GDG- RE: Gettysburg Digest, Vol 29, Issue 26

[Joe Blair]

> > Message: 18> Date: Sat, 21 Oct 2006 15:07:55 +0000 (GMT)> From: cameron2 at optonline.net> Subject: Re: GDG- Rifled Musket Characteristics?> To: GDG <gettysburg at arthes.com>> Message-ID: <e58e86141a819.453a37cb at optonline.net>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii> > << Thanks for the great assistance. However, one other small question remains unclear. . What of the lore that has ACW veteran infantrymen in combat slamming their rifled musket buttplates on a convenient rock to seat a round and thereby save loading time? The answers re. bore fouling make this seem more fanciful than the seemingly similar stories of Vietnam grunts tapping magazines against their helmets to make sure that the rounds were seated. The attraction of the buttplate slamn image seems to have affected Bernard Cornwell who he chose to use it in his Sharpe books re Richard Sharpe combat loading his Baker rifled musket.> Dick >>> > Another myth. A CW mimie ball is only a few thousanths of an inch smaller than bore diameter, and when a coating of lubricant (beeswax and tallow) is added, needs to be rammed to get it down the barrel. They won't just drop down on their own. All slamming the buttplate against a rock would get you is a broken stock.> > What may have given the author of the Sharpe books his idea is the fact that the musket balls for the British Brown Bess muskets of the Revolutionary/Napoleonic period were made very undersize, to allow extremely rapid loading. Enough so that under some conditions, it may have been possible to almost drop them down the barrel. The ammunition for CW smoothbore muskets was a lot tighter fitting, and, loaded with the cartridge paper around the ball, needed ramming just as much as rifle musket projectiles did.> > Jim Cameron > > >  After years of hunting and target shooting with black powder, the only case I've seen someone dump the powder and thump the stock on the ground is during reenacting exercises.It is my understanding that blank charges do not have the bullet to create a seal and the explosion of gases to propell the bullet and the bang to follow. The powder of the blank charge coats the barrell rather than being forced to the breach by ramming the bullet. This coating all the way down the barrell sets up a progressive burn which ends in a "pop." You can fire blank charges all day and fouling will cause no noticable change in the pop. You just wind up with more dirty water during cleaning.
 
Joe Blair