Re: Lock and Load (fwd)

["Brian B. Riley" <brianbr@together.net>]

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On 12/22/97 9:41 PM, Jim Choate (ravage@ssz.com)  passed this wisdom:

>As to the loading of the ball onto the gun-powder - you won't do it 
>the waydescribed above but once. The black powder will go off on 
>about the 3rd tapand you won't have the two hands it takes to load 
>a muzzle-loader. If you*ever* load a black powder be *absolutely 
>shure* that there is a ball pad between the gun powder and the 
>ball. It is *not* there for barrell sealingor some other silly 
>explanation - it's there to inhibit compressive explosion of the 
>black powder.

   It may indeed serve that purpose, but the patch does serve as a
sealant and when set up with the right lubricant it cleans the bore on
the way out. This gave birth to the expression "one shot clean" - done
right the bore is more or less always dirty from the last shot only as
that shot cleaned the residue of the prior shot out by it lubricated
patch. Civil war era muskets and later used a Minie ball, which was no
ball at all but a tapered projectile which had no patching at all,
just 5-700 grains (for a 58 cal musket, lighter for .45 and .50) of
pure soft lead with a dab of lubricant in the hollowed base.

>... Don't believe it, go down to the hardware orfeed 
>store and buy a small can of black powder. Then get a 3/4" pipe 
>andcap. Put only one or two flakes of the black powder on the 
>threads and thentighten with a pipe wrench (wear gloves, glasses, 
>and apron). After about a half turn or so you should hear a 
>distinct snapping sound. This is the blackpowder going off. This is 
>what will happen if black powder gets between theball and barrel 
>while you're tapping - and there's a *lot* more gunpowder than a 
>couple of flakes to take your hand (and your face if you're 
>sillyenough to be leaning over the barrel which is where not 
>looking down the barrel of a gun comes from).

 Quite right, but there's one more caveat you forgot here, Jim, when
using the rod to tamp the ball down, its done with one hand with the
rod held between two fingers. You sort of 'throw' the rod down onto
the bullet, actually letting go, never holding the rod firmly and
*never* putting your hand on top of the rod to push it down. (I saw
one guy get a rod from a 58 cal three band Enfield shot through his
hand at a musket shoot once and more than a few rods shot through
rooves or into roof timbers in the shooting sheds or several hundred
feet through the air on open ranges)

Friction isn't the only source of stray ignition, powder embers from a
prior shot when doing rapid fire shooting has been a common culprit.
We had one musket shoot on a god awful hot sunny summer day and by the
sixth and seventh rapid fire shots in the midday shooting the muskets
were hot enough to cook off powder when combined with a little bit too
forceful tamping, we had to curtail shooting til later in the day.

All in all, the guys who had to use muzzle-loading weapons in war,
personal defense, and hunting had to have been an adventuresome lot,
todays weapons are boring in comparison.

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Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr
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  "Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes
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