armi 1842 .69 rifled musket

[bowfish]

What do you think of these musket's. How accurate will this gun be with round balls. I have one that I will be using at our local gun club to shoot full size silhouette's. It is patched round ball only and will be shooting at 75 and 100 yards at rams and buffalo's. I went with a 69 caliber for the larger round ball. I have seen 58 caliber have trouble nocking down targets. My guns barrell is .693, I have been using a 678 ball with .015 patch and .018 patch and can not get a .020 patch to work being to tight. Have tried 60-85 grains of black powder and the only groups I can get with this gun is 10 inches at 50 yards. The elevation and windage I dont mind because I can take care of that later. What is your opinoins on this. I posted this on this website because other black powder forums could give me no information on this gun. I was recommended on this site because more people would have one. Thanks for any information you can give me.

[Muley Gil]

The original 1842s were built as smoothbores and then rifled to update them. These rifled muskets were designed to fire Minie balls (bullets) with hollow bases. You might want to try a larger round ball and a thinner patch. Good luck.

If a .58 round ball won't knock down your silhouettes, you may need to try to re-set those targets somewhat.

[John Holland]

bowfish -

The rifled M-1842 should have a twist of 1 in 72", which is pretty slow for a patched round ball. You generally have to push the ball so hard that the recoil is unpleasant. As an example, once upon a time a friend and I experimented with a .58 caliber barrel with a 1 in 72" twist. We started with 45 gr of 3fg Goex and increased it in 5 gr increments. We couldn'get the ball to stabilize (group) until the powder charge was boosted up to 100 gr of 3 fg Goex. At that point some of the powder was probably being propelled out the bore, but the group closed up to acceptable sizes.

Anyway, that's my experience.

Good luck,
JDH

[bowfish]

When I first checked into this model I saw the gun from taylors was a 1-72 twist and the armi from dixie was a 1-66 twist . I thought that the 1-66 would be better for the round ball.Trying to find a larger round ball mould I have the .680 . If this gun does not group I think I will send it back and exchange it for the euro arms
.58 zouave musket

[Ken Hansgen, 11094]

Bowfish, There's a guy (Robert Long) who has posted a blurb on the Dixie Gun Works site who has a Jaeger Flintlock with 1/24 twist in a .535 bore that he is unhappy with because he wants to shoot minies. I'm surprised to hear you say you need to go to .69 to knock down steel targets. Perhaps you can trade and try that? Or if you prefer percussion, it's available new as a kit.

[marv762]

I have the same gun and it shoots a 825gr minnie very well. I also shoot steel silouette out to 200 yards with it. I use 57grns of 2f and at 50 yards it makes a very large hole group of about 2 inches. Never tried round ball due to the twist.
marv

[hobbler]

Hey there Bowfish.
I have one of the 33" barreled ArmiSport 1847's.
Best round ball combo I've found yet is with a 1/2" fiber wad saturated with a waxy lube and a thin hard cotton patch around a .68 ball.

[hobbler]

Drats. The round ball load has put a split the center of my gong.

[hobbler]

Hey Bowfish.
Some added thoughts about round ball.
There's some basic problems if you are in the field rather than plinking in the back yard.

The ramrod on the 1842 / 1847 is skinny, not made for loading round ball.
A way around that is making a handle to fit the 12-24 thread that ArmiSport puts on the narrow end. Mine is an adapter that I made out of small bore 3/8" brass tube by tapping one end 12-24 and the other 10-32 to fit commonly available jags. Made it long enough to supply gripping length.
Even with that, because a tight patch is needed to get any accuracy I have to start out with a pin clean barrel to keep the down the resistance.

The interior of that great big breech is a great place to get just enough moisture left over from cleaning to mess up that shot you've been waiting for. So, if I clean the barrel to make seating a patched ball easier, seating a folded up patch on top of the powder and then cleaning the tube with damp patches works. That way the powder space stays dry.

Don't use substitute powders. I can't explain it but I will have failures to fire if I do. Perhaps this may be a matter of the size of the hole leading into the barrel in my particular 1847. I've considered enlarging the hole but I'm just not quite willing to put a rotating bit down next to threads in the nipple hole.

The sights on my 1847 are way low at the bottom setting and too high on the next. An unshakable neodymium thin wafer super magnet (OK, it's not quite Union issue but don't tell) inserted from the front brings the 50 yard elevation dead on. The windage is perfect from the factory.

As all are aware the bores are big on the ArmiSports. With Rapine gone it's gonna be tough finding suitable molds. Getting used Lyman minie molds altered to fit the ArmiSport may be the best way to go. I'm looking real hard at that option myself.

[hobbler]

Borrowed a calibrated set of bore micrometers for the weekend. These are made with three elongated contact surfaces oriented parallele with the bore and 120 degres apart. Perfect for checking a minie ball barrel.
Reaching in from muzzle back and forth to the fullest length of the tooling my particular ArmiSport 1847 33" barrel measures out as follows:
Bore 0.6962"
Groove 0.7028"