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Interesting, I had thought the Full Patch BP load produced 1,950fps - memories sometimes get fuzzy. I read about the BP load some 35 to 40 years ago - my excuse for poor memory.

A 50gr. to 55gr. charge, about all you could get into the case today using a drop tube & then compressing the powder, might give 1,300fps with a 215gr. cast or jacketed, maybe a bit more - about like a .32/40 with a 170gr. cast bullet and 40gr. It will be interesting to see what speeds are actually produced. Mine quoted, are just a guess.

Not sure about their claim to a 450gr. bullet for the British Muzzle Loading "Musket". The Pritchert Bullet that their military used in the .58 Enfields were 560gr., with a box-wood plug in the hollow base. The rifle models of 1863, the lst Enfield, a short 24" barreled rifle may have used the lighter bullet - THAT I do not know. The 2 previous Enfields, the 3-band 1853 (39" bl) and 2-band 1858 (32"bl) used the heavier Pritchert bullet.

Contrary to that link, those Enfield ML's were not MUSKETS, they were rifles - nor were they "rifled" muskets. They are & were rifles - as originally made - never being a musket (smoothbore)to start with. They pretty much replaced the long outdated Bess, but no Bess parts were used on them.

Rifled muskets were muskets originally, as in some years such as 1822 and 1842 in particular - originally .69 cal. muskets, the 22 a flintlock and the 42, the last cap-lock musket and maybe some other US muskets still having "enough barrel wall thickness for rifling. Those were subsequently rifled (of .008" progressive depth, (but true bore), from muzzle to breech, like the British Enfields) under govt. contract so they'd shoot an "issued" hollow based "Minnie 'Ball' of 730gr. weight using 70gr. of powder with greater accuracy & longer range than the muskets originally could handle - thus THOSE are/were "rifled" muskets.

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Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

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