a mould for each gun?

[George]

One of the generally agreed and persistent ideas about guns in the old days is that each gunmaker provided a bullet mould to fit the bore with the gun. There certainly is evidence of that being true in some cases, especially for rifles.

1764 BEST Dutch rifles, with moulds and wipers,
1765 steel-mounted pocket pistols with rifle barrels, and moulds to fit
1776 also a number of the best kind of RIFLES, with bullet moulds,

We are generally speaking of rifles when this topic comes up, but maybe it was sometimes true for fowling pieces, too.

THE SOUTH CAROLINA AND AMERICAN GENERAL GAZETTE
October 28, 1774
FOUND by a Negro Fellow on the Road from the Quarter-house to Charlestown, A NEW FOWLING PIECE with a Bullet-mould tied to the Lock:

A question comes up, though. If that was true, at least a majority of the time, why are there so many aftermarket pre-cast bullets and bullet moulds of all sizes offered for sale?

The Pennsylvania Packet
April 15, 1776
”¦.muskets and fusees cleaned, stocked and repaired in the best manner; musket and pistol cartridges, bullets and formers, of all sizes;

Inventory of the store of Armistead Lightfoot, Yorktown, Va., in 1771 included, ”˜1 Gun vice & Anville, 2 Gun chargers, 1 Gun Screw, 1 Gun Screw driver, 1 Gun Hammer” and eight pairs of bullet moulds.

The Pennsylvania Gazette
September 26, 1745
Just imported ....cutlashes and poleaxes, gunpowder, lead, shot and bullets, English and French gun flints

The Pennsylvania Gazette
October 3, 1765
To be sold.... bullet and swan shot moulds, quart and pint black jacks, razors and hone

THE SOUTH CAROLINA GAZETTE
November 16, 1734
Lately Imported .... drop shot, bullets, Carolina guns , gun-powder,

The South-Carolina GAZETTE
October 29, 1753
B & NEYLE, have just imported... F and FF Gun powder, all sorts of Shot and Bullets,”¦.shot and bullet Moulds, bar and [sheet] Lead,

The South-Carolina GAZETTE
March 19, 1763
Florence oil, very neat fowling pieces with or without bayonets, shot , powder, lead and bullets,

Since standardization of calibers/gauges was not much in evidence, it seems logical that a proper size mould would be included with each gun, whether custom or off the shelf. What could they do to solve the problem If it wasn’t included, was lost, etc.? I guess they were sometimes left with the choice, buy balls to fit, or a mould to fit and make your own. Some people weren’t impressed with the moulds available to buy, though.

The Pennsylvania Gazette
January 5, 1748
THE Badness of the Bullet Moulds brought into America for common Sale, and the Difficulty of meeting with one of them, bad as they are, that will fit one's Gun, will render the following Invention, for making (easily) true and exact Bullet Moulds, agreeable to all Lovers of good Shooting.

One idea was to make a mould which cast more than one size, or several sizes.

Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, Vol. 33 Printed 1904, pages 521-522.
Cadillac Inventory August 1711.
1 small copper mould making nine balls lessening in size.

Those non-standard bores must have been tough to deal with in a military unit. The Philadelphia Associators had a clever idea to identify the bores, but how did they match up bore with ball for an assorted collection?

The Pennsylvania Gazette
July 17, 1776
PHILADELPHIA
Agreeable to two resolves of the Committee of Safety of this province, this Committee have appointed Gerret Dungan to cause the firearms, collected from non-associators in this county, to be immediately rendered fit for use. Matthew Bennet is appointed for the first battalion, and Jared Irvine, for the second, third and fourth battalions of associators in this county, to size the guns, and mark the size on the breech-pin, or lower end of the barrel.

One thing which I believe many of us fail to understand is the lack of precision in the way most of them went about shooting their guns in the early days. Their casual approach to ball fit and quality of moulds seems a good example. I’ll bet OCD wasn’t a problem for them.

Spence

 

[Wes/Tex]

I have an old late 50's Lyman "Handboook Of Cast Bullets" that shows several gang molds of military type of approx. the AWI era. One is a Seth Pomeroy mold, from the Peterson collection, that cast 4 different sized round balls. It doesn't specify the exact diameter of the balls but mentions, "...the largest of which was probably for the Brown Bess musket." Guessing we're looking at somethmg in the .69 to .73 range for the largest size. The second is another gang mold, from teh McMurray collection, is brass with wooden handles and casts balls in .50, .55, .57, .62 and .67 plus a cylindrical slug that was .68 adn .75 inch long. Imagine what a volley of those would do! Other 3 adn 4 fold molds illustrated cast "buck, swan & goose shot" while teh other is listed as casting "oval slugs for the blunderbuss of the day as well as swan shot". Imagine the fun! :wink: :haha:

 

[Tom Compton]

Only my opinion so get a salt shaker. People in colonial America were as diverse in their approach to accuracy and convenience as we are in the 21st century. Many lived in towns and cities and had no firearms.

Some were meticulous and did everything possible to achieve the best performance. Others didn't shoot at all or had smooth ores and the big middle didn't want to cast ball and just wanted their guns to go bang.

Kinda like saying the average applied to the whole population so every adult mail was 5'7 1/2" tall.
TC

 

[dwr]

Interesting historical references...Ahh to go back in time for a day!

I have a six cavity 530 RB gang mold that will fill up your ball pouch in a hurry, kinda neat.

Wouldn't it be handy to custom order a multiple cavity mold to fit 3/4 of your MLers?

Still like to mold over a campfire with a bag mold, but sometimes I like to stock up with the 'ol lectric lead bottom pour.

Didn't really answer your pondering, but just throwin in my $0.02 cents worth :grin:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Well we have a tendency to try an squeek-out maximum accuracy from our barrels, AND our barrels don't degrade over time as quickly as many of theirs may have..., we have so few extant barrels still existing that perhaps the norm was they quickly wore out, thus accuracy suffered, so that the accepted norm was below what we enjoy today???

Also I noted the following:

...,October 28, 1774..., A NEW FOWLING PIECE with a Bullet-mould tied to the Lock...,
We don't know how precise this mold was to the bore do we?

A question comes up, though. If that was true, at least a majority of the time, why are there so many aftermarket pre-cast bullets and bullet moulds of all sizes offered for sale?
Perhaps the majority of the bullets sold were for smooth bores?

..., April 15, 1776...”¦.muskets and fusees cleaned, stocked and repaired in the best manner; musket and pistol cartridges, bullets and formers, of all sizes;
Clearly a smooth bore seller...,

Inventory of the store of Armistead Lightfoot, Yorktown, Va., in 1771 included, ”˜1 Gun vice & Anville, 2 Gun chargers, 1 Gun Screw, 1 Gun Screw driver, 1 Gun Hammer” and eight pairs of bullet moulds.
We don't know if these had been completed, meaning they had been made to cast a specific ball OR they were 8 pairs of bullet mold blanks awaiting to be finished?

The Pennsylvania Gazette
September 26, 1745
Just imported ....cutlashes and poleaxes, gunpowder, lead, shot and bullets, English and French gun flints...
No idea if musket or rifle bullets....

...,October 3, 1765..., bullet and swan shot moulds...,
Does this reference both bullet molds AND swan shot molds apart, OR are these "gang molds" that do both bullets AND swan shot at each pour, and thus again are for smooth bores?

..., Lately Imported .... drop shot, bullets, Carolina guns...,
This sure looks like a smooth bore vendor....

..., October 29, 1753..., all sorts of Shot and Bullets,”¦.shot and bullet Moulds, ....
If one is selling shot, one is catering to the smooth bores...and here too we don't know if the molds weren't gang-molds.....


March 19, 1763
Florence oil, very neat fowling pieces with or without bayonets, shot , powder, lead and bullets,
Military fowling pieces (bayonets) so smooth bores here....

Since standardization of calibers/gauges was not much in evidence, it seems logical that a proper size mould would be included with each gun, whether custom or off the shelf. What could they do to solve the problem If it wasn’t included, was lost, etc.? I guess they were sometimes left with the choice, buy balls to fit, or a mould to fit and make your own. Some people weren’t impressed with the moulds available to buy, though.

The Pennsylvania Gazette
January 5, 1748
THE Badness of the Bullet Moulds brought into America for common Sale, and the Difficulty of meeting with one of them, bad as they are, that will fit one's Gun, will render the following Invention, for making (easily) true and exact Bullet Moulds, agreeable to all Lovers of good Shooting.

Are they "bad" because of the size alone? Or are they bad because they don't make true spheres AND they are also too small? What does he mean by "fit"?

The Pennsylvania Gazette
July 17, 1776
PHILADELPHIA
Agreeable to two resolves of the Committee of Safety of this province, this Committee have appointed Gerret Dungan to cause the firearms, collected from non-associators in this county, to be immediately rendered fit for use. Matthew Bennet is appointed for the first battalion, and Jared Irvine, for the second, third and fourth battalions of associators in this county, to size the guns, and mark the size on the breech-pin, or lower end of the barrel.

PA had no militia system prior to the AWI, and the guns (smoothbores) that they are using in the above reference have been "collected" so either donated or seized from their owners, and since they are smoothbores, the owner may not have had molds for them. The fellows who have been issued these guns and their officers or NCO's will need to be able to tell the Quartermaster what size musket balls to provide...,

So I don't see a problem with the idea that accuracy was important to rifle owners (otherwise why spend the money on the vastly more expensive rifle), and that over time the barrels did degrade (otherwise why would there be records of barrels be "freshed" or recut?)

LD :idunno:

 

[Artificer]

There is a problem with generalizations in the period concerning bore sizes, ball sizes, etc. for smoothbore guns for at least a couple of reasons.

One reason was their lack of technology to closely measure bore and ball sizes AND then trying to get a mold that would accurately fit their bore size. It seems if one wanted a close fitting ball size mold and it did not come with the gun, it was best to have a gunsmith or a blacksmith make one. Spence's documentation on the low quality or lack of enough sizes of imported ball molds, seems to bear this out.

Another reason is many people closer to the Atlantic Ocean, may have only primarily used small shot in their smoothbores like we use shotguns today. When and if it came time to go deer hunting, they probably added a couple or a few swan shot to a larger ball and thus sort of "made up" for not having a ball that would accurately fit their bore size. This was also a common load for Militia Guns.

The book, Colonial Frontier Guns, by T.M. Hamilton also points out very large quantities of Pre-Cast Balls were imported by the French from the very early 18th century onward. Those balls were brought from Louisiana up the Mississippi and other rivers to supply the Indian Trade west of the Alleghenies. These balls seem to have been at least somewhat sized for the more popular French Trade Gun Calibers.

It also seems British/American traders did not bother trying to "pack in" balls in any significant quantity when they traded to Native Americans west of the Alleghenies for the reason it would have cost too much and been too bulky/weighty to do so. So they left that to French Traders, at least more often than not.

I also believe there is at least some misconceptions as to how many homes had guns in the period. Some of this is due to deliberate falsification as in the totally discredited Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, by Michael A. Bellesiles, PhD of BS. Some of it is due to misunderstanding or taking some period quotes a little to much too far.

It is true that there were those who were exempted (or forbidden) from owning Militia Arms due to their work in the local government, religious affiliations, social condition (some indentured servants and most slaves) and of course the truly poor. However, the one place you were not going to get away with not owning a militia gun for a muster, was in a town or city as it was too easy for them to realize it or track one down to find out.

It seems that often those who did own arms usually owned "sporting guns" instead of the heavier muskets. This even in the late 17th/early 18th century when Virginia imported less expensive muskets for sale to the poor for their militia guns and sold them for very low cost. They thought it was a good idea, but it seems the sales of the guns pretty much went begging, much to their chagrin. No one wanted the "heavier and clumsier" muskets. Anyone who actually could afford a gun spent a little more on a Carolina Gun, other trade gun or fowler.

Gus

 

[Dr5x]

Some 25 or 30 years or so ago I purchased a Scheutzen rifle with a 2.5 inch diameter barrel that I had touble lifting. It had been made by a man with a very Germanic name back in the later 1800's.
It came with a false muzzle, a mould for an elongated projectile a paper cutter to cut strips of paper for patching.

You would put two strips of paper, crosswise in the false muzzle and when an elongated bullet was pushed in the the two strips of paper went in along side and exactly covered the projectile with no overlap..

There were a few other attachments such as a support that screwed into the bottom of the barrel at the balance to help steady it on the bench.

The problem was that the paper HAD to be 10 pound linen paper which hadn't been available for some years anywhere.

I never could achieve anything with it and subsequently sold it to a gentleman located in the Pacific Northwest.

My understanding was that a gunmaker would sell a rifle along with a mould and a target showing a group created by that same rifle using projectiles, balls or bullets, cast in that mould.

This sort of service was expected from expensive guns, custom made.
Less expensive, run of the mill rifles required the purchaser to secure his moulds and other equipment to complete his
package.

The times have changed.

Dutch

 

[tenngun]

That is all true. Most people didn't hunt, they lived in a well settled areas. Most never shot a gun until called on in war.
Then accuracy is another thing. 6 inch groups at 50 or 100 yards would be unacceptable to a rifle shooter today, but was all the accuracy they needed back then. John Adams wrote in amazement at watching a company of Virginia riflemen shooting a 9 by 6 inch shingle at sixty yards.
Load a .45 in your .50 or a .54 in your .58 with a thick patch like a denim or canvas and you can repeat that level of accuracy, and it will put deer on the plate and take a redcoat out of the enemy line.
I see boys and girls show up at the range I shoot at with AR and such style guns, that don't shoot as well as my rifle gun. It's shooter error, but we love that story, a muzzleloader out shooting a suppository gun. However they had a pragmatic view of accuracy. Our artificial accuracy just didn't mean anything to them.

 

[TNGhost]

Different stokes for different folks. Times and technologies may have changed, but human nature has not. Many answers to questions of the past, can be seen in the behavior around us, we have but to look.

What I want to know is what is a "steel mounted pocket pistol with rifle barrel" and how do you get it in your pocket? :haha:

 

[George]

Does anyone have a reference from the 18th century in which the size of balls, bores or moulds is described in inches? I've only been able to collect a few, and they are not always exact, saying 'about a half inch', for example.

Spence

 

[Gene L]

Some Schutzen rifles had the extension on the fore end which was in the shape of a knob to shoot it off-hand, a hand rest in effect.

 

[Gene L]

I read, I can't remember where now, that in America, at least, they frequently bought rifles kinda like the guage in shotguns...the amount of balls in a pound. IIRC, one reference was for 40 per pound, which is I think about 50 caliber. Does that sound right?

 

[Artificer]

Gene,

You are correct that most guns, either rifled or smoothbore, were usually described as "so many balls to the pound" in the 18th century.

Spence, I have only seen two or three period references where they described the bore size as "about a half inch" for rifles and "about 3/4" for muskets.

Would it help if I give the actual measured sizes of excavated balls that Hamilton mentions in Colonial Frontier Guns?

Gus

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

What was the smallest unit of measure that 18th century gunsmiths had? One discrepancy in bore diameter could be a result of the reaming and rifling bits having to be repeatedly adjusted and resharpened?

 

[Artificer]

What was the smallest unit of measure that 18th century gunsmiths had? One discrepancy in bore diameter could be a result of the reaming and rifling bits having to be repeatedly adjusted and resharpened?

PLEASE don't take this as being a "smart aleck" answer, but the answer to your question of the smallest measure a gunsmith had, is "a compressed slip of paper." Gunsmiths used paper shims to get the depth of rifling and even when finish reaming the bore size. Surprisingly to even me when I first began researching it, but gunsmiths could hold the bore diameter throughout the length of the barrel to no more of a variance of .001 to .002" in the entire barrel.

What we don't have documentation for and what we THINK gunsmiths did when asked to make a gun to "so many balls to the pound," was either select a mold cherry he already had or make a mold cherry about the size the customer wanted. Then the gunsmith would show a ball that mold cherry cut to the customer for his agreement or the customer might ask for something smaller or larger. The gunsmith then cut the mold first and THEN reamed the barrel bore to the size of ball that the mold cast.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Oh, IF the gunsmith or blacksmith had to make a mold for an already existing gun, then things got a bit trickier. The gunsmith might already have had a cherry that might work and he would try that in the barrel. If not, the gunsmith or blacksmith forged and filed the round "ball shape" to fit the bore and then filed cutting flutes into it.

Gus

 

[George]

Would it help if I give the actual measured sizes of excavated balls that Hamilton mentions in Colonial Frontier Guns?

Thanks, but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm interested in how the people of the day went about matching the size of the bore to a proper ball. Sort of, not what it actually measured in today's units, but how did they measure it... if that makes sense.

Did anyone ever wonder how much windage was allowed between the size of the bore and the size of that mould provided with the gun?

How did that system of 'balls per pound' work for them? Could they look at the muzzle of a gun and say "that'll take 100 to the pound", the way we say "looks like a .36, to me"?

Today, if we need a mould, we mike the bore and order a one so many thousandths of an inch smaller. Did they go to the store and handle some balls, find one with an acceptable fit with their muzzle and buy a mould which fit that ball? Or what?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Spence

 

[Artificer]

Oh and this is PURE speculation on my part, but I THINK when Merchants offered molds for sale, they would cast a single ball in each and leave it in the mold. That way a customer could try it in his gun. Now, there is no documentation for that, but it makes sense in consideration of period technology.

Gus

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

I didn't take it as a smart aleck answer as it did answer another question I had, which was what did 18th century gunsmiths use for a feeler gauge? Thank you.

:hatsoff:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Some Schutzen rifles had the extension on the fore end which was in the shape of a knob to shoot it off-hand, a hand rest in effect.

Correct. But not in the weight class Dutch described. His was a bench gun, not for offhand.