Wow, on a dare I tried it and my smoothie sure seems to like it, at least at 25-yards!
FWIW my std cccccccold weather (sub-freezing) load has been 70g grains of FFFg Schuetzen powder and a 0.600" May-cast roundball in a 0.010" homespun patch lubed liberally with Track of the Wolf's Mink Oil. My bore, by the way, measures 0.617". With the TOW mink oil I can load and shoot pretty much all day without swabbing when really cold out, so I use this load exclusively for the Winter primitive snowshoe muzzleloading biathlons.
Temps here in the Nor'East have been 40-50 for the past few weeks and one day found me at the range with the lube and patching, but I had FFg powder. That 2F was caking up sooooooo bad I could barely seat a ball ... had to run to the non-primitive SUV and grab the range rod. As a control, I begged some 3F off a fellow shooter and sure enough, I could load with zero problems.
So ... on a dare I tried 'bare' balling. My first few times out, I seated a milk carton punched wad over the ball, but after a few more attempts, I just loaded powder and then rammed the ball home.
The group shot on the 7th was just bareball as is. For the group shot yesterday, they were lubed with Lee Precision's liquid Alox lube. I just put 50 RBs into a ziplok bag, squirted in a bit if Alox, and rubbed them all around in it, then set them out on wax paper to dry.
Other tests I did yesterday was to seat the ball, put on the leather hammer stall and whack the butt a few times really hard, with the muzzle pointed down. The ball moved about 1" off the powder on the first 3-shots after a 40gra 'blank' fouling shot. But once the bore was caked up fairtheewell, I could NOT move the ball off the powder charge.
Whaddya think?
P.S. - Here's me in the new shirt and weskit I just got from 'HalfDan' of Bell & Company Traders. I won the linen shirt by placing 1st in the smoothbore accuracy contest when my Caywood Wilson was only 2-weeks new to me. I had him make up a F&I War vintage weskit, as I am making a left-handed Fusil to the period details of the 1721 contract to Tulle (albeit mine will be a lefty). ... gotta get some period glasses SOON :surrender: !
FWIW my std cccccccold weather (sub-freezing) load has been 70g grains of FFFg Schuetzen powder and a 0.600" May-cast roundball in a 0.010" homespun patch lubed liberally with Track of the Wolf's Mink Oil. My bore, by the way, measures 0.617". With the TOW mink oil I can load and shoot pretty much all day without swabbing when really cold out, so I use this load exclusively for the Winter primitive snowshoe muzzleloading biathlons.
Temps here in the Nor'East have been 40-50 for the past few weeks and one day found me at the range with the lube and patching, but I had FFg powder. That 2F was caking up sooooooo bad I could barely seat a ball ... had to run to the non-primitive SUV and grab the range rod. As a control, I begged some 3F off a fellow shooter and sure enough, I could load with zero problems.
So ... on a dare I tried 'bare' balling. My first few times out, I seated a milk carton punched wad over the ball, but after a few more attempts, I just loaded powder and then rammed the ball home.
The group shot on the 7th was just bareball as is. For the group shot yesterday, they were lubed with Lee Precision's liquid Alox lube. I just put 50 RBs into a ziplok bag, squirted in a bit if Alox, and rubbed them all around in it, then set them out on wax paper to dry.
Other tests I did yesterday was to seat the ball, put on the leather hammer stall and whack the butt a few times really hard, with the muzzle pointed down. The ball moved about 1" off the powder on the first 3-shots after a 40gra 'blank' fouling shot. But once the bore was caked up fairtheewell, I could NOT move the ball off the powder charge.
Whaddya think?
P.S. - Here's me in the new shirt and weskit I just got from 'HalfDan' of Bell & Company Traders. I won the linen shirt by placing 1st in the smoothbore accuracy contest when my Caywood Wilson was only 2-weeks new to me. I had him make up a F&I War vintage weskit, as I am making a left-handed Fusil to the period details of the 1721 contract to Tulle (albeit mine will be a lefty). ... gotta get some period glasses SOON :surrender: !
