..........Hillbilly,"I have had a bit of a Whitworth bug for a while. "
Me too <VBG>.
"Does anyone here own or shoot a Whitworth? "
I've had one now, 5 or 6 years I guess. Mine is a 2nd Gen version. Unlike the original repros fully made in England, mine has the Parker-Hale hammer forged barrel, but was assembled in Italy.
"How much of a hassle is making your own bullets? "
Naw. Like casting any other big long bullet. Alloy needs to be hot, as does the mould when using close to pure lead. You must have a good flow and a substantial sprue.
"What kind of accuracy do you get?"
My local range is only 200 meters. Accuracy off the bench is 3" for 5 rounds at that distance. I won a BP postal match at 100 yards with 5 rounds going 1.22". For that I used a 400 gr slug over 50grs of Swiss 2F. The normal heavier bullets are still kind of yawing around at only 100 yards, so don't hold as tight. Also the recoil is unnecessary for that short a distance.
"What's the longest shot you've connected with? "
That would be 650 yds.
"Are the reproduction Whitworths at Dixie Gun Works actually worth the price?"
Mine came from Gibbs, so I can't say. Dixie has a tendancy to bend you over sometimes. On the other hand, who else has them? If they are like mine and you wanted one I'd say yes, they are. Mine has a very nice piece of dense mineral streaked straight grained walnut.
Further speaking of mine, the inletting is well done with no big gaps, and the metal is well polished and blued and/or casecolored. The hammer strikes the cone straight. THere are no truly 'Fine' locks made on todays production type percussion rifles. If they set the cap off that's all they want. Now, the lock is sturdy but there were no hands on stuff done.
I double relieved mine, and lightened the hammer and sear springs. The hammer spring would have been more at home under a 59 Studebaker 3/4 ton pickup than driving a hammer around to fire a cap
. The lock is exactly the same (with the exception of having a fly) as that in my P-H P58 2 band 58 cal Enfield. A true target lock would be a 5 pin, having the trigger hung on it's own trunnion rather than on a bridle screw.
In essence, the Whitworth being sold is a Whitworth barrel in a military stock with military hardware. It's a reasonable copy of a 1861 MILITARY target rifle. Now, after all THAT, as I mentioned, it IS capable of very fine accuracy. What I also did to mine was to bed it and make sure the 3 bands didn't have a strangle hold on the stock and barrel.
Whitworths, even the full on no holds barred match grade half stocked rifles used in England fired many more conical bullets then hexagonal ones. Only for the very finest accuracy at 1000 yards were the full swaged (not cast) hexagonal paper patched bullets required. And probably only then because they were available, unlike now.
When I got my rifle, I also got one of the 2 piece hex swaging setups. Plus a hex wad cutter! Neither is required. COnicals work just fine, as do correct round wads. In the first 9 months I owned the thing I put 1600 rounds of lead downrange. I kept track via empty cap tins. If I could size it hexagonal or conical to .452" it got loaded and fired.
Most of those 1600 rounds were negative learning experiences. What I did wrong told me what to do right. What I have learned is pretty much already well documented historicly as to loads:
1) A bullet of 20-1 weighing between 500 and 550 grs works
2) A powder charge between 70 and 90 grs works.
3) A lube disc over a lubed felt overpowder wad works
4) A well cast, scaled conical slug sized .452" works
5) Lube quality and quantity is very important
I have to forgive myself for trying to re-invent the wheel in the process <VBG>. These smallbore fast twist target rifles operate at high breechpressure (for BP) and do not require a dead soft lead slug. In fact such a bullet can smear in the barrel. But you really don't want them hardened with antimony, rather using tin to do the deed. And since tin is so expensive (and you're shooting so much away each shot) about 20-1 is fine.
Two of the best easily obtainable bullet moulds are the Lyman 457132 Postell at about 525grs and the Saeco #745. This bullet is similar to the Lyman but a bit heavier at 535grs. Another good one, but lighter is the Lyman copy of the old military 500 gr 45-70 bullet, the 457125. I had a custom adjustable cavity cup based nose pour mould done. It dropped a .465" round nosed slug and was to be swaged hexagonal. It does no better than the above commercial bullets and is a PITA to use compared to them.
I don't have a lot of long range experience as no such facilities are close. My most extended shooting was done at a range in Sierra Vista, AZ where my brother lives. They have a wide silhuette bay with hanging steel every 100 yards out to 600 yards. The steel gongs are basicly a foot square, with some like diamonds, or circles. The benches are concrete poured in place but no sandbags. For a rest I had to put my rifle case across my rangebox.
The hanging steel is all intended for scoped rifles. The 600 yard line is a graded ledge on the facing hillside with vegetation above and below. All I could see really was a black speck agains the lighter earth. It was invisible through the floating apurture I had up front so I changed to a blade insert. I finally found the plate on the 4th shot with the ladder up and the elevator on the "6".
By that time, I had several shooters standing around watching this fool with a muzzle loader try to hit this steel plate 600 yards away!! HA! I guess they were used to patched RB Hawken repros. After the sound of the hit floated back (about 3 seconds) there was a colective intake of breath. In all, I fired 26 rounds and connected 18 times. It was very hard for me to get used to how long the faint 'clang' took to be heard.
At the shot, the faint breeze would lift the powder smoke away and I'd think, "Crap, I missed", only to be rewarded with the 'clang' of a hit! Nothing like it! Had the target been more than a mere tiny blur of black I'm sure Id have done much better. As it was I was feeling pretty frisky about myself and had a case of the big head <VBG>.
In addition to the Whitworth, I have a half stocked Rigby style 45 cal ML match rifle. It's a full on sporting rig with a 5 minute elevation range tang rear sight and insert type windage adjustable front sight. I haven't shot it as much, as it REALLY wants paper patched slugs and that is a custom mould deal that's had to wait.
Rick
