RE: Another person shot by an infant with a gun.
April 14, 2013 at 11:54 am
(This post was last modified: April 14, 2013 at 11:55 am by Minimalist.)
Quote:Black powder aint for accuracy - it's to give the game a sporting chance. I'd say 50 yards is 40 too far..lol. (3 rounds a minute with a pan or blasting caps? Impressive either way. I get off a heady max of 2 rounds a year with mine..lol)
It's a flintlock so yeah, a pan. The trick is to do what they did which was make up a paper cartridge ( formed around a large dowel - twist the bottom to close it. Then pour a measured charge - 100 grains for the muskets - into the paper tube and put the ball (.715) on top of the powder charge then twist the top closed. Store it in a cartridge box that you wear over the shoulder.
When loading, you take the cartridge in your right hand, bite off the bullet. Pour the powder down the barrel, follow it with the paper cartridge to act as a wad, spit the bullet into the barrel (which is the way THEY did it....I would take the bullet out of my mouth and put it in the barrel...ram the whole thing home...prime the pan with 4F powder from a small powder horn and be ready to fire. Light infantry/skirmishers would fire at will. Line infantry would wait for the command to volley fire. But yeah, 20 seconds to load a musket is quite doable because the barrel is smooth and there is no resistance going down...until the gun gets fouled by the black powder residue.
Oddly, the French Charleville was ballistically superior to the British Brown Bess. It fired a .68 ball out of a .69 bore which meant much less windage.
As for accuracy...my son once put 11 shots in a row into the black with a .50 Pennsylvania flintlock rifle. Young eyes!
