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It may be worth noting that glazing and graphitise are not synonymous. Glazing is tumbling the corned grains to polish the surface. Coating with graphite merely means adding some to that tumbling process. I remain to be convinced that the graphite does more than make the grains silver-shinier...

IIRC they have their arms proofed in Germany but check with the company.

Bronze Age Chinese metallurgists (or whatever they called them in those days) had vast experience and knowledge of all the mixes of copper alloy metals using tin, zinc, arsenic and assorted other additions in varying proportions plus using work hardening to make ‘bronze’ do most of the tasks for...

European beech is a different wood to American beech. Hard and stable and the only approved alternative to walnut for British muskets and rifles. In WW2 Lee Enfield rifles were walnut stocked but changed to beech and remained beech until production ended @1957. Treated by immersion in hot...

I recall lanolin was (is?) required to be pulled through steel frame tubes on a swab on a string to rustproof the insides of the tubes as it stayed in place.

Proper handsome m’luvver.

Vinegar removes rust (including bluing, which is a rust) and is trivially cheap. There does seem to be weird culture that distrusts anything that does not come as a ‘product’ with a commercial name. Feel free to subsidise manufacturers but I just get my needs off the normal supermarket shelf...

Spruce up lets you centre the ball better but a cast ball has a void below the spruce so sprue down has the heavier end flying at the front end. The British army thought that it was worth the (then) large expense of going over to swedged/swaged ball production instead of cast balls.

For a patched ball it is the patch that enters and grips the rifling. The ball being gripped by the patch. Hardness has no function in itself (as demonstrated by trials with brass spheres). What pure lead does is to deform on impact, which Is useful for hunting. Hunters of large game animals...

Cut in the spring when the sap has begun to rise which makes it easier to remove the bark, and you do not want charcoaled bark. I understand this is what the suppliers to the Swiss and French do and sell the bark to use the tannin.

British troops were trained to ’aim at a mark’ and practiced in it and went through training before reaching America to support loyal Americans, Few used green uniforms and none used Baker rifles as they had not been invented. They did have German rifles, copies thereof and Pattern 1776 rifles...

There is a major memorial to the Indian troops in Neuve Chappell.

Just as an aside. I have just learned that the British army were using Coehorn mortars in the Great War in 1915 in the Battle of Nueve Chapelle (where my grandfather was badly wounded in support of the Indians). The same as used in Crimea, black powder and spherical bomb.

The British Board of Ordnance official fall back from walnut was beech.

A bitsa of some sort. Possibly Belgian from an assortment of surplus parts but certainly not a Pattern 1859 of any sort. I wonder if there are any proof marks.

He does .441 examples too.

There is also the LEM moulds from Glenn McQuire in the UK who can be contacted at vivien.mcquire(at) sky.com. Currently being advertised by him on eBay at £65.

Warming the water is only for the user’s comfort and soap/detergent has no effect upon black powder so plain cold water is quite adequate.

And they let them breed……

In the early 19th century the British government spent a shad load of money on machines to swage musket balls (and belted rifle balls) and they were renowned tight ar*ses who would not spend a farthing that they could avoid but trials showed that all cast balls had small erratic voids and...