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Thread: Fremont With Round Ball

  1. #1
    hobbler is offline
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    Fremont With Round Ball

    Anybody figured out how to get the best round ball accuracy out of an Armisport Fremont with that three groove barrel? My past thirty years experience of muzzle loading just isn't helping. But I'm still working on it. Thought maybe that asking might help keep me out of someone elses tracks. Hope to hear from ya.

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    Jim_Burgess_2078V is offline
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    Fremont Rifled Musket

    Three groove barrels are designed to fire a Minie ball. A patched roundball probably wouldn't work too well given the shallow rifling and slow twist and would neither be fast or easy to load. Hope you're not intending to use a rifled musket for smoothbore competition as that would be a violation of our rules.

    Jim Burgess, 15th Conn. Vol. Inf.

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    hobbler is offline
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    Does anyone have experience with making the .69 caliber Armisport's rifled muskets shoot with a round ball load?

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    John Holland is offline Moderator
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    hobbler,

    I haven't tried the .69 caliber military rifling with a round ball, but I can give you an analogy. I had a Navy Arms 1803 Harper's Ferry Rifle some years ago. It was an early one in .58 caliber with one turn in 72", which is minie ball rifling. To get the .58 caliber patched round ball to stabilize I ended up with a powder charge of 100 - 110 gr. of 3FG. At that point I was probably burning some of it outside the muzzle. And even then the group wasn't anything to write home about.

    I shot my first patched round ball in 1962, and my experience didn't help with the slow twist rifling in the Navy Arms 1803. But, what my experience did tell me was to get the barrel lined in .54 caliber, one turn in 66". With that combination I have fired a 1.7", 3 shot, group at 100 yards off hand.

    Just my experience in the general direction you're interested in.

    John Holland
    44th NY

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    hobbler is offline
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    Yep, that sounds about right. This rascal ofcourse has the three grooves, wide lands. The twist is ok for round ball (1 in 66") but the equal width lands and grooves make for some real special feeding. Got balls of .675" and .683" diameter available to work with. One problem right up front is cut patches...now that surprised me.

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    John Holland is offline Moderator
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    Yep, the un-modified 1803 in .58 had the same thing, 3 equal L&G. It was the same rifling A. Zoli used in their 1863 Remington "Zouaves".

    Do you think the cut patches might be due to sharp edges on the lands?

    What are you using for patching, and lube?

    After I had the 1803 lined I used ticking, with plain old Crisco for lube, generously applied on one side only, loaded with the Crisco side against the bore. It is a .540 bore, the ball is .535, .015 patching, and loaded with a short & long starter. Yeah, it's TIGHT, but you can't beat the accuracy!

    JDH

  7. If you are looking for accuracy and don't have to have a lot of knock down power, try backing down on the powder charge. In working with 4Her's, I found that the .58 Zoli (three different guns) 3 LG rifling worked very well with a thick patch and smaller balls. I was able to get a 1.5" group at 100 yards with a .018 patch and a .565 ball. Lube was bore butter fully soaked patch. Powder charge was 42 to 48 grains of 2f Goex. Also had good results with 85 to 100 grains of 3f Goex. (Did this before I knew we were limited to 60 grains of powder.)

    Don't know if this will translate to .69 caliber rifle. The 3LG rifling seemed to have a zero at a low charge and a high charge and shot lousy in the middle size charges.

    .
    Edwin Flint
    14th Mississippi Infantry, N-SSA
    Deputy Commander, DS Region

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    John Holland is offline Moderator
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    Thanks Ed,

    That is a great comparative.

    JDH

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    hobbler is offline
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    With the .69 Fremont the patch cutting is with a tight patch, around the ball. It's actually shearing hard cotton ticking on tight loadings. I've smoothed out the edges some on the entrance to the lands and grooves, but not taken off much because there really is just so little metal actually there.

    Maybe this has something to do with all this, maybe not but it's got me thinking...
    The circumference around a .69 bore is 2.16". The circumference around the patch where the patch contacts the barrel is 3.36". That's a difference of 1.23", darn near an extra inch and a quarter of cloth getting gathered up together. It has to go somewhere evenly for accuracy. Gets me to wondering about the practical limits of this operation.

    Meanwhile, various thicknesses are being tried out. Thank you much for the inputs. The comments about a low level sweet spot and a high level sweet spot reflect my suspicions about this rascal. If they're there I'll find 'em.

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    Fremont round ball

    Quote Originally Posted by hobbler
    Yep, that sounds about right. This rascal ofcourse has the three grooves, wide lands. The twist is ok for round ball (1 in 66") but the equal width lands and grooves make for some real special feeding. Got balls of .675" and .683" diameter available to work with. One problem right up front is cut patches...now that surprised me.
    I would think that the .683 would be way too tight, especially if Armi's barrels are the same as Hoyt's and Whitacre's(.687). Doc Gary White recently put up for sale a rifled '42 3 band with a Whitacre. I believe he said he got good accuracy with a .672 ball and 60 gr of 2F Elephant. Not a hunting load though, if that's what you're after. Sort of off topic , I posted a similar question a couple of years ago regarding using roundball in my original rifled '42 relined by Hoyt. The consensus was stay with the minie, ( I've always used the Rapine) but mainly from a safety standpoint. I defered to that judgement, although I didn't quite understand it, given that unless a huge charge was used, pressures would have to be less than those from an original style minie. The muzzleloading forum has a number of posts from a guy in Austria who's been trying to get his Armi rifled '42 to group well. He tried roundballs without much luck and the only minie mould he could get was for the original style. He was using 90 gr of SWISS 3F behind that football. He said he was getting massive headaches. His fillings were probably falling out too.

    One last aside. I do shoot patched balls out of my original .58 Mississippi
    that Hoyt relined. It has three grooves. It shoots a .570 ball with .018 ticking patch and an over powder wad pretty well. Nice deer rifle.

    Duane

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