History of the patch

There is tremendous discussion of various patches for a roundball on the internet. Plenty of modern sources of patches, and information on them. The thing that is bothering me, is that I am finding next to no reference to patches in period writings. I'm looking through old books, and at best I'm seeing a passing mention of a patch, but no real detail. In a book posted in another thread, a book mostly about fowlers, there is reference to two methods of loading a rifle. One is to use a larger than bore ball, and beat it down with an iron rod and a mallet. The other is to use a thin leather patch with grease on the outside. No mention of a cloth patch. Again this book is mostly on fowlers, and seems to be written with a British point of view in 1789. It was mentioned that the bare ball was the common method, and the leather patch was a method used by the Germans. It is again interesting that no mention of a short starter or any other tool besides the ramrod was used.

So can anyone direct me to a writing pre 1850ish, that accurately describes in detail how they loaded a greased cloth patched roundball? Along with that same thinking, can anyone point to a description on how rifles of the era were cleaned and or maintained?

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433082492038&view=1up&seq=261

Great question! I‘m anxiously waiting for replies by folks a lot more informed than I am. In these days we “mic” patch thickness and develop “scientific” loads. I am not so sure that‘s how the old timers did it. I’m standing by....................

Audobon records Boone using a PRB. Loading manuals from Central Europe record in back to early seventeenth century.
rifles were rare in the UK till after the revolutionary west. So their manuals stressed smooth bore loading. And even then in 1847 a British HBC officer described patching smooth bore ball.
Oversized ball had been used in European rifles. It’s clumsy and some what silly seeming, so modren writer love to stress ‘those primitives’ but patching was done before any American rifleman gave it a try.
They were picky about the cloth when they could be, Audobon recorded Boone making sure he had four hundred count linen for his patches.

tenngun said:

Audobon records Boone using a PRB. Loading manuals from Central Europe record in back to early seventeenth century.
rifles were rare in the UK till after the revolutionary west. So their manuals stressed smooth bore loading. And even then in 1847 a British HBC officer described patching smooth bore ball.
Oversized ball had been used in European rifles. It’s clumsy and some what silly seeming, so modren writer love to stress ‘those primitives’ but patching was done before any American rifleman gave it a try.
They were picky about the cloth when they could be, Audobon recorded Boone making sure he had four hundred count linen for his patches.

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Can you provide any sources? I'm not finding anything by an "Audobon". I'm guessing there are a thousand loading manuals from Europe. Ideally I'd like to find something from the USA, as I've heard it repeated that the cloth patch was an American invention, although I'm unsure of the truth of that statement. I'm looking for specifics, how they were carried, cut at muzzle or not, short starters, mallets, tools, etc.

As for loading bareball, I've tried it. I would not call it clumsy. It worked fine for me, and I didn't even need a steel rod to load them. I could start them with a short starter by hand, but it was easier with a mallet.

Bad spelling. Audubon, James Audubon.
Loading mallets were provided to Central European military rifleman, they were using cloth triangular shaped patches, so mallet in of itself doesn’t equate with oversized ball.
Note, I wasn’t calling it clumsy only pointed our lt it seems to be. Many writers have a tendency to look down on the past. Emphasize tough details and overlook the reality.

Is there a book you are referring to? I found plenty on James Audubon, including a short story about one time he hunted with Daniel Boone. I don't see any mention of a patch at all in that. He did mention that he wiped the barrel between every shot.

I have wondered similarly, while practicing swabbing between every shot. Using lots of patches! Were they cutting up their shirts?

In the equipment which David Cooke carried, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of cleaning and lubricating provisions.

http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2013/09/rifle-and-hunting-pouch-carried-by.html
I'm using EMSS patch lube, shooting patches, MAP cleaner, oil & beeswax barrel lube, cotton cleaning patches, brushes and a cleaning jag. Cooke does not seem to have carried anything like these items, except for his ramrod. The display does not show what was carried in the rifle patch box. Was it possible & common to carry both shooting patches and cleaning patches in the riflestock?

I always kind of assumed oil was a given. If you were hunting, you were then in possession of animal fat for oil. The cleaning is what really gets me. I have yet to see anything describe at all how these rifles were usually cleaned. I've seen where many carried a "wiping stick" in addition to their usual ramrod on their gun. Maybe they just used the same patches they loaded balls with? My question is did they just rinse out the barrel and oil? Did they run a couple wet patches through and oil? Did they do the water pumping method?

That picture of the supposed kit for David Cooke is interesting. That is just another thing that shows all that was old, is new again. Clearly he liked a ball board. So it seems whether you cut at the muzzle, use pre-cut, or use a ball board... you are right. I really like how he made the knife sheath built into the bag's strap. That looks like a good way to do it.

thankyou thankyou for the shooting essay lots of stuff to digest it will take some reading time
to do the book - interesting -bobknab happy happy

vezePilot said:

I have wondered similarly, while practicing swabbing between every shot. Using lots of patches! Were they cutting up their shirts?

In the equipment which David Cooke carried, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of cleaning and lubricating provisions.

http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2013/09/rifle-and-hunting-pouch-carried-by.html
I'm using EMSS patch lube, shooting patches, MAP cleaner, oil & beeswax barrel lube, cotton cleaning patches, brushes and a cleaning jag. Cooke does not seem to have carried anything like these items, except for his ramrod. The display does not show what was carried in the rifle patch box. Was it possible & common to carry both shooting patches and cleaning patches in the riflestock?

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They were more likely to use tow, not cut up cloth (which would be wasteful.)

Hi,
The documentation you seek is the paper by Benjamin Robbins, mathematician and engineer to the East India Company, read to the Royal Society in 1747 titled " Observations of the Nature and Advantage of Rifled Barrel Pieces". Robbins was the first to correctly deduce how rifling and spinning bullets improved accuracy and precision of shooting based on physics rather than the myths and legends often cited by earlier authors. In the paper he describes loading over sized bullets without patches and hammering them home and loading with thin greased leather or cloth patches and undersized bullets. The latter method he attributes to Swiss and German shooters. That Swiss and German gun culture was the source of our American long rifles, hence the practice of patching the bullet became the normal method of American riflemen. There were not many rifles in England in the 17th and early 18th centuries and many of the rifles were breech loaders using bullets larger than the bore. However, British rifle shooters also shot muzzleloaders and either loaded with a patched ball or hammered an oversized ball down the bore. I am not sure the long barreled rifles that became popular in America would be feasible without greased patches. Tow was mostly used to "scour" bores and ramrods usually were made with tow worms on the narrow end if any ferrule was attached.

dave

The only book I'm seeing by Benjamin Robins is New Principles of Gunnery. I'm not seeing anything even close to the title you stated, and Google brings up nothing.

JB67 said:

They were more likely to use tow, not cut up cloth (which would be wasteful.)

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Do you have a source to base this on?

It wasn’t very wasteful to use cloth if you consider a patch for a shot and cheap reusable tow for swabbing, and when you bought momma 6 yards of linen so she could make a new dress there’d be a season’s worth of cuttings left over for patching, next season you’d run out and buy momma the makings for another nice outfit, keeping in her good graces and in the makings. Waste not, want not.

They used a metal corkscrew called a “worm” stuck one the end of a ramrod and wiped the bore with tow.

Hi,
You'll have to search the archives of the Royal Society, which are available online. There are also extracts from the paper in John N. George's "English Guns and Rifles" pages 129-135.

dave

An Essay on Shooting (1789)

In Germany they sometimes charge them [rifles] in the following manner : a piece of thin leather or fustian [cloth of cotton and linen weave] is cut of a circular shape, and so large as to cover a little more than half of the ball; this piece is then greased on one side, and being placed over the muzzle, the ball is laid upon it, and both thrust down together ; by this means the leather or fustian enters into the rifles, [grooves] and the bullet being firmly embraced by it [the patch], acquires the proper rotary motion in its passage through the barrel.

LD

Loyalist Dave said:

An Essay on Shooting (1789)

In Germany they sometimes charge them [rifles] in the following manner : a piece of thin leather or fustian [cloth of cotton and linen weave] is cut of a circular shape, and so large as to cover a little more than half of the ball; this piece is then greased on one side, and being placed over the muzzle, the ball is laid upon it, and both thrust down together ; by this means the leather or fustian enters into the rifles, [grooves] and the bullet being firmly embraced by it [the patch], acquires the proper rotary motion in its passage through the barrel.

LD

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Wow, I read that same paragraph 3-4 times, and I never would have guessed fustian was some kind of cloth. That's the frustrating thing about old language. That and the F used for an S. I don't know how many times I read "suck", and had to double back.

Smokey Plainsman said:

They used a metal corkscrew called a “worm” stuck one the end of a ramrod and wiped the bore with tow.

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Please post a source for this info.