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I was interested in hunting. If you want to duplicate the military load try 135 grains of 1F.
 
I didn't miss the point. I knew exactly what he was attempting to do. That's why I didn't recommend larger balls and a patch. I often shoot "Military Style" loads and point rather than take conscious aim at the target.
 
Like the old saying goes:

"One went high and one went low, where in the "heck" did the other one go?"

It's an interesting experiment and everyone should try it at least a few times to appreciate what they were up against. Then we can learn the bayonet exercise. :shocked2: That's where the action really was.

Interesting note, it's surprising how well the gun does after a few "fouling shots" with the cartridge paper making up for the windage. Just another lesson learned....
 
I think to really understand the military loads, you'd have to practice "rapid-fire" and attempt to load and fire three or more times in a minute.

Personally, I'm not going to try it. I remember watching some reenactor do it on a show hosted by R. Lee Ermey and halfway through he had a charge cook off in the middle of loading. Surprisingly, he was uninjured and just kept going like it hadn't happened.

Myself, I value my hands a little too much to risk having a RB or a ramrod pass through them. I'm not too crazy about charging the rifle with powder in the pan and the gun at half-cock either.
 
I thnik military loading is quite safe. But have to do this extactly by military manuals (for example french military manual 1791 http://www.austerlitz2005.com/download/reglement/Atlas.pdf. )
I am doing napoleonic reenacment for few years and about for 5 or 6 years there is emphasis on school of soldier (Central European Napoleonic society make 3 camps for this during year for about 150-200"soldiers")I think that I can say that we have not such accident for 5 yeras and I touching wood, to other side it depends on people...
 
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I think that the way reenactors load here in America certainly is safe, but when they do it they only use a powder charge and they don't ram it down, (they don't even have ramrods when shooting blanks).

My understanding of the redcoat's and colonial manual of arms is that they would start by grabbing a cartridge. They would then bite the part with the lead ball in it, rip it open, poor a little in the pan, lower the frizzen with the lock at half cock, dump the remainder of the powder down the barrel, spit the ball into the barrel, stuff the paper in after it, ram it down and then bring it up to fire. After doing all this, they would then immediately repeat it.

To me this seems unsafe on a number of levels. The idea of having my head in front of a mostly loaded gun so that I can spit a ball into it is one of the first things that make me hesitant to try it. Then there's the possibility of an accidental discharge due to an unburned ember when you're firing and reloading as fast as possible. I also see a strong possibility of accidentally setting the gun at full cock in the haste and excitement of trying to do this.

Perhaps they had a safer loading procedure in Europe?
 
That's the way it was done Mark. Mr. Fudd, no one (in any military anyway) would spit the ball into the muzzle, read the link Mark posted. The cartridge paper wrapping of the ball also served to take up windage in the bore. If the soldier loaded enough times that fouling started making it difficult to ram, he then put the naked ball down the bore and followed with the paper and rammed but it was rarely necessary. In combat of the 18th Century, soldiers rarely fired more than a few rounds in combat.
 
....and the tail of the Cartridge was bite to get to the powder, not the ball end

P
 
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