Shooting the Minie' Ball

[Jeff Higgins]

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...

[John Rogers]

Well glad to see you are trying something that was state of the art a while ago. I tried shooting those in a round ball Lancaster long rifle (1 in 60), fast twist rifle (1 in 16) and my 1858 Remington cap and ball revolvers. I cast pure lead and with a bit of tin and out to 100 yards they were okay but past that I was happy to hit the target backer. I tried 60, 80 and 100 grains of GOEX FFG in the rifles and 28 grains of Swiss in the ca p and ball revolvers and they did ok although our pistol matches only went to 50 yards.

For the slug guns with 1 in 16 twist or Ron Smith gain twist barrel, the loading was 80 gains FFG, .060 fiber wad and 540 grain grease groove bullet out to 300 yards. When I went out in the desert and shot at 600 "paces" I upped the powder load to 140 grains of FFG which gave me about 1400 feet per second and a bit less hold over. Afterwards I put recoil pads on those slug guns as my body is getting old.

Have fun and I hope you use real black powder to copy what was used many years ago.
John Rogers the oldracer

[Jeff Higgins]

There are a few reasons I have not been interested in this form of muzzle loading. These things are very much a "battlefield expedient", not known for their accuracy under the best of conditions. "Good enough" for massed infantry in a toe to toe firefight, but lacking in either long range accuracy or punch. I'm looking forward to playing with it, just out of curiosity, but I'll keep my expectations realistic. Bottom of a washtub at 100 yards is probably all it will do.

As far as black powder, I have never used any of the substitutes. Authentic black powder is superior in every way. In all of the matches I shot over the course of over 20 years, I never saw anyone even approach competitive scores with a substitute. I see no reason to try anything else at this point.

[sc_rufctr]

Thanks Jeff. As always super interesting!

[pwd72s]

Jeff, have you ever been to one of the Quigley shoots? I've seen brief videos and read about them...pretty impressive...but a cartridge rifle, totally different black powder from muzzle loading.

[Jeff Higgins]

Yup, I went to the Quigley match a couple of times in the early 2000's. They are an awful lot of fun. "Local knowledge" is pretty tough to beat at that one, though. The winds are something else and, combined with the terrain, make it a real challenge.