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Post by Bullshop on Nov 2, 2018 15:54:33 GMT -7
For nearly three decades I have lusted for one of these 45 caliber quick twist long range muzzle loading target rifles. This week the planetary alignment must have been in a rare state because I have been blessed with my long awaited desire. Now having one in hand I can see first hand that they are well made quality rifles. Until now I have never had an opportunity to fire one of these rifles but have done much study on the use and treatment of these rifles with a thorough bread attitude. For the past decade these rifles have dominated the international long range muzzle loader competition and have set world records. This very type of rifle is what The Irish national team used against the American team at the original Creedmoor match on Long Island NY. The Irish team competing against Sharps and Rollingblock rifles specially made for this match lost by only one bull when a member of the Irish team fired one of his score shots on the wrong target. It was a very close match and by the thinnest of margins the cartridge rifles won over the muzzle loading rifles. From that point forward the muzzle loading rifle began to fall from favor with long range competitors in favor of the breach loading cartridge rifles. Still though for quite some time some felt that muzzle loading the bullet even in breach loading cartridge rifles was still more accurate for a couple reasons but eventually even this type of loading fell from favor to the breach seated bullet ahead of a charged cartridge and then to the fixed cartridge. It seems the older I get the more I appreciate doing things the old ways as well as not being in a hurry. Loading these rifles certainly teaches patience and an appreciation for moving along at a sedate pace. In my research on the loading of these rifles I found someone stating that even though this rifle is called a .451" the actual bullet diameter needed is .448" and I quickly found this to be true with my rifle. Not yet having a .448" bullet sizer but wanting to try shooting the rifle I made up some long range type 550gn bullets in pure lead at .450" diameter. I quickly discovered that .450" is too tight and coupled with pure lead bullets is a poor combination. The .450" being too tight and the pure lead being too soft for the fit the bullet noses are being deformed in fully seating the bullets to the powder. Next because my old RCBS 44-370 mold for 11mm rifles drops its bullets right at .448" diameter I thought to give those a try. I ran those through a .450" lube die to lube them with our NASA lube for black powder and fired them with a charge of 70gn volume of 2013 vintage KIK FFG powder sparked by a CCI #11 magnum primer. I am fairly well please with the results of my first outing with my newly acquired Gibbs rifle. I will have Tina post some pictures I took as things progressed. Each change of bullet or bullet diameter is marked on the target. At the very end wanting still to try the long range spitzer bullet I ran some through the closest die I have to the .448" the rifle wants at .446" . This diameter at .446" had the bullets dropping to the powder nearly of their own weight. Even with such a loose fit they did respectably well as you can see on the target. That is how the first outing went and Lord willing I hope there will be many more in my learning curve to perfection with this rifle that I so long have desired and now having am well pleased with. |
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Post by Bullshop on Nov 2, 2018 17:53:09 GMT -7
Likely as I hone in on what the gun likes I should as well hone in on my excuse list for my failures. I forgot to mention earlier my excuse for the large vertical spread in the group in the black bull. When new these guns came with a set of 15 different front sight inserts including different size post, pin head, and spertures which I did not receive with the rifle.
As purchased this rifle came with a single insert in the front sight a thin post. As a younger man I was once able to shoot well with the post front sight but with me current vision I have difficulty seeing clearly when the black post is at the same position on the black bull for each shot. Because of this vision issue I tend to string my shots vertically about twice as much as horizontally.
I feel/hope that when I can find some aperture inserts to fit this front sight my vertical stringing will be reduced by a substantial amount.
Now then that right there is about as professional as an excuse can be.
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Post by Bullshop on Nov 8, 2018 10:06:24 GMT -7
Trying to evaluate what molds we have in stock that will work for the .448" bore of this Gibbs rifle and am not finding too many choices. I have a .448" sizer die ordered but that will be another month or more due to their turn around time on custom orders. OH BTW the place that I have discovered that will supply custom bullet sizer dies either push through type or lube type is Philip E Siess at www.ssfirearms.com My first order arrived here within three days of placing the order but he said that the .518" die was a stock item. Non stocked items are estimated at five weeks to delivery. My need of a .230" and .448" were none stocked sizes so I will wait. About the molds I have on hand that will work without diameter reduction are few. The RCBS 44-370 is perfect dropping in pure lead at 410gn and .448" diameter. This will be an excellent hunting or mid range target bullet but due to its fairly wide flat nose design lacks aerodynamic efficiency for longer ranges than perhaps about 300 yards for top accuracy potential in the Gibbs rifle. Another possibility is our Kal-Tool adjustable weight paper patch mold intended to patch to 45 caliber bore diameter at .451". As cast diameter is .444" diameter at the base of this tapered design. This one I am sure can be made to shoot in the Gibbs but perhaps not without the .448" sizer. The as cast diameter is too small and the patched diameter even with 9lb. onion skin is a wee bit too large to seat easily down the bore. While waiting for the .448" die I may have to run some of those through our .446" just to see how they want to behave weather they show potential at .002" under bore or not. If yes we may have a winner there for a long range bullet when sized properly. I believe the PP was the dominant type of bullet used by the Irish team at the first international match at the Creedmoor range in 1874. One little tidbit of potentially useful information I picked up in researching the equipment used by the Irish team for both the matches they fired against the US team is that there was reference made to the use of a hardened ball rather than a soft pure lead ball. The "BALL" reference was a hold over from the smooth bore era in that all projectiles were a ball and even after the acceptance of rifled barrels the projectile BULLET was still referred to as the ball. Anyway that little hint as to what was being used to achieve cutting edge accuracy at long range with the Rigby 451 caliber rifles being used by the top world competitors of the day may indeed be a vary helpful tip in my personal quest for same. By hardened I am sure they were no where near what we consider today as a hard cast bullet but going on researched information on the subject my best guess is that they were using a binary lead/tin alloy of between 16/1 and 30/1 so my efforts will be aimed at that hardness alloy range once I feel I have all other loading techniques and procedures in line. This whole process is very time consuming but that my friends is the beauty of it to enjoy every minute of the process to achieving the goal. Lord willing and all goes well through out the winter I hope to shoot this rifle at the second annual Billy Dixon shoot and achieve that immensely satisfying metallic ding on the 1500 yard steel buffalo next year. See yall there ! |
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Post by Bullshop on Nov 10, 2018 16:50:03 GMT -7
On my day off from work today I took some time to add to my learning curve with the Gibbs rifle. The extent of my learning curve with this rifle so far is not much more than a dot on a page but I am gaining. Though the weather today was on the brutal side with snow blowing from a cold north wind I managed a dozen or so shots before my cold bare hands just could no longer perform the necessary loading procedures. Today I wanted to try the Kal-tool paper patch bullet but lacking the .448" sizer die could not use a conventional double wrap of the paper patch. I had a batch of the Kal-tool bullets from when I had the mold set to drop a 500gn bullet for the slightly slower 1/20" twist in the 45-90 Sharps I was shooting for the Billy Dixon shoot. The Gibbs has a 1/18" twist so will handle this bullet at 550+ gn but I already had these at 500gn so used up what I had. This batch of bullets was cast in our standard soft alloy at 98% lead to 2% antimony at BHN-9. This alloy is about the same hardness as 30 to 1 lead to tin and should be about the same hardness as what was originally used for these rifles as I have discovered. Measuring the diameter of the bullets I had on hand I found them to be .444" and not the .446" I had thought they were. Still even at .444" diameter and lacking a .448" sizer patching in the usual fashion with a 9lb onion skin paper that mics .002" thick a conventional double wrap patch would yield a patched diameter of .452" which is too tight a fit to seat in this rifle. For this reason I decided to try a more unconventional patching method called the Chase patch or cross patch. For this I cut the patch material into strips that are .25" x 2.5" With this method of patching the patched bullet diameter is only gains 2 time the patch thickness where the double rolled patch gains 4 times the patch thickness. Are you with me on this? The bullet diameter at .444" plus two times the patch thickness at .002" equals a patched bullet diameter right at the magic number at .448" diameter. The picture of the target shows about average accuracy I was getting at 100 yards which is not bad but certainly not good enough for long range shooting. This is a good start though and certainly shows promise for this bullet in this rifle. I think for my next act with this bullet I will adjust the mold to drop about a 550gn bullet which should be more compatible with the 1/18" twist rate. I think this will come together nicely as I acquire the tools needed and better weather permits. I suspect also that I need a new nipple as this one seems to be a bit on the harsh side letting a lot of fire through. From what I am learning for best and sustained accuracy I should be using a platinum lined nipple. Also please note the round group on target minus the vertical stringing this likely due to the fact that I found in my stash of goodies I had a complete set of aperture inserts that fit the Gibbs front sight. Todays shooting was done with an appropriately sized aperture sight so seems to have helped with the vertical stringing I got on the first try with the post front sight thus putting an end to a perfectly good excuse. Shoot and learn shoot and learn !!! |
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Post by missionary on Nov 10, 2018 17:39:20 GMT -7
Howdy Dan This is an interesting read. I find it to be as procedure intense as any attempt to find the ultimate accuracy potential of any cartridge rifle.
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Post by Bullshop on Nov 10, 2018 20:58:05 GMT -7
You are most certainly right about that Mike. The common denominator to accuracy with any rifle though is consistency.
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Post by Bullshop on Jul 5, 2019 16:59:59 GMT -7
Today we had a most pleasing experience with the Pedersoli Gibbs 451 rifle. I have not had much time to invest in getting this rifle to shoot to its full potential but todays experience has perhaps given me a glimpse at its capability. It has shot well for me with the few different bullets tried in it but nothing great. Since these guns were originally designed for long range precision shooting I have been hoping to find a bullet design that is up to the task. Doing a little research has shown that just as with long range BPCR shooting paper patch bullets long and heavy for caliber seem to dominate in competition. I did try a couple different paper patch designs in this rifle and though results were far better than disappointing still nothing has stood out as shooting exceptionally good , just average. That may have changed today. Today I tried a totally different approach in bullet prep. Since The Bullshop is again moving slowly to add some powder coated bullets to our inventory I had an "" I wonder what would happen "" moment about powder coating a paper patch bullet design. I had some bullets cast in a Tom Ballard mold in a BHN-9 alloy so set about coating them in a transparent copper coating. The Pedersoli Gibbs 451 as I discovered with my rifle from tips from others shooting the same rifle actually uses a .448" diameter bullet. Larger diameters require too much pressure on the loading rod and tends to deform the soft bullets A bullet diameter of .448" seats with just the weight of the rod. The bullet design is a spitzer nose with cup base and slight taper from base to ogive. After coating they mic about .451/.452" diameter at the base and are then run through a .448" nose first type push through die. After they are sized they have a parallel section at .448" for about 2/3 the bullet length then a gentle taper to the ogive. Really not knowing what to expect for results but hoping they would do well I shot a four shot string. The first shot from a clean cold barrel went about 2" high and left of the following three shots that went into one hole. I know the first shot was the high shot because I was not sure of my 100 yard sight setting so walked to the target to be sure I was on paper. I then returned to the bench and fired the next three consecutive shots into one raged hole. When I approached the target to check the results and as I saw the group my legs may have gotten a little wobbly. I was so pleased to see that one fat hole but could not stand to shoot more into the same group. As it turned out with a new target up the next two shots also went into one hole or maybe more properly said 1 1/2 hole and a third just slightly right but not cutting the same hole. My load was shooting 70gn volume of 2012 vintage KIK FFG powder with a CCI# 11 magnum cap. The load chronographed at 1130 fps average with extreme spread in the teens. This should make a wonderful long range load with this rifle. The mold these bullets are cast in is made by Tom Ballard and is adjustable for weight. With the BHN-9 alloy used it drops a 510gn bullet. Talking to others shooting these rifles in competition I found that PP bullet as heavy as 550gn have been tried but not bettering bullets at about 520 to 530gn. This bullet at 510gn mated with the 1/18" twist of the Pedersoli rifle should keep bullets spinning point on to as far as my sights will allow. Right after the second group fired the rain came and I had to quickly shut down and get my equipment put away and that ended the days shooting. If the good Lord allows me a next time to shoot this rifle I will have high hopes that I am on track to learning just what this rifle can do if I listen to what its trying to show me. You simply can not force a thoroughbred to perform you can only allow it the freedom to do so! BTW if you click on the image it will enlarge. Attachments:
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Post by missionary on Jul 6, 2019 12:23:33 GMT -7
Howdy Dan
That is a fine group ! Looks like you have taken a big step in the right direction.
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