Birmingham made 1858 model PH loads?

[Bill Osby 12083]

Hello, I recently purchased a very nice 2 band PH and was told the previous owner shot an old style minie and 40 grains of 3f in it and it "did pretty well". I haven't seen one but I know that PH made a mould for this gun that was similar but with a shallow base. I also know that Lyman makes what they call a PH mould that is a shallow base. Before I go out and spend a ton of money on 2 or 3 moulds and shoot up several pounds of lead trying to find the best load for this gun I'm hoping someone with some prior experience shooting these things could help me out and point me towards a good choice. Thanks Bill Osby 12083.

[ms3635v]

Bill,

When I started in the NSSA I shot a Parker Hale P58 and I shot a Lyman 575213 OS (Old Style) minie with 45 grains of 3f with excellent results. I switched to a Springfield about 5 years later because the drop in the stock was a more comfortable fit for me.

[Gary Van Kauwenbergh, 101]

I shot the shallow-based minie from a Parker-Hale mold using 50 grains of GOEX FFg. You can see my the chart and table of my chronograph results using my British made musketoon, 2-band and three-band Parker-Hales at http://acwsa.org/Pages/ShootingNotebook.htm All of the loads were shot with FFg GOEX.

[iron brigade]

my son and i use 38 grs of 3f kik and a .576 hodgedon sized to .575. very accurate at 50 yards. one thing you will notice is that these rifles shoot high. about 6-8 inches. we had higher front sights installed. as an aside, the .576 mould cast at .578 and would not fit in the bore until we sized them down to .575. the big 566 ph bullet did not need resizing in our muskets.

[Mike McDaniel]

I use the Parker-Hale Minie and 45 grains of Goex 3F in mine.

[Bill Osby 12083]

Thanks for the info guys.

[DaveCVG]

Dear Bill,
When I bought my P-H M1858 at a National, the rifle was rather new to the N-SSA and I was the first in my unit to have one, so I wallked the individuals line looking for advice. About 60% of the P-H M1858 shooters were using 40 gr DuPont(GOEX), a Lyman 575213-style Minie, and ... were sizing very close to bore(land)-diameter. My bore measured at 0.5805-inches, so I ended-up shooting a Lyman 580213 sized to 0.580-inches. It worked quite well, and the bullet-bore diameter matchup was definitely critical. Lube was 3 parts tallow to 1 part beeswax, and I had no trouble loading.
Good shooting/Best,
Dave M. / CVG (retired)