Taken from the article, "Accuracy of the Muzzleloading Rifle" by Walter M. Cline and published in the July 1935 issue of the American Rifleman.
This is an extremely interesting article.
The author used 10 original muzzleloading rifles which were designed for target shooting. The lightest rifle weighed 11 pounds! Some neared 20 pounds. These were very finely made rifles, presumably dating from the 1870s or before and made to wring the absolute best accuracy from a patched, round ball.
There's a lot of fodder for argument and concurrence in his statements. Anyone care to offer their own comments?
Here's what Mr. Cline has to say:
"The powder residue is continually changing the shape of the powder chamber, and unless the rifle is wiped out carefully, this has an effect upon accuracy.
"We wiped the bore carefully after each shot, being sure that the wiping rag reached to the bottom of all the grooves. In wiping, the rag is moistened with either saliva or water, and care taken to see that is follows the grooves.
"The rag should be pushed down very slowly, so that the fouling will be moistened. After reaching the breech it is allowed to remain a minute or more, so that the powder residue in the chamber will be absorbed by the rag., after which it is carefully removed.
"The powder fouling in the grooves that was moistened as the rag was pushed down, comes out very readily as the wiping rod is removed. The fouling on the rag is wiped off and the rag then used to wipe the bore clean.
It is important that one be careful to wipe the barrel the same each time; in fact this is one of the most important points in using a muzzle-loader."
Other points of interest:
A. "We tried seating the bullet with the neck or sprue down, as well as up, but could see no difference in accuracy."
B. "Now as to bullet size, the old rule still holds, and a bullet that will slide down the barrel under the weight of the ramrod is not far from being right. The tightness of the (round) bullet with patch should be such as to require from 18 to 20 pounds pressure to seat the bullet on the powder."
C. "The patch should fill the grooves, and we checked this by unbreeching the barrel and then pushing patched bullets through, varying the thickness of patch until the imprint of the grooves showed that the patch was filling them to the bottom."
D. Apparently, Mr. Cline used nothing but saliva as a patch lubricant. I found no reference to other lubricants. His patch material was linen, .015 inches thick.
E. "In this test, we used both peep sights and telescopes and found that there was very little difference between the two at 50 yards, the peep sight giving just as good groups as the telescope."
F. "
a very slightly tapered or choked bore gave the best accuracy. However, the bore should be but .001 (inch) or less larger at the breech than at the muzzle. For if too large it will cause the patch to slip, which is one of the principal causes of off shots, and is caused by the fouling which sometimes accumulates at the breech."
G. "The great question as to whether modern tools and machinery can build a better muzzle-loading rifle than be the old methods, has been settled in our minds; the answer being most emphatically No! Modern machinery, gas welding and electric furnaces can fashion the old tools more easily, and perhaps better, than can the old hand methods. But the old tools, handled in the old way, are still supreme
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