.660 Nessler Balls (shotgun slugs) in .69 Smoothbore....almost there....need advice

[Stantheman86]

Made some paper cartridges at the range to test the .660 Foster slug, aka Nessler ball.

OK here's the good......and the bad....

Using Masking Paper, making a tube with the slug inverted (see video) lubed with Burt's Bees and a 70 gr 2f charge......for 3 shots these things were dead on. Glide right down the pipe, hit accurate , very accurate , to the 45ish yard limit of the pit I was in.

Encouraging......and then.....

I'd get a tumbling hit on a target, or oddly, two pieces of lead would hit in irregular, random spots. Went to 90 gr 2f charge.....

Blown out skirt......uh oh.....

I was swabbing every 5 or 6 shots when I changed charges, just to keep the results consistent.

Fired two 90 gr charge shots, they hit high then while loading the 3rd one I felt the paper "let go" while gently ramming the bullet down.

The shot sounded different, like a blank.....so I ran the rod down to look for a squib and it stopped 6" from the muzzle.....I shine a light down ....there's the "skirt" ring of the slug!!!!

I try to pull it out and ruin my cleaning jag (6 bucks down uh oh) so I'm like heck with it , I load a 60 gr blank charge and blow it out......bore is clear, no bulge, good to go. Swab the bore. Must be the 90 gr charge is too much.

Go back down to 60 gr of 2f.....again , first 2 shots, dead on, nice round holes, right where I aimed at 40ish yards. 3rd shot, no impact.....again, look down the bore.....not even 1/2" from the muzzle is a smeared, battered lead slug skirt. OK, I give up. Pour 100 grains blank charge down the bore , "Pop!" Out comes the lead ring.

I'm done with the slugs for the day , I can't crack the code. I don't see how the original Nessler is much different than these slugs. Maybe need a thicker skirt? If they were cast as a solid base bullet?

I'm down a cleaning jag so i use what tools remain and swab my bore, this ruining my flimsy T/C wire patch worm , thing was manure anyway. Continue to swab with a patch stuck to a .50 bore brush. Wipe dry.....good thing I brought 25 .648 round balls.....

Found out this musket loves 100 gr of 3f, with the round ball. I had been using 2f. After a few "flinchers" and figuring out i had to "half sight" at 45 yards , this load hits a bit high , I drilled 5 of them in there. Also shot at another target. Thank God for Round Balls saved my range day. This thing is a tank, you'd think after the mess with the slugs I'd give it a break but no, let's do 25 round balls now

Any help with the Slugs/Nessler balls?

It seems once the bore gets some fouling , they just come apart. Literally. Good for 2-3 shots then they blow the skirt. Also paper was coming off while loading.


I'm like, how do these work in a smokeless shotgun that generates much more velocity and pressure in the bore but they can't handle 60 gr 2f charges??

I'm thinking the base is too deep, the relatively thin skirt can't take the friction of the fouled bore. Plus with that 42" barrel it may just be too much going on in there for the slug to stay together in a dirty bore.

I have about 75 of these left, I may continue to play with them......maybe next time try to use an actual paper patch and forget the "Pritchett" type idea. But now we're straying away from historically accurate use, and I don't want to start using manure like freezer tape or bullet patch paper like Buffalo Shooters use, this would never have been used on a Nessler ball.

Maybe even try the .680 slugs with the thicker skirt. I'm on a personal mission to make this work.

 

[Rat]

Skirt separation is very disturbing. In a modern gun, there's quite a bit of wad behind the slug, like almost an inch worth. I would guess that supports the skirt. Skirt separation would encourage me to quit, but perhaps you should/could try some hard shotgun wads. ??

On the paper, lube will soften up the paper, and compromise it's strength, to say the least. I think bee's wax would be a better choice, pure with no lube in it.

 

[Stantheman86]

Skirt separation sucks, luckily I was able to blow them out with a blank.

My last shot will be to try 1f , only because I bought some by accident. The 1f may not be as "violent " in upsetting the skirt.

Or I could probably use the rest of these slugs up with mouse fart 40 grain loads of the cheap Wano 2f I've had laying around , maybe a mild load will kind of bloop them out.

On the other hand, I'm not in a hurry to risk a separated skirt down by the breech that I can't easily blow out...I'll have to wait until I get in the mood to try these again.

I have heard of people who try stout loads with Minies having skirt seperation.

I'm trying to replicate the 1850s method of doing this so plastic is a no go.

It was fun to experiment, I kind of got excited at first but then, the skirt separation .

 

[RAEDWALD]

The actual Balle Nessler had a noticeably thick and fairly short skirt and a central post. Certainly thicker in all dimensions than a Foster slug although shorter. Far better able to cope with a decent load. A Brenneke slug, less tail, is a better modern model of a true Nessler than a Foster. I must confess that, in my initial Nessler trials some years ago, I used once fired Brenneke slugs I picked up at my range which had suffered remarkably little damage in their original use.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Simple fix is use a wad and stop using lubricants that have a measure of water in them or a composition that can absorb water like most hand creams.
Good video, oh and use 3f all the time.
2f&1f lol, what you wanting....to kill it or annoy it lol.

 

[Stantheman86]

I think after I use up the 5 pounds of 2f I have laying around I'm just gonna standardize on 3f. It burns cleaner too.

By "wad" you mean like a felt or wool under-shot type wad or like an actual plastic wad?

Lanolin is my usual smoothbore go-to lube, it seems to be water repellent and doesn't migrate, bleed through paper or contaminate powder. I've made round ball cartridges lubed with Lanolin and let them sit in my cartridge box for a week with no issues. I don't know if I'd trust Burts Bees to sit on paper outside "immediate use" time.

It was a lot of fun to experiment with these, a nice change of pace vs just going to the range and blowing rounds off.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Probably doesn't matter much as it could be felt, wool or cardboard.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Thinking about it nitro cards or card that thick to avoid the getting in the cavity.
A regular shotgun fibre wad maybe.
A ball of newspaper!

Do you know what, why not just use the ball in a cartridge!

 

[Rat]

I'm talking about the big, thick, fiber shotgun shell wads. ? 1/2" long at least.

Hey...fill the cavity with bondo. Worked for me, shooting a .575" minne' in a .580" bore. Changed the slug from sometimes going off the back stop, and not even a "pattern" to a 4-5" group at 100 yards.

Mineral oil seems to not compromise the strength of the paper. However, why lube at all. Pure bee's wax will act as lube. I once paper patched those .575" minni's, and put mineral oil on them, still have some sitting in a box, and the paper is in the same condition it ever was.

Use one paper wrap, looser fit in the bore, dip in pure bee's wax, (wax will take up windage) fill cavity with bondo. Take two asprins and call me in the morning.

 

[Stantheman86]

Bondo? Dam

I'm a little spooked by the skirt seperation, maybe when I get some nerve back up I'll try some wads. The Bondo sounds intriguing though......

I'll have to look up Brenneke slugs just for fun.

READWALD is absolutely right, on the top is original, unearthed Nesslers, then .680 Foster slugs , then the .660 slugs I tried yesterday.

The Foster in the middle looks like it's almost......there, but not quite.

The .660 slugs look super thin.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Using Masking Paper, making a tube with the slug inverted (see video) lubed with Burt's Bees and a 70 gr 2f charge......for 3 shots these things were dead on.

70 grains of 2Fg is a 2.5 dram load. That's plenty. Do as suggested and load a 1/2", lubed fiber wad between the powder and the slug. That should do the trick. Use a mixture of olive oil and beeswax for the lube.

If that doesn't give you the accuracy or it doesn't work as well as the quoted load, then consider,
It's a .660 hole going into the deer, so you don't need to worry about expansion. So...
Have you thought about using a lead alloy that will be harder and thus perhaps negate the breaking away of the "skirt" when you fire?

LD

 

[Stantheman86]

If I try the 1/2" wad is has to be pretty much bore sized, so these can be loaded easily. I have some of what seem to be 12 gauge wads but the fit is tight. Track of the Wolf sells various sized wads , I have to order some stuff anyway , I'll try the ones they have that are like a .692 size.

My intent was to make cartridges for these similar to what would have been used 170 years ago. I like the concept of what the man at Eras Gone did with the NC Nessler , I wish he would make a mold for the original hollow base .660 Nesslers. Given the niche following the NC mold got I'm sure he would do well with them.

This is just a fun experiment and a way for me to kill some time at the range in my spare time. I was hoping to maybe "revive" the Nessler ball an accurate , easy to load bullet for smoothbore muskets would not take the world by storm but for people like us who enjoy this as a hobby it would be awesome.

I have no casting abilities right now so I'm stuck with what I can buy. I researched Minie ball skirt seperation and people say that using impure lead resulted in brittle Minies that blew skirts off.

 

[Rat]

To my mind, a harder lead would be more brittle, and the wrong direction to go. Those Foster slugs are like upside down cups, it's really no mystery that the nose of the slug wants to tear off the skirt.

A fiber wad "should" push against the skirt and maintain it's integrity. I think. I'd guess.

I see that the Nesslers have much more lead in the nose, and thicker skirts.

 

[Stantheman86]

You would think that the Center pin of the mold could be played with to make the cup shallower and skirt thicker.

I think the .660 slugs just have too thin of a skirt and the fouled bore adds more "drag", thus tearing the skirt away.

Lots to think about, experimentation will continue.

I recently paid about $150 (between the sight and the gunsmith fee) to have a period correct rear sight put on my 1816 so I'm not trying to risk bulging or ringing the barrel on my $1300 musket trying stuff that "may" work.......so when I get my Armi Sport 1842 off layaway I will use that. Nothing against Armi Sport but I'd rather use a $750 musket that I can drop a new barrel into as a "testing piece" than the 1816 that's pretty much my favorite gun right now.

 

[Rat]

The base plug on a mold can be modified any which way you choose. You can turn it down for a thicker skirt, and also reduce it's length quite easily.

 

[Stantheman86]

I'm gonna put this off until I get a casting set up, and then play around with the base plug on some .660 slug molds.

I'm still baffled as to how these .685 Minies will work fine with that thin skirt and deep cavity but the .660 slug was tearing skirts......I'm just not seeing a difference here unless the paper itself was causing "drag" and separating the skirt. Just thinking out loud a little bit.

Also how it only happens with a bore fouled by a few shots.

 

[Stantheman86]

Worked out dimensions for a .678 Foster slug cartridge , with a powder tube.

It's a good slip fit, the White Masking Paper is fairly tough and should hold up to ramming. A good coat of lube will make the first tube a paper patch that should stick.

However, I'm wondering if I'm over complicating it, and if loading it bare with a film of lube on the slug, like a Minie, might work just as well. We are talking a smoothbore here. The paper patch might just be overkill.

Having a lot of fun with this, now I just need time to go shoot.

Bringing 1f and 1.5f along this time, with the 2f and 3f.

 

[Britsmoothy]

When I tried some slugs in a smoothbore I used cards on the powder one of which had a blob of beeswax/ olive oil grease on, then the slug and then a card on top.
Worked well and would of been in the middle of your target in the video and if I remember correctly about 7" group.

 

[RAEDWALD]

The Nessler was used inside the paper cartridge. i.e. it was rammed down as one end of the cartridge with the powder end snapped off and discarded so that would be a closer fit to period use. The rear was kept closed so that the wax or wax/tallow did not reach the lead but only sat on the paper when dipped into the grease so a choked rear of the bullet would stop grease reaching inside (the front of the whole cartridge). The paper forms part of the ball diameter so will reduce the windage somewhat. Traditionally x2 wraps around of suitable paper bumps up the diameter by @ 0,012". The paper should be hard enough not to let the grease penetrate through and stick the paper to the ball in flight.

However, It is easier for me to comment than take the trouble of actually doing the task but I follow your commendable work with interest. Good luck!

 

[Stantheman86]

The white Masking Paper is .0015 thick , wrapping a .678 bullet in paper is a delicate task....the cartridge in the pic is pretty flimsy.

I think the actual Nessler was .660.

For what it's worth Wikipedia must have got confused, and claims the Nessler was loaded like a Minie. This is why I tell people not to take Wikipedia as gospel.

I'm still going to try this though.

The guy at Fury Custom Bullets says he's going to make me both thicker skirted .680 and .660 Foster slugs and try to make them as close to the pic of the actual Nessler ball I emailed him....then 4 days passed and he hasn't responded with a final plan on this yet , so maybe he doesn't care either