British practices in priming Brown Bess

[Bright Cerulean]

I read that British troops were taught to prime their Brown Bess's with a bit of the 2F black powder in the paper cartridge. Wouldn't this cause a significant percentage of misfires?

 

[tiger13]

Hi
And welcome to the forum
That would be the standard loading practice when they would load the bess from the paper cartridge, they would bite the end off the cartridge,prime the pan, then pour the rest of the powder down the barrel. You can do the same, although for safety's sake it would not be all that wise to prime a musket and then be loading the main charge. Fine for battle when a poor soldier could be replaced should the gun go off while it was being loaded! totally un necessary when we load our bess's today!, save a bit of powder from the cartridge to prime with, or prime from a horn. 2F will have no problem igniting in your bess.

 

[Zonie]

Welcome to the forum.

In our modern day and age we like to use the finer grained powders like 3Fg and 4F to prime with in order to get the fastest ignition we can but back in the day, the military was interested in simplicity and logistics.
Supplying a finer grade of powder to the men for priming would only complicate supplying and loading under battle conditions and complications are something to be avoided when in battle.

Also, if you look at the size of the pan, flint and frizzen on a Bess, there huge! It's easy to see that with these there will be plenty of sparks produced so lighting a pan full of 2Fg or even Fg powder is not a problem.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

By the 1800s it was standard policy for the touch holes on their Brown Bess muskets to be self priming. Ezekiel Baker said " All of the King's Muskets are self priming " This enabled British Regulars to achieve a higher rate of fire over the French. I do not know when this started but it was SOP in 1800. This eliminates the first step of the
manual of arms.

 

[Stumpkiller]

The touch hole on my Bess was all of 5/64" and the pan held five or six grains of FFg. It also had a very strong mainspring that raised a bushel of sparks off the frizzen. I never had ignition problems priming with FFg; quite often from paper cartridges.

 

[bangfxr]

That is still done with reenactments to day. There are safety factors that are in place.

1: Flintlocks will have flashpan deflectors solidly installed. (the guy next to you will not apereciate the shower of burning powder)

2: during the close pan part of loading the soldier will automaticly afix thier frizzen cover/stall. This device will be tied to the trigger guard for ease of application and close proximity of the lock.

3: Only the 1st shot is rammed (this is done prior to taking to the field). Ram rods will not be drawn, the rest of the shooting is done with powder taped down when butt of musket is tapped on the ground.

The biggest reason horns are not allowed on the field is several years ago during an event in the heat of battle a fellow was priming his musket and some hot sparks set off his horn. Luckly him and another person were slightly injured it could have been worse. But we drill and drill and drill until its almost second nature.

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

I read that British troops were taught to prime their Brown Bess's with a bit of the 2F black powder in the paper cartridge. Wouldn't this cause a significant percentage of misfires?

No, not necessarily, where did you get that idea?

 

[ohio ramrod]

Tiger. You are so right about NEVER loading a primed gun!I won't go into the details but last fall I was distracted and did it. I paid for it with a finger! And the remaining fingers aren't right!! :hmm: :hmm:

 

[Bright Cerulean]

I had read that the British trials to compare the flintlock Brown Bess (BB) to converted percussion BB's showed a 1/3 misfire rate for the flintlock BB. Those results, plus the usual practice of 4F in the pan led me to conclude that the 2F in the pan might have been a bit less reliable.

 

[tiger13]

I am very sorry to hear that you were injured, prayers for your full use of your other fingers.

 

[jerrywh]

Priming the pan first was standard British military procedure back then. That is one reason the British army was superior to most others. This way they could load and fire at a faster rate than most other armies keeping up a nearly constant rain of fire. A certain number of casualties was acceptable in order to gain the advantage. This led to the addition of the sliding safety on some officers guns. The safety engaged on the half cock in order to make this method of loading more safe. Regular troops weren't worth the added expense.

 

[tg]

"BB's showed a 1/3 misfire rate for the flintlock BB'

That is interesting, 1/3 failure sounds very high for a well maintained BB, I would be curious as to the accuracy of this source myself???? as mantioned in the past the typical method was to use the same powder and it was probably somewhere between put 2f and 3f definately not the standard of screening we go by today, the larger sparky locks with adequate period size vents work well with the same powder for prime as main charge.We do many things quiote different today by the standards of the past, small vents, smaller locks at times, heavier charges, tighter P&B combos.

 

[JV Puleo]

A great deal of what you read about these things is simply rubbish. I can't tell how many times I've overheard or been told absolutely idiotic things about old guns, especially flintlocks by otherwise knowledgeable gun people. All it takes is one poorly informed "gun writer" making an offhand comment about a subject he knows nothing about and the idea begins circulating. The internet has made this much worse, not better.

At an otherwise pretty good talk about a local Civil War regiment I attended at the local library, the speaker made the comment that "their rifles wouldn't work in the rain." Huh...

 

[JV Puleo]

Jerry,
I think the sliding safety was popular because it allowed an officer to carry his gun loaded and primed. Soldiers rarely did that and often, when surprise was a factor (as in a night attack) would be ordered to go forward "muskets unloaded and bayonets fixed" for the simple reason that someone was always drunk or nervous etc.

 

[mmahlock]

Something that hasn't been taken into consideration is that the only powder the soldiers had was that in their cartridges. Trying to pour almost all of it down the barrel to load and keep the rest for priming after loading was just not practical. Therefore, the process was to open the cartridge (typically by biting off the end and then priming followed by pouring the remaining powder down the barrel followed by the ball and paper (to hold the ball in the barrel).

 

[Many Klatch]

I shoot my Bess with 2F. I don't carry a priming horn so I prime from my main horn with 2F. I don't have very many misfires and those are usually due to dull flints. If I had 33% misfires I would certainly be

Many Klatch

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Jerry,
I think the sliding safety was popular because it allowed an officer to carry his gun loaded and primed. Soldiers rarely did that and often, when surprise was a factor (as in a night attack) would be ordered to go forward "muskets unloaded and bayonets fixed" for the simple reason that someone was always drunk or nervous etc.

Joe, I have seen a couple of these guns that had no half cock position. The sliding bolt engaged in full cock only. Have you seen many like that? Looks like that would have been used a bit for shooting flying as well.

 

[JV Puleo]

Off hand, I'm not sure. I don't think I've ever tried to engage the sliding bolt at half cock and can't say I've ever handled a high quality gun that had no half cock at all. That said, I've handled a lot of guns and never cocked them - which is usually the case if the gun isn't mine.

There are also "double bolted" locks where the hammer is locked and a little pin engages the frizzen and locks that too. That is common on center hammer pocket pistols which, by definition, had to be carried loaded and primed or they would have been useless.

 

[tg]

"Something that hasn't been taken into consideration is that the only powder the soldiers had was that in their cartridges'
Ii have seen on this or other forums where it is thought or there was evidence thnat some military peole carried an addiotionl horn of powder as an "in case" backup for priming. I do not know how accurate this is of how common in the various theaters of the past

 

[Bright Cerulean]

The sum of my reading about these British tests in the 1830's-1840's revealed that under ideal conditions the misfire rate was 2/13 ( = 1/6.5 ), and 1/3 for "realistic" conditions. Consider that these tests involved some very old and worn out Brown Bess's, India Company Brown Bess's transferred to the British Army/Royal Marines, and officers pushing to switch to percussion. Could these factors have contributed to a high misfire rate?