1:48 or 1:65 twist

The 1 in 48 is compromise twist, TC used it on some of their stuff. It is supposed to work with bullet or ball. If you are looking to shoot round ball only go to a slower twist. I think you can do well by working up a load the faster twist likes. It's gonna take some time at the range to get it right. I generally start with a powder charge equal to bore size, .50 cal bore, 50 grains powder. Shoot a 3 shot group, bench rested, increase powder by 5 grains, repeat until you get the smallest group. This is your accuracy load. Keep going until the group starts to open up. This will be the maximum accuracy load. As the barrel breaks in things might change a bit but once it settles in you should be good to go.

My 1:48 rifle shoots good groups.
I wouldn't let it be a deal-breaker.

IIRC the original Hawken rifles had a 1 in 48".

I guess that they didn't know any better, or were ahead of their time.

arcticap said:

IIRC the original Hawken rifles had a 1 in 48".

I guess that they didn't know any better, or were ahead of their time.

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I was about to point out the same thing. T/C certainly didn’t come up with it.

My preference would be the slower twist but the 1 in 48 would be pretty tempting for $150 less.
The 1 in 65 at Cabela's is a 54 cal. and, for a patch and ball gun, would be worth the extra $150 IMO.

My experience runs over the past fifty years and includes guns of the following calibers/twist rates: 30/36", 40/48", 45/48", 45/66", 50/48", 50/66", 54/48", 58/72". Now, accuracy: each and every one of them shot well enough to kill game, win matches (local, state, and national level) with loads tailored to that gun. The 45/66" even shot maxi balls well. A 54/48" Renegade put ten shots off the bench into 2 1/2" at fifty yards....with alternating round balls and maxis. My 72" twist Numrich musket barrel shot round balls well enough to set a new fifty yard national record at Friendship waaaay back. Unfortunately, it only stood for half a year. Like Farmer, I sure wouldn't let the twist rate be a deal breaker.
The 1 in 28" twist rates have been a bust for me so far with the inlines and round balls. I have found also that the stouter loads seem more accurate in slower twists with round balls.

1:48 twist is an excellent twist. Everything from patched round ball, to a huge 460gr conical will shoot from it. Considering that it is a pedersoli, it will have much deeper rifling and will really do well with a patched round ball. Conicals may be iffy unless you use a wad. A conical can only fill up the rifling so much and once you get deeper than .004" ( maybe a little more ) the conical starts having issues filling up the bore and sealing up.

All my rifles are 1:48 twist and currently shoot round balls, real conicals, hornady great plains conical and maxi balls with excellent accuracy.

The only advantage of a slow 1 in 66" twist rifling is with heavy hunting charges and round ball. A 1 in 48 twist barrel will shoot just as accurately with ordinary moderate loads using patched round ball. The Hawken Brothers rifled ALL their rifles 1 in 48". Muzzle loading rifle competitors often choose slower twist rifling in part because they will be shooting at longer range and the extra velocity of a stiff charge helps with flatter trajectory and wind resistance. An advantage of the 1 in 48 inch twist is it is usually MORE accurate when mild loads are used, saving powder and having less fouling and recoil, An added advantage is being able to heavier shoot conical bullets.

My TC .50s shoot round balls very accurately up to about 75gr charges...as said above the 1:48 is only a real disadvantage if you wish to shoot heavier loads behind RBs.

If 45-ish/50 and under, the faster twist OK.
For the 54 you wanted -- get the slow twist

Check this out
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/thr-caplock-rifle-club.819511/page-2#post-10527133

90gr 3fg pyrodex shoots wonderful in mine at 100 yards. Just shoots about 6" higher than its normal 70gr charge, which is understandable.

Lets Clear Up Some Myths...
1:48 twist rate was marketed by TC as good for both round ball and conical, but it was not a compromise of any sort. In fact it was very popular many decades before the Minie ball came into use, which was the first widely used conical.
1:48 twist may shoot a conical well..., it may not...it may shoot one or more designs of conicals well, or it may shoot one and only one well. Depth and width of rifling and quality of machining of the rifling have a great deal to do with it. LUCKILY most modern barrels in 1:48 do shoot at least one conical design well.
SLOW twist rates do not necessarily fail to work for conicals. While a 1:60 twist rate may suck for flat based bullets like the TC Maxi-Ball or the Lee REAL..., shallow grooved, 1:78 twist rate works amazingly well in the 3-Band Enfield rifle, known for its sniper like accuracy.
Patched round ball will today, often shoot well with a heavy charge in a 1:48 barrel, or even a 1:24 twist barrel such as the Pedersoli Jaeger. When the grooves are thin as they often were in hand cut barrels, THEN you get the problems with the ball skipping with a stout load. Meaning something like 90+ grains in a .50 or larger.
So why the slower twist rate in the .54 and other calibers for patched round ball and heavy charges? AH there is more to recoil than the backward movement..., there is torque folks, and fast twist barrels with heavy loads were known as early as the first decade of the 19th century...when the British were developing the Baker Rifle, to "cause a disagreeable recoil". THAT plus marketing due to the knowledge that in some barrels the ball would skip..., while not realizing that modern equal rifling of lands and grooves being much better for patched round ball and skipping was unlikely.

LD

I have read the OPs post a couple of times and don't see where he said he was looking at a 54 caliber gun. If I had a choice between the 45,50 and 54 for shooting targets like the OP stated I would get the 45. But between the 50 and 54 I would get the 50. Paper targets are easy to kill.

While a 1:60 twist rate may suck for flat based bullets like the TC Maxi-Ball or the Lee REAL...,

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Please don't tell my Lyman GP rifle with its 1/60 twist that Lee REAL bullets won't shoot. It thinks they are candy and gobbles them up. Its even better with the Lee Improved Minnie.

I had a Blue Ridge in 50 caliber many years ago and my memory of it is very fond. I sold it because I didn't like the small buttstock on it. But i did just buy a Pedersoli Scout Carbine in 50 caliber. I have only had it out once to shoot with round balls. And as expected the 1/48 twist put them all on target at 50 yards off hand. Its a gun I am very proud to own. I have wanted one in 45 caliber for years but this one came along at half the price of new.

A 1/48 will shoot just as good as any twist out there. Save the money and buy it.

I put JDavis and FineFigure together to come up w/ the Cabelas 54.
Notwithstanding, the slower twists have always outperformed the faster twists for my several heavy-caliber BP/PB rifles.

FWIW: Pedersoli/Hawkens run shallow rifling, so I've always run thin (10-12thou twill/muslin) patch to good effect w/ the 45.
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5987619&postcount=5
Thin patch would appreciate slower twist as loads become stouter w/ the heavier 54

arcticap said:

IIRC the original Hawken rifles had a 1 in 48".

I guess that they didn't know any better, or were ahead of their time.

Click to expand...

Their rifling machine wasn't capable of any other twist. There's a little anecdotal evidence of them selling some sort of slug mold. There's a brief mention of it in "Wah-Wah-To-Yah and the Taos Trail"; a trapper named Louy Hatcher was speaking about another trapper's Hawken and its "long, pointy bullets." 1:48 might stabilize such a slug, but I'll bet few trappers would see the need to waste lead on casting slugs vs. balls when balls were pretty capable already.

Here's a post with photos about a German Roe deer hunter and another's PRB success with a Traditions .50 Deerhunter 1 in 48", 24" barrel.--->>> https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...tion-flintlock-150-yards.376843/#post-4690754

Those Roe deer look like they are about the same size as the little whitetail I killed last friday. My first 30-30 kill with a winchester and peep sights. But I bet my deer didn't weigh 60 pounds. Should be good eating though.

I never understood the hate for 1 in 48".
My TC New Englander, after about 100 shots, quit vertically stringing.
I put three, in a cloverleaf, in the X ( NRA bullseye target)............off the bench, iron sighted..............at 100 yards.
Man I wish I didn't lose that target in one of my moves.
Of course I shot my deer at less than 50 yards, running. LOL......got the bullet from offside shoulder, under the hide.

Did have a Renegade that was crap, as the tang/hook didn't seat right. Glass bedded and worn in.........it might have done better than the NE.
I dunno, I killed a couple deer with it.......50 yards walking, 50 yards bedded and one at 178 yards quartering away (hit at onside paunch/hip fold and exited opp side windpipe). I sold it to a coworker............who a yr later finally shot it.

Hunted me down in the plant and said "Holy Cow! Best shooting MZ I ever saw".
Uh, told him it was a good one.

I got the gun, like new, for a good price, because a bud had a tang sight on it and missed an elk.
Proly due to the funky stock inlet and poor hook,tang fit.
Me, I ran it w factory barrel sights.

Note: both of these guns did not have that $#@% QLA nonsense.

My Hawken Silver Elite does and I absolutely hate it. Stainless, and that QLA............dunno if one of them, the combination, or something else.....................that gun was a PITA to get it to shoot just decent.

It'd throw fliers now and then.

It seemed to behave after a few dozen shots, polishing the bore, and going to musket cap (running T7 FFg equiv last I shot it).
Conicals and sabots all it got.
Shot OK, if excluding the fliers.
But a shot 6" left at 50.........who knows when, from the bench...............was pretty darn annoying.
Kinda soured me on BP............that and the fact the stock didn't fit me and bashed the crap out of my jaw.

Buddies ran TC, roundball, 50's and 54's. Everybody ran swaged stuff. And had good accuracy.
A TC that didn't shoot was kind of an oddity back in the 80's.

My .50 cals always ran 100gr w a roundball, .495 swaged w thick cotton patch.
Target...........just spit patched.
Quickloads got a light coating of grease.
All 2nd shots afield were for coup de grace so dunno if the grease caused impact differences from reg zero............I was pretty close LOL

Kinda miss that New Englander. Cheap gun but man it shot.
Always used the set trigger on the Hawken and Renegades.
Even on a quick shot (jumped a deer).
The single trigger on my NE got some polishing, wasn't super good, but was decent.
The single trigger comversion to a Renegade, proly should have done that mod.
Didn't Ashland sell some special run TC stuff made for them like that way back?

We just assumed, after some experience, that a new TC running roundball needed 100 shots to settle down.
My NE before shot in, would string em 6 or 7 inches vertically at 50 yards.
I was pretty worried initially, but then it just started laserbeaming em in there.
Shoot a box of Hornady's and then relax.
Of course 100 shots to wear one in took a while LOL.
That's what summer is for

i am a roundball only shooter and I like the slower twist rate so for me if it was me buyin it I would rather have the slower twist! but that's just me and to spice it up more I prefer flintlocks only!