with the aforementionned Hoyt 7 groove, 1-60 twist barrel. It is bang on .577. (I had the choice of .58 or .577) It has the appropriate iron furniture and the sling swivel on the butt. It did come polished though... I blued it myself.http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b166/RobDeans/60Enfield.jpg

The grooves are quite deep and a lot wider than the lands...(way deeper than my Euroarms anyway, maybe .010 or .015 so? Also, don't forget that the originals were progressively rifled from .014 at the breech to .005 at the muzzle) The barrel is cut rifled instead of button rifled and you can see the tooling marks on the bottom of the grooves. Of course these marks are "in line" with the rifling and don't seem to affect anything..
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b166/RobDeans/3006-1.jpg

I shoot a Lyman OS sized to .575 with 47 gr 3F and have shot 2-3" at 100m. Initially I wanted an historical 1-48, 5 groove but they said I couldn't get that progressively rifled. It was then he mentioned the Hoyt barrel and its popularity. Overall I am very happy with it.... If you want brass furniture then go for the Navy Rifle (it has the sling swivels placed as per the '53 too)

Rob

[Eggman]

Very interesting. Looks to be superbly designed by Bobby, escecially the wide grooves. Assume the group does not widen with multiple shots, like when flailing away at the pigeon board?? Thanks for the excellent pictures.