Replica Arms Mississippi rifle

[Horace Patootie]

I just bought this 58 Cal. Rifle. Question is : round ball or Minie for this gun. It is a beautiful gun.

Thanks!
William Mathews

[David Fox]

Re: Replica Arms Mississippi rifle

If it's .58 calibre, one presumes its rifling rate is cut for the minie

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Replica Arms Mississippi rifle

Hallo!

Correct...

IIRC, Replica Arms was an El Paso TX importer buisness that moved to Marietta, OH in 1965. They were bought out by the main competitor Navy Arm in 1973 who continued to sell Italian imports with the Replica Arms' logo and name but the Navy Arms' Ridgefield NJ location stamp.

After having pioneered black powder arms, with the 1957ish reelase of the "Zouave," the Italians capitalized with the same machinery to make the "Mississippi' using the same basic barrel set up and .58ish rifling.

The original unaltered M1841 rifle used a cartridge that continued a patched round ball. That was largely dropped when the "Minie" ball was adopted in 1855, and many of the older M1841's were used in .54 or bored to .58 and used the Minie ball.

About 2006, Navy Arms made some business model changes and "created a line of imports" under the umbrella of the old "Replica Arms" name once again.

Curt

[Horace Patootie]

Re: Replica Arms Mississippi rifle

Thanks to all for the info ! Minie ball it shall be !

William Mathews

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Replica Arms Mississippi rifle

Hallo!

Some lads do shoot patched round ball out of them, but the twist is not right for them. They may sometimes vary a tad from true .580, but my brother-in-law used to shoot a .575 round ball with .015 pathching in his.

Curt