- Joined
- Jan 7, 2020
- Messages
- 2,262
- Reaction score
- 5,881
I have learned stubbornly a lot more about cut rifle versus button rifle over the last few years, from a lot of centerfire experience I was very aware of the accuracy potential of both, with most of the more accurate barrels I had experience with being cut rifle, I had some wonderful semi-custom sporter builds on Mausers with button rifle barrels, Douglas,Wilson shilen, Etc that were phenomenal shooters. Since I never sized a bullet and pushed it through any of those barrels I never had an awareness of the lack of uniformity that probably existed on many of them in particular the button rifle.
The first four or five years of my muzzle loading experience were mainly with plastic loads and most of those loads were in a 28 twist 50 cal you realize in those cheaper break action rifles when you're pushing a Sabot load through it that there are often parts of the barrel usually a quarter, sometimes even a half, that have a tite or a loose spot and then again sometimes you find that tight or loose spot smaller at the muzzle or at the bottom beside the powder column and the bullet where it seats. It didn't take long to realize the plastic was either filling in or shrinking a little bit where it needed to which made the rifle shoot and many times very accurately. I have realized that many of my button rifle barrels struggle shooting a size bullet not so much because of the type of rifling but more because of the lack of consistent bore tolerance, it just makes sense if that bore is uneven that the plastic is going to be a crutch for that and that's a good thing, but if you think about it at the same time it allows the industry to give us a lot of substandard barrels that we find ways to make shoot, I've mentioned it before that shouldn't be that way.
This is something else I have learned and others may not think it's worth considering, I would not have a rifle that I'm going to shoot a size bullet that has any type of fluting done to it and I would be very careful to learn and know how that Barrel had been tapered from whoever the barrel Builder was which that's not hard information to learn, the reason why I say this I've had three different snazzy spiral fluted barrels and a couple of other fluted barrels and one barrel that the Muzzleloader rifle Builder tapered on a CNC machine all of these barrels had relaxed bores where the fluting started a couple of them were so bad that they had to be rejected, if I purchase the barrel perhaps it had very very shallow aesthetic fluting I might consider that, but any type of fluting on the barrel that actually took Barrel weight off there is no way I would have that done on a barrel I'm sizing bullets for if it's a button rifle barrel I would bet you have relaxed your bore ,I've seen it on every button rifle barrel I've had cut on so far perhaps you can do types of fluting aesthetically on a cut rifle barrel but I would not have it done on a muzzle loading button rifle barrel that's just me. And now to the point if I were building a 40 cal or I was a company producing a 40 cal it would have nothing but a cut rifle barrel on it since there's no sabot to heal a bad button rifle barrel,, if you're 40 cal new Muzzleloader does not have an even bore to me there's not much you can do about it but eat it and to me expecting a button rifle barrel to be uniform is a 50/50 roll of the dice why spend big money and not get a decent Barrel if a rifles bullets are primarily going to all be sized for bore then that bore should be almost air gauge Worthy! Or I guess you could always put some of those 40 cal CVA bullets in it with the fill in plastic skirt,, I don't think so.
The first four or five years of my muzzle loading experience were mainly with plastic loads and most of those loads were in a 28 twist 50 cal you realize in those cheaper break action rifles when you're pushing a Sabot load through it that there are often parts of the barrel usually a quarter, sometimes even a half, that have a tite or a loose spot and then again sometimes you find that tight or loose spot smaller at the muzzle or at the bottom beside the powder column and the bullet where it seats. It didn't take long to realize the plastic was either filling in or shrinking a little bit where it needed to which made the rifle shoot and many times very accurately. I have realized that many of my button rifle barrels struggle shooting a size bullet not so much because of the type of rifling but more because of the lack of consistent bore tolerance, it just makes sense if that bore is uneven that the plastic is going to be a crutch for that and that's a good thing, but if you think about it at the same time it allows the industry to give us a lot of substandard barrels that we find ways to make shoot, I've mentioned it before that shouldn't be that way.
This is something else I have learned and others may not think it's worth considering, I would not have a rifle that I'm going to shoot a size bullet that has any type of fluting done to it and I would be very careful to learn and know how that Barrel had been tapered from whoever the barrel Builder was which that's not hard information to learn, the reason why I say this I've had three different snazzy spiral fluted barrels and a couple of other fluted barrels and one barrel that the Muzzleloader rifle Builder tapered on a CNC machine all of these barrels had relaxed bores where the fluting started a couple of them were so bad that they had to be rejected, if I purchase the barrel perhaps it had very very shallow aesthetic fluting I might consider that, but any type of fluting on the barrel that actually took Barrel weight off there is no way I would have that done on a barrel I'm sizing bullets for if it's a button rifle barrel I would bet you have relaxed your bore ,I've seen it on every button rifle barrel I've had cut on so far perhaps you can do types of fluting aesthetically on a cut rifle barrel but I would not have it done on a muzzle loading button rifle barrel that's just me. And now to the point if I were building a 40 cal or I was a company producing a 40 cal it would have nothing but a cut rifle barrel on it since there's no sabot to heal a bad button rifle barrel,, if you're 40 cal new Muzzleloader does not have an even bore to me there's not much you can do about it but eat it and to me expecting a button rifle barrel to be uniform is a 50/50 roll of the dice why spend big money and not get a decent Barrel if a rifles bullets are primarily going to all be sized for bore then that bore should be almost air gauge Worthy! Or I guess you could always put some of those 40 cal CVA bullets in it with the fill in plastic skirt,, I don't think so.
