Or, more accurately at this point, "casting" the Minie' ball. I haven't gotten around to shooting them quite yet, that will be early next week.
So, believe it or not, this is one little shooting niche that I have yet to explore. I have never really been all that interested, to be honest, but a pretty cool little rifle just kind of fell into my lap, so I reckoned I might have some fun learning a new (to me) game.
The Minie' arrived on the scene just about in time for our Civil War, the brainchild of a French officer. This was long before breech loading arms arrived, so both sportsmen and soldiers were still employing muzzle loading arms. The patched round ball, favorite of said sportsmen, had many drawbacks when used as a martial projectile, all of which are directly attributable to the immense fouling generated when shooting black powder. The sportsman was able to maintain accuracy and ease of loading, even with a fairly tight patch and ball combination, because he had the luxury of time. He could clean between shots. The soldier, not so much. Rate of fire was important. Smooth bore muskets, such as the Brown Bess, were more forgiving of heavy fouling than rifled arms, but the standard of "accuracy" was hitting any one of three men standing abreast at 100 yards. They needed better.
The Minie' was the answer. It is undersize to the bore, and will actually just drop all the way down a clean one. Its secret to success is its hollow base, or skirt, just like a modern airgun pellet. The hot expanding gasses behind it serve to expand that hollow cavity so that it engages the rifling. Pretty ingenious, really.
Here are some photos of my new Lyman Minie' ball mold. Pretty much like any other bullet mold, with the addition of a "base plug" that creates the hollow base. It inserts into the bottom of the mold blocks when they are closed, held in place by rotating it so a split ring on it grabs under a screwhead on the mold block. The photos should be pretty much self explanatory.
Here is the rifle. It is a cut down Remington "Zouave" musket of .58 caliber. Kind of "sporterized", like all of the WWII Mausers, Springfields, and the like. It's actually a very light, handy little rifle, bordering on a "carbine".
The only downside, really, is that this system is limited to some rather light powder charges. The standard infantry load in all .58 caliber muskets was 60 grains of FFg. The Minie' does weigh 505 grains, so there is that, but it will only be going about 800 fps. Trying to load it up beyond that results in blowing out that thin skirt. I might be able to go as high as 80 grains, for maybe 900 fps, but that's about it. Pretty marginal for hunting. By way of comparison, the .54 caliber Hawken I completed a few years ago will accept as high as 150 grains of FFg.
I did start off with a patched round ball, but I really wasn't expecting much. And it delivered... Wouldn't stay on a three foot square of target paper at 100 yards. It only has three lands and grooves, and they are extremely shallow, too shallow to grab a patched round ball. It's made for the Minie'. So, I think this one will be just a fun plinker, assuming it shoots. We'll see...