'53 Enfield w/ Round Balls?

[Panzerschwein]

How do the Enfields do with round balls? I want a Pedersoli Musketoon or 2-Band really bad but .58 Minie balls are expensive. Due to my living conditions (apartment and about to move in less than a year) I can't really take up casting and all that, and pre-made Minies are real high. Pre-made round balls are at least half the price.

So, how do they do? What kind of accuracy can I expect? This will be for range shooting only. Thanks!

 

[4v50 Gary]

Tried patched RBs in Parker Hale Enfield musketoon and I couldn't group at 25 yards. Stick with minies.

 

[TheSquire]

I've seen them group well at 25yrds with patched ball. My good shooting buddy has a hell of a time with minies in his and now won't touch 'em.

 

[Curator]

How do the Enfields do with round balls? I want a Pedersoli Musketoon or 2-Band really bad but .58 Minie balls are expensive. Due to my living conditions (apartment and about to move in less than a year) I can't really take up casting and all that, and pre-made Minies are real high. Pre-made round balls are at least half the price.

So, how do they do? What kind of accuracy can I expect? This will be for range shooting only. Thanks!

Getting patched round ball to shoot accurately in a rifle-musket made for minie bullets can be a task. Generally, the 5-groove models (2-band and musketoon) are more forgiving than the 3-groove long rifles. Regardless, you need a tight ball/patch combination and that is usually difficult to get started at the muzzle. I have had reasonable success using a .575 round ball and .018 pillow ticking patches in my 2-band Enfield. This combination does not work well in my 3-band Enfield or my 1861 Springfield. Using .024" denim patching and the same .575 round ball works better with my 3-groove rifles, but requires a mallet to get the ball started. With round balls, if you can keep all your shots on a 6" paper plate at 50 yards, you are doing really good. Clay birds at 25 yards are definitely do-able.

 

[desidog]

I couldn't hit a paper plate at 50 yards with my Armisport Zouave and PRB. I can crush soda cans with .577 Minies at the same distance though.

Recently i picked up a Cook & Brother musketoon on gunbroker; so maybe i'll dig out the RB's if i can find them and try them out.

 

[Stony]

A couple of clubs I've shot with over the years have had one leg of the match for muskets, and required that round balls be used. The Zouaves seem to be the most popular model I've seen used for this and some of them seem to shoot quite good with round balls. I've owned a couple of them that were eventually traded off, but are still making smoke on the firing lines...and they worked just fine with round balls. I'm not saying they necessarily clover leaf shots, but normally seem to do about 2-3 inches at 50 yds.

 

[Dog Soldier]

The early Reproduction Remington rifled muskets used a .562 round ball. With the proper patch they slid down smoothly and are accurate. Using the larger .577 round balls and thin patches only developed sore hands from pounding the loads down.