New gun is a 49 cal?

[KHickam]

Well, I took delivery of my new gun from Bobby Christian yesterday.  It is great.  It is brass mounted, maple stocked (a little figure and reddish colored) sliding wood patchbox, LH Queen Anne Lock - It has a 42" swamped colerain barrel - it was supposed to be .50 caliber - However, I molded up some hand cast .490 RB and I had to short start a bare ball to get it down the bore.  Good news is that I hit what I was aiming at both times.  

I am gonna try to find a micrometer and measure the bore - to be sure but I am ordering some .480 ball from Track of the Wolf to see if that helps.

Cheers;

Dan'l Hickham

[Captchee]

yep it could be a .490 bore  IE .010  under .500. i have also seen barrel .510  or .o10 over bore .
 my Tulle has a colerian barrel . was suposed to be .620  but when i miked it i found it was .613 .
 fortuionatly most do not run that far off . but now and then , they do

[Bigsmoke]

Dan'l,
Well, I hope this time your name was at least spelled correctly, Mr. Hickman.
Man, that was awful to have happen.

[Kermit]

What? That he hit what he was aiming at?    

[Uncle Russ]

What? That he hit what he was aiming at?    :shock:

Now, for me, this would indeed be something to crow about.

It will be interesting to know just how deep the rifling is on this particular bore...there seems to be a couple of schools of thought on both the depth and shape of the rifling..
One school says shallow, the other says deep, one says a "rounded" bottom, the other says a "near square" bottom.

It all seems to depend mostly on who you're reading at the time as both schools present a good agrument...however, I feel the jury is still out on the absolutely perfect size and shape for each bore and caliber.

Harry Pope thought he had it all worked out back in the  late 1800's,  but, as in all good theories, another came along to replace his, then another, and yet another, and so it goes.

My thought is; If it ain't broke, don't keep fixing it until you end up breaking it......

Uncle Russ...

[Three Hawks]

If you find that the .480 ball is the cure,  a mold is giong to be fun to find.  I ended up buying one from Jack Tanner in Jolly Old.  Excellent mold, not expensive and fast delivery.

Three Hawks.

[KHickam]

Well, I am shooting .480 rb with a .15 pillow ticking patch - Works, fine and shoots well.

I fired a 5 shot group from a sitting position over cross sticks and managed to shoot 3/4" group, but 2" low at 25 yds.  Then I decided to shoot at some cattail stalks and found that the rifle was very accurate cutting most of the stalks I shot at  - from an offhand position, but hitting below the point of aim.

[pathfinder]

I've come across the same issue with a number of barrels. My currant favorite has a 38" 1-1/8 .58 Colrain barrel that takes a .562 ball with pillow ticking. .575 or .570's just won't go down without a hammer and the barrel is coned. I guess I'll just call it a .57 cal!

[KHickam]

Well. a little filing and the gun is shooting 4" groups at 75 yds from a rest.

Now, a bit more challenge to shoot a deer this fall.