Another mystery

[Snake Pleskin]

I found that a "coned" muzzle helps quite a bit in holding the patched ball combination for loading. You can usually start it all with your thumb, finish up with the rod(IMHO)

 

[user 49399]

In my Traditions Kentucky and Thompson Center Hawken .50 caliber rifles, I load powder, wad of tow, .490 round ball and another wad of tow. It’s very easy to load and I can consistently hit skeet sized targets at 50 yards from a bench rest. I read about this load somewhere and tried different variations of it until I found something that worked for me.

 

[NorthFork]

In my Traditions Kentucky and Thompson Center Hawken .50 caliber rifles, I load powder, wad of tow, .490 round ball and another wad of tow. It’s very easy to load and I can consistently hit skeet sized targets at 50 yards from a bench rest. I read about this load somewhere and tried different variations of it until I found something that worked for me.

Really, no patch?

 

[Redlemur60]

The tow is a patch unwoven?sorta!
The tow is in essence linen.

 

[user 49399]

Really, no patch?

Yep. No patch. It’s how some folks load smooth bores and I do the same in a rifle. I was surprised how accurate my rifles were loaded like this.

 

[Redlemur60]

Yep. No patch. It’s how some folks load smooth bores and I do the same in a rifle. I was surprised how accurate my rifles were loaded like this.

And if you fall in with the stitch notzi crowd its far more period correct?
I jist shoot and build im not into the
L.a.r.p.

 

[NorthFork]

Yep. No patch. It’s how some folks load smooth bores and I do the same in a rifle. I was surprised how accurate my rifles were loaded like this.

Do you have any leading problems in the bore from the bare ball touching the rifling?

 

[user 49399]

The tow is a patch unwoven?sorta!
The tow is in essence linen.

Yes. The ball (or shot in a smooth bore) is nestled in the tow. Brown paper makes decent wadding also. I started considering loads like this because I got to figuring that folks in the backwoods during the 18th and 19th century might not have had Walmart, Joanns or Hobby Lobby where they could walk in with calipers and pick out just the right thickness of patching material.

Is this load historically correct? Who knows?

Could you win national matches with it. Maybe not.

But it does make a good plinking load and a decent hunting load.

 

[Redlemer]

Mike beliveiw has an excellent viddy on the historical correctness of tow

 

[user 49399]

Do you have any leading problems in the bore from the bare ball touching the rifling?

No.

 

[Redlemur60]

I would think that guys that owned 1
And only 1 long shirt(dirty shirt)
Would place a pretty high value on fabric leaves were used as well!