Strange bore shape
 

Hi all,

I visited an antique arms display in Germany, and saw a strange thing: Most of the long arms (not sure if "rifle" is the right word) had hexagonal (perhaps octagonal) bore, with semi-circular grooves in the corners of the hexagon. See the crapy diagram.

Now, there where always weird ideas and configurations. So at first I thought this may be an experimental form of rifling. But then I noticed the same shape was on wheel locks, flint locks and cap locks. So this configuration lasted for handreds of years!

Does anyone know what is this?

BTW, the handguns had a normal round bore.

The bores were round...Those guns had been coned with a circular file to make loading a patched ball easier...

I was also a design feature which made the bore look larger than it was...

Probably was hexagonal. Some of the old target rifles had a hexagonal barrel. The WhitWorth rifles were well known for having hexagonal barrels. And were extremely accurate rifles.

You can go to Buffalo Arms and see the hexagonal bullet molds. My WhitWorth(replica) is not a hexagonal bore. But I have also seen reproductions with the hexagonal bore. Mine is a 3-band.

I have a real good friend who uses it as his Civil War rifle when he goes to the skirmishes. He has a blast at those re-enactments. They also shoot live rounds at some of the ones he goes to. And that is why he likes my WhitWorth. It is a shooter. I cast a bullet that is well over 400 grains for that .451 caliber rifle(can't remember the exact weight(too early)). Tom.