Thanks for your information all - greatly appreciated.
I may be wrong, but I don't think we can really compare the military Minie to the conicals that have been designed for these newer fast twist barrels - unless I am not clear as to what the conicals are that are being used in the faster twist side locks. Are they "nose heavy" with a hollow base/thin skirt like the traditional military "mine" or are they more of a solid base? I'm assuming the "sabots" that are used in a lot of these guns is what "grips" the rifling?
The original military minie is a thin skirted, nose heavy projectile. I've shot a lot of different rifled muskets - Enfield, 1855, '61, Remington 1863, Mississippi, etc. - .54 and .58. They of course all have slower twists and some of them have some very interesting slow twists - shallow rifling, etc. - I've found them all to be pretty accurate. Of course the minie has to be sized to the barrel to be accurate - if not, "key holing" is almost a certainty. I had a Remington 1862 "Zouave' that the barrel was getting shot out on and I can speak from experience on that one.!
A number of years ago, I was in a "long range" shoot/test up at Camp Grayling on the 1,000 meter range. It was surprising the accuracy of the various models were capable of - but the one surprising thing that came out of the shoot was that a Henry out shot us all. We were shooting at "pop up" targets that were about 2' X 3". Using standard service loads, most of us did pretty well up to about 600 meters. At 1,000 meters, we had a life size steel cut-out of a horse and the fellow shooting the Henry was able to make it ping about 80% of his shots - the rest of us didn't do so well.
As I said, I'm pretty much a "traditionalist" so it's kind of hard for me to think of putting a conical down anything but a rifled musket. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying that I am pretty set in my ways in using rb in a slow twist barrel on a traditional side lock. With all of the rifles being made out there with the fast twist or with a compromise of somewhere in between, I was interested in the pros and cons of using the two different projectile shapes in the same barrel - and the results, problems, etc. in how the different twists react to the two designs of projectiles.
Years ago (I'm talking in the '60's) one of the companies was making muzzleloading barrels with a "gain twist" - I believe it was Numrich but I might be wrong on that. Of course the theory was that the patched ball, as it progressed down the barrel picked up rotation speed which was supposed to give it more accuracy. I never had the chance to shoot one of those barrels but I can't see where it would be any advantage? The ball would be spinning at a faster rate as it left the muzzle so it seems to me that it would be no different than shooting a barrel with a fast twist the complete length of the barrel. I wonder though how a conical would have worked in the gain twist. Starting out slow twist and picking up rotation speed, would it not be the same as shooting a conical out of a barrel with a fast twist the entire length? I'd be interested in knowing if anyone out there has one of these barrels with the gain twist and how it works for them (using rb).
Again, I'm not "knocking" the "in-lines" or the guns with fast twist or those who enjoy them. I was more curious about the two twists offered in such guns as the Lyman GP - or for that fact, one with a compromise between a fast and slow twist (such as a 1 in 48) - if they allow the owner the best of both worlds in regards to the results of using a conical (such as hunting) and rb (such as in a rb only match) once they get a load worked up for each type of projectile or is one going to always work better than the other - thus making it more desirable to have a separate barrel with the different twists?
As always, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
