Maillemaker
06-24-2013, 12:34 PM
So Sunday I went to the range with my newly-refinished Euroarms P1853 Enfield with Whitacre barrel and my new Pedersoli P1858.
I had some bullets left over from the last skirmish - the RCBS-Hodgdon bullet sized to .576, with 44 grains of 3F Shuetzen and also with 46 grains of 3F Shuetzen. My Richmond Carbine likes the 44 grain loads and my 3-band Enfield likes the 46 grain loads.
I can confirm with confidence what others have evidently already discovered - these rifles seem to like longer, heavier bullets.
I could tell right away that my .576 bullets were too small for the bore. They would drop into the bore without much resistance and while the ramrod would "float on air" as it pushed the ball down the barrel there was no feeling of bullet-and-barrel contact as it went down. I'm betting a .577 will fit better.
The barrel has 5 lands and 5 grooves and per Pedersoli's website has a 1:65 twist.
Shooting results with both 44 and 46 grains of 3F were dismal. At 50 yards about half the shots keyholed through the target. The few shots that went true did seem encouraging - some holes were touching. But the gun shot about 12" high. Hard to say for sure since there were no groups to speak of.
I also happened to have a hundred or so authentic cartridges made up with 1855-style paper cases, with the RCBS 500M Minie lubed with a period tallow-beeswax lube and 48 grains of 2F Goex. The bullets were sized to .576. I gave those a whirl.
I have to say it is really fun to shoot authentic cartridges. There's something about picking up a paper cartridge and tearing the tail off with your teeth and spitting out the tail with a "p-tew" that makes you feel like you're staring in your own Civil War film. :) Anyway this bullet shot much, much better, though the groups at 50 yards were still not impressive. But all the bullets went into the target straight. Again the gun shot about 12" high. The group was probably about 6"-8" in diameter.
I'm not impressed with the rear sight on the Pedersoli gun at all. The spring does not bear properly on the bottom of the site leaf, and so it is not under proper tension in its full-down position. As a result after each shot it tends to spring up about .04" and the slot in the leaf sticks on the screw that holds the sight to the gun. So you have to remember after every shot to push the leaf back down again. I think sometimes I forgot to do that, which might account for the poor group size.
I'd like to replace this with a machined version of the sight, but I'm not sure what to buy. The machined sight on my Whitacre P53 barrel is about 1/4" longer than the one that came with the Pedersoli P58. Does anyone know of a machined rear sight for the P58?
Just so folks think it's not the shooter, I continued shooting with my Euroarms P53 with Whitacre barrel. As with the P58, I was shooting off of a bench.
Here are my 50 and 100 yard sights with it:
100 yards:
http://i.imgur.com/tFbV7eJh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yRIhcbPh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rcYbflkh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bDH6IUFh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uvWMgZRh.jpg
50 yards:
http://i.imgur.com/vsr27VYh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/x89tExgh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HG1rbL5h.jpg
I think this gun is getting very close to being dead-on point of aim. It is shooting about an inch to the left so I need to drive the front sight over just a bit. The Whitacre barrel has a dovetailed front sight so that should be easy enough to do.
When I got home from the range I went to cleaning my guns. I unshipped the barrel from the Pedersoli P58, and the lock as well. Did all my cleaning, and when I put it all together I noticed at full cock that the trigger was very loose - there was a lot of play before it engaged the tail of the sear.
I took the lock out and put it back in twice and could not see anything wrong.
So I drove out the pin for the trigger guard and removed the two screws and removed the trigger guard.
I noticed two things:
1) I had tightened up the tang screw quite firmly, as is recommended by most folks around here as essential to accuracy.
But it turns there are a few problems with this Pedersoli gun:
1) The recess cut into the stock for the tang screw boss on the trigger plate may be too deep. Instead of that boss bottoming out, the boss for the trigger hinge is what is bottoming out in the stock. You can see it as the top of that boss is burnishing the wood in the pocket it sits in.
As a result, as you tighten up the tang screw the trigger plate of the trigger assembly has its front pulled deeper into the stock, while the rear of the plate levers up out of the stock. This makes the tail of the trigger sit further out of the stock, in fact it pulls it below the lock cavity surface so it is not touching the tail of the sear at all. That accounts for the play in my trigger.
Normally the trigger guard assembly, which traps the trigger plate, would stop this movement, but there appears to be a gap between the rear of the trigger plate and the trigger guard. So the guard is not stopping the plate from moving. My first thought is to install a shim here to keep the trigger plate from moving when the tang screw is tightened.
Another troubling thing I discovered is that the hole for the tang screw had been drilled and tapped twice, at two slightly different angles, making for an oval hole. It's possible that the tang screw is engaging the wrong hole in the boss and this is forcing the trigger plate into an incorrect angle. Tonight I'm going to try the trigger assembly from my Euroarms P53 and see if it makes a difference.
Once I identify the issues for certain I'm going to email Pedersoli with these deficiencies.
Steve
I had some bullets left over from the last skirmish - the RCBS-Hodgdon bullet sized to .576, with 44 grains of 3F Shuetzen and also with 46 grains of 3F Shuetzen. My Richmond Carbine likes the 44 grain loads and my 3-band Enfield likes the 46 grain loads.
I can confirm with confidence what others have evidently already discovered - these rifles seem to like longer, heavier bullets.
I could tell right away that my .576 bullets were too small for the bore. They would drop into the bore without much resistance and while the ramrod would "float on air" as it pushed the ball down the barrel there was no feeling of bullet-and-barrel contact as it went down. I'm betting a .577 will fit better.
The barrel has 5 lands and 5 grooves and per Pedersoli's website has a 1:65 twist.
Shooting results with both 44 and 46 grains of 3F were dismal. At 50 yards about half the shots keyholed through the target. The few shots that went true did seem encouraging - some holes were touching. But the gun shot about 12" high. Hard to say for sure since there were no groups to speak of.
I also happened to have a hundred or so authentic cartridges made up with 1855-style paper cases, with the RCBS 500M Minie lubed with a period tallow-beeswax lube and 48 grains of 2F Goex. The bullets were sized to .576. I gave those a whirl.
I have to say it is really fun to shoot authentic cartridges. There's something about picking up a paper cartridge and tearing the tail off with your teeth and spitting out the tail with a "p-tew" that makes you feel like you're staring in your own Civil War film. :) Anyway this bullet shot much, much better, though the groups at 50 yards were still not impressive. But all the bullets went into the target straight. Again the gun shot about 12" high. The group was probably about 6"-8" in diameter.
I'm not impressed with the rear sight on the Pedersoli gun at all. The spring does not bear properly on the bottom of the site leaf, and so it is not under proper tension in its full-down position. As a result after each shot it tends to spring up about .04" and the slot in the leaf sticks on the screw that holds the sight to the gun. So you have to remember after every shot to push the leaf back down again. I think sometimes I forgot to do that, which might account for the poor group size.
I'd like to replace this with a machined version of the sight, but I'm not sure what to buy. The machined sight on my Whitacre P53 barrel is about 1/4" longer than the one that came with the Pedersoli P58. Does anyone know of a machined rear sight for the P58?
Just so folks think it's not the shooter, I continued shooting with my Euroarms P53 with Whitacre barrel. As with the P58, I was shooting off of a bench.
Here are my 50 and 100 yard sights with it:
100 yards:
http://i.imgur.com/tFbV7eJh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yRIhcbPh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rcYbflkh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bDH6IUFh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uvWMgZRh.jpg
50 yards:
http://i.imgur.com/vsr27VYh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/x89tExgh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/HG1rbL5h.jpg
I think this gun is getting very close to being dead-on point of aim. It is shooting about an inch to the left so I need to drive the front sight over just a bit. The Whitacre barrel has a dovetailed front sight so that should be easy enough to do.
When I got home from the range I went to cleaning my guns. I unshipped the barrel from the Pedersoli P58, and the lock as well. Did all my cleaning, and when I put it all together I noticed at full cock that the trigger was very loose - there was a lot of play before it engaged the tail of the sear.
I took the lock out and put it back in twice and could not see anything wrong.
So I drove out the pin for the trigger guard and removed the two screws and removed the trigger guard.
I noticed two things:
1) I had tightened up the tang screw quite firmly, as is recommended by most folks around here as essential to accuracy.
But it turns there are a few problems with this Pedersoli gun:
1) The recess cut into the stock for the tang screw boss on the trigger plate may be too deep. Instead of that boss bottoming out, the boss for the trigger hinge is what is bottoming out in the stock. You can see it as the top of that boss is burnishing the wood in the pocket it sits in.
As a result, as you tighten up the tang screw the trigger plate of the trigger assembly has its front pulled deeper into the stock, while the rear of the plate levers up out of the stock. This makes the tail of the trigger sit further out of the stock, in fact it pulls it below the lock cavity surface so it is not touching the tail of the sear at all. That accounts for the play in my trigger.
Normally the trigger guard assembly, which traps the trigger plate, would stop this movement, but there appears to be a gap between the rear of the trigger plate and the trigger guard. So the guard is not stopping the plate from moving. My first thought is to install a shim here to keep the trigger plate from moving when the tang screw is tightened.
Another troubling thing I discovered is that the hole for the tang screw had been drilled and tapped twice, at two slightly different angles, making for an oval hole. It's possible that the tang screw is engaging the wrong hole in the boss and this is forcing the trigger plate into an incorrect angle. Tonight I'm going to try the trigger assembly from my Euroarms P53 and see if it makes a difference.
Once I identify the issues for certain I'm going to email Pedersoli with these deficiencies.
Steve