Italian reproduction rifle-muskets: the good, the bad, and the ugly truth about the rifling

The ugly truth is that Italian reproduction rifle-muskets don’t have the historic type of rifling that the originals had. Pedersoli, Chiappa, Armi Sport, etc., make reproduction Enfield and Springfield rifle-muskets with constant depth shallow groove broached rifling, while originals had progressive depth deep cut rifling.

Does it matter? Well, yes, at least it does matter if you want to shoot the historic ammo. The shallow rifling doesn’t stabilize the historic Minie bullet very well. Meanwhile the original progressive depth rifling was designed and perfected through elaborate tests to specifically fire the Minie type expanding bullet.