My Euroarms adventure

[Dave951]

So my dad, brother and I all were reenactors back in the day and we all carried the ubiquitous P53 Euroarms Enfields that many reenactors carried in Confederate units. Fast forward to current times, dad and I now are on a North South Skirmimsh Team and we don't shoot blanks, in fact we shoot Civil War weapons live for score including artillery.

So in my journey in the NSSA, I started to try to get my P53 to shoot accurately enough to be competitive. After burning beaucoup powder, lead and caps, nothing worked remotely well enough to be effective so I liquidated it and bought a repro Colt Contract Springfield 2 band, and yeah it shoots pretty good. Dad, on the other hand, insisted we get his P53 to shoot. I've spent the better part of a year fiddling with it and as of last week, was on my last nerve with it. Brother has no interest in the NSSA at this time and his P53 was sitting in a closet.

After the last failed experiment, I told dad, there's one more thing to try before you're getting a new barrel or musket and that was a mix n match with brother's musket. Dad's lock is has a great trigger so I decided to try swapping dad's lock into brother's P53 (brothers' lock trigger pull was 18lbs!). Made up a batch of ammo with Rapine "Trashcan" (gigantic minie wadcutters) set to various powder charge levels and off to the range we went. (We were also dialing in his 1858 Smith carbine too). Well faith and begorrah laddie, we had a winner. With the crappy battle sights set up for a socket bayonet, the beast shot to point of aim at 50 yards in a 2in group and that's plenty good enough to be very competitive in NSSA for 50yd events. At 100yds, with the crappy battle sights, we got groups in the 5-6in range and they could be tightened up a bit with some sight work. Oh yeah, I was happy dancing on the line after a year of frustration. Now I can go back to fine tuning my stuff. One other minie we tried was a copy of the original minie issued to most units. It shot into about the same group, but 6in high over point of aim. I'm not keen to do sight work 2 weeks out from Nationals, so Trashcan it is.

The Smith shot darn good as well. It's a Pietta repro and it shoots the 320gr bullet into about the same as the musket. Only issue we had with it was the sights need to be adjust a tad for windage, no big deal. All in all, a very successful day.

 

[bones92]

Glad to hear it. I'm curious why your dad's rifle-musket didn't shoot well.

I need to take the Parker Hale Pattern 1853 to the range sometime and see how it does. Sold off my others, assuming the PH will be all the P'53 I need.

 

[bones92]

And toddje is coming with me!

 

[Dave951]

Yeah, although mine's a Euro, right? And it's an 1861, not a '53.. but anyway, they all should shoot straight....?

Uhmm, not always. The actual bore size and twist rate will pretty much decide on accuracy. Case in point, I have a Navy Arms 1858 Smith. When they started producing them for Val, the first ones were pretty good. Then Luigi got into the vino and rifled about 1500 of them backwards. This gun has progressive depth rifling and backwards is a very, very bad thing. In progressive depth rifling, the breech end is larger than the muzzle so the bullet gets a "squeeze" going out. Imagine that being backwards, it won't group, more likely pattern. And that's exactly what happened with mine. A bore reline and it's all good now.

As for yours, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it shot about 12in high and maybe off to one side or the other.

Further news on the Enfield, we're using two different bullets, Rapine Trashcan and RCBS heavy minie. We changed lube and the groups tightened up a bit but are impacting a couple inches right at 50. Sight work will be done soon to make aiming more precise and to eliminate the windage error. I was surprised at what the lube changed but holy cow, it does a good job of keeping the fouling down and accuracy is even better. We can shoot 15+ minies with the last going down about as easy as the second.

The lube change also had a very beneficial effect with my 1861 Colt contract. The 2in group that it was shooting with the Trashcans is now 1in, for one very big ragged hole at 50. It shoots the heavy minie pretty well and we're going to do some experimenting with charge levels at 100 next.

If you're interested, we've got a group buy going on at NOE molds. It's now in the Last Call section of the forums. He makes some very high quality molds and the Hogdon minie is being done in 3 diameters and in up to a 4 cavity mold. Yeah, a 4 cavity 58cal minie ball mold.

 

[Dave951]

Glad to hear it. I'm curious why your dad's rifle-musket didn't shoot well.

I need to take the Parker Hale Pattern 1853 to the range sometime and see how it does. Sold off my others, assuming the PH will be all the P'53 I need.

There could be a number of reasons. Bore size was eliminated early on. I didn't do much with tang screw torque, but that can make a good shooting musket turn from a tack driver to a scatter gun. We're using just enough to keep the tang seated. Glass bedding is going to happen shortly to completely eliminate that issue. Barrel band contact can also monkey with accuracy. The front should be what feels like just a slip fit, the second, just tight enough to hold the barrel in the stock.

Lots of stuff goes into getting these puppies to shoot well, especially the spaghetti muskets. Parkers generally are manufactured to a much higher standard and consequently shoot much better out of the box. One of my team mates has a PH musketoon that shoots like a laser. You hold right, target gets whacked, every time. He's shooting the Hogdon minie with large base plug and only crisco for lube. I asked if he did any other experimentation, but like he said, with it shooting this well, why mess with it?

 

[bones92]

I have a Zouave replica with a Bill Large barrel I need to try out, as well. 7 or 8 grooves, not like the typical 3 groove rifle-musket.

 

[Dave951]

If you have a Zouave with a Large barrel, then odds on, it was a gun belonging to a NSSA member at one time. With the right sized minie, it should shoot very well.