.........These things are individuals, so you have to try different things, and that's part of the fun, right? I have a P58 2 band 58 cal Enfield with a Parker-Hale barrel. It's a 5 groove 48" twist with progressive depth grooves. When I got the rifle, I asked a buddy to help me out. His nickname at the range was 3 Band Bob. He was a good guy to know when starting out with rifled muskets
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He was a strict adherant to the KISS principle, and the first words out of his mouth were, "The Minie' MUST fit the lands. Otherwise all the rest of it is worthless." Luckily the lands of my rifle were .580" and the mould I'd ordered along with it (Ly 577213 P-H) dropped right at that. I was given a Lyman 575213 Old Style and these dropped at 575". These practicly fell down the barrel ans shot like crap.
Next was to find out WHERE the rifle wanted the lube. Another guy had said to get Bore Butter, so that's what I had. Bob said Crisco would probably work too. So for my rifle, lube in the base cavity is where it shoots best. When lubing the grooves, or grooves AND the base opened things up a noticeable amount. Also, what's nice is that lubing the cavity is easy
. Be sure that your Minie' bullets are well cast and without voids. You don't want crappy results because your bullets aren't up to snuff.
What I also found out is that my rifle is sensitive to lube quality AND quantity. Using the Lyman 566gr P-H Minie' with it's small cavity, if I used straight Bore Butter, I can shoot almost all day. A similar bullet I have is the Raphine 580gr Pritchit. If I use Crisco with these I'll get off maybe 5 shots or so before the slug becomes tough to run home and accuracy sours. You want the bullet to run down the barrel with a light smooth effort of the ramrod to end up with consistant pressure on the charge.
On the other hand, using the Lee 505 traditional Minie' with it's generous cavity I CAN use Crisco and shoot for a long time. I've reached a compromise of sorts by streatching out the expensive Bore Butter with cheap Crisco. This normally works well until I reach the point where I have to scrap the breechface. Since these rifled Muskets operate at comparatively low pressure, you WILL get some fouling on the breech face which is cumulative (SP?). It builds up which will affect ignition.
This lube wierdness may be due to the Enfield's bore form. Friend Bob has an original London Armory P53 3 band Enfield amonge others. It has 3 lands/grooves of progressive depth but a twist of 78". He seems to be able to get by with Crisco regardless. One day we took turns loading (Lee 505gr, 45gr 3F) and shooting that thing at the 200 meter gong, and it got HOT! Misses were very rare indeed, and it loaded easy and smooth for what must have been close to 50 rounds. Anyway, it was a bunch of shooting. We quit when he ran out of caps.
There are lots of superb lubes out there. I just mentioned Bore Butter because that's what I started with and it has worked really well for me. Other friends use Young Country, Ox Yoke, or Blue and Gray with great results.
.............Rick
