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Old March 30, 2014, 09:11 AM   #15
maillemaker
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Join Date: August 30, 2010
Posts: 1,635
Quote:
By the way, what was the primary advantage of the conical bullet? I read that accuracy was not necessarily better, was it the ballistics?
The primary advantage was a more massive bullet.

Remember that rifling matters, particularly rate of twist. Original revolvers had different rifling than today's revolvers. I'm pretty sure most, if not all, of the early Colts had gain-twist rifling. It started out with no rifling and then spun up as it approached the muzzle. They're rifling may have been optimized for conical bullets.

They say modern reproductions are optimized for round ball. You can get good conical performance out of them but you will need to use a shorter conical bullet. Mike Bellevue has an nice write-up on round ball vs. some conical bullets in an article in Guns of the Old West.

Rate of twist matters a lot in regards to bullet length. I use an RCBS Hodgdon bullet in my 1:72 twist Richmond Carbine and 1:72 twist P53, but it shoots horribly in my 1:48 P58. A long, original-style Minie works best in it.

Steve
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