Historical muzzleloader questions

[rnbra-shooter]

Hi guys, the only black powder shooting I've ever done is .45/70 BPCR. I had a couple of questions that I just can't seem to figure out, I'm sure someone here would know the answer off the top of their head.

1 - in historical smoothbore roundball muskets, how was the loading done? Was anything placed between the powder charge and the ball? Was anything placed on top of the ball? What I was wondering was how loose/tight the fit between the ball and the bore was, and how the ball was kept in place between the time it was loaded and the time it was fired; I am assuming that somehow the ball was prevented from rolling around inside the bore, etc. After firing one shot, was there enough fouling in the barrel to hold a ball in place, or was the fit looser than that?

2 - the same question(s), for historical rifles using Minie balls.

Thanks!

 

[tula]

the military load was a paper cartridge you first bite the end of the cartridge off then you pour in the powder then you rame the paper and ball down ontop of the powder prime and fire from doing lots of 18th century drills and volly firing I tell you that method sucks, I prefere loading it the way a civilian would load, in my brownbess I pour in 80 grs of FFg then place a linen patch soaked in bee's wax and tallow on the end of the barral and press a ball down on the patch so the patch makes a good snug fit around the ball against the inside of the bore, it should only fit snug anough that with some light pressure from my knife handle it starts down the bore, dont want it so tight you cant ram it home on the charge, it must be seated well on the powder strange things are known to happen if you dont, the resulting efect of an un seated ball can be a blown up or wallnuted barral (seen a few), anyways if you patch the ball like I explane above you'll get good hitting power and with practice accuracy.

 

[tula]

if you put anough bee's wax and tallow on your patchs like I do you'll find the fouling will stay soft and push down when you ram your next charge and blow out when you fire....if theres not anough I find you have to run a spit patch down the bore to clear the fouling if you dont you'll get your ball jam'ed part way down the barral and thats not safe to shoot.

 

[rnbra-shooter]

Thanks for the answers so far!

I'm assuming that the paper would be placed on top of the ball, right?

I can see how this would be fine for a military musket; any loss of accuracy from an over-shot bit of paper as it tries to get out of the way when it clears the muzzle, is not likely to be meaningful.

What about for a Minie ball? What would the standard practice have been to hold one of those in place?

 

[tiriaq]

As mentionned, the Bess was loaded with the ball in the paper, the paper held the ball in place. For guard duty, a naked ball was used - it was a very loose fit, so the musket could be easily unloaded by pointing the muzzle down. "Running ball".
An Enfield rifled musket was loaded by opening the cartridge, dumping the powder, reversing the cartridge, inserting the bullet, tearing the excess paper off, then ramming. The Enfield cartridge was made with the bullet in a separate paper patch, with the bullet in the cartridge back end out, the end of the cartridge lubricated. The bullet was smooth, not grooved, the lubricant was in the paper jacket.
In US service, the grooved bullet was lubricated, and was in the cartridge pointed end out. Powder was dumped, bullet removed, and rammed naked.

 

[Smokepole]

If you ask 10 people how to load a muzzleloader you will get several different answers.
Basicly, a smoothbore musket is loaded with a charge of powder, then some type of wad, either paper from the cartridge or pre-cut card wad. Next, either a nearly bore sized ball or a slightly undersized ball wrapped in a cloth patch. If no patch is used, another wad over the ball will keep it in place.

A minie ball (bullet) is loaded in a rifled barrel. It fits very tightly, so no wad is needed to hold it in place.

 

[mooncoon]

A minie ball (bullet) is loaded in a rifled barrel. It fits very tightly, so no wad is needed to hold it in place.

In my original P53, the mini is a loose fit and held in place by the lube on the bullet.
Also in military use, the pan was primed with part of the charge in the paper cartridge before the rest of the powder was poured down the barrel. I also think that there were buck and ball loads for the bess with 3 buckshot beneath a roundball and the whole works held in place with the remains of the paper cartridge. The balls were considerably undersize to fascilitate rapid loading.

No one seems to have mentioned smooth rifles which were loaded with with a patched round ball similar to a rifled gun. They were supposed to have bee fairly common in the 1700s. Even in the percussion era, at least some of the really large (elephant size) rifles were smooth bored rather than rifled.

cheers mooncoon