Buck&Ball

[PA.1740]

What :idunno: is the right way to load buck&ball ?Phil

 

[hanshi]

I can't help there but I honestly don't see the point :hmm: . It reminds me too much of these old guys who wear a belt AND suspenders. :stir:

 

[Many Klatch]

I load my buck and ball load with the round ball first and the buckshot on top. The roundball is patched, the buckshot needs something to keep it in place, an over shot card is nice, a wad of patching will work too. Use the same powder charge as you would with the roundball without the buckshot.

I use 3 to 5 buckshot in my 20 ga smoothbores and 5 to 7 in my Bess.

You will notice that it will kick more.

I don't shoot buck and ball because I have to, I shoot it because I can

Many Klatch

 

[Macon Due]

I was thinking just the opposite.......load the buck first [so the ball would not 'blow' through it] plus the patched ball would hold the buck in with no overshot card needed.
Macon

 

[asbrown]

During the uncivil war the buck was loaded on top of the ball in a paper cartridge. Supposedly this provided a better spread for a better chance of a hit at close range (ie whites of their eyes type distances). But then they wwere shooting at a line of 6 foot tall targets only 25-50 yds away. I understand the irish brigade of new york did some horrendous damage in several battles with this setup.

 

[George]

I was thinking just the opposite.......load the buck first [so the ball would not 'blow' through it] plus the patched ball would hold the buck in with no overshot card needed.

I don't know if that's the reason, but that's the way it worked out for me. I don't think PRB was used in the 18th century, so I tried working up a load without patches. Loading a card wad, cushion wad, bare ball, buckshot and then an overshot card I had very poor results. I tried it with 3, 6 and 7 buckshot and with only a card over powder, nothing worked well. I gave it some thought and decided to do away with the cards, use only what I had original references to, tow. Next trip I loaded tow wadding, bare ball, then the buckshot and another tow wad. That helped, groups shrank and things got more consistent, but it still wasn't a useable load. I then tried loading the buckshot first, with the ball over it, and that seemed to be what I needed. I was able to shoot reliable patterns, small enough at 20-25 yards to be used.

Don't know if the ball had been busting through the buckshot, but that setup was by far the best I tried. Maybe the buckshot were drafting behind the ball? :haha:

Spence

 

[George]

I can't help there but I honestly don't see the point.

In today's world I'm not sure there is one, but in the 18th century it was apparently a very popular way to load. Here are some of the references I've collected which make that plain, for both the military and civilians.

1750 ... the other took him for a deer, shot at him, and so wounded him with a bullet and swan shot , that he died in a few days after.

1756 The Indian, with a fine French Gun, mortally wounded Cresap with a Bullet and seven Swan shot in the Breast.

1757 [Rogers’ Rangers] ... a leathern, or seal's skin bag, buckled round their waist, which hangs down before, contains bullets, and a smaller shot of the size of full green peas: six or seven of which, with a ball they generally load;

1774 And the next Day Thomas Wilson was convicted of Murder, for shooting William Hewit through the Body with a Bullet and three Swan Shot,

1775 [Cresswell] ... I loaded her with an ounce bullet and seven swan shot.

1775 [Mass. troops, each man to provide:]

A Pouch Containing a Cartridge Box that will Hold fifteen Rounds of Cartridges at Least/A Hundred Buck Shot/A Jack Knife & Tow for Wadding/Six flints, one Pound of Powder/forty Leaden Balls fitted to the Gun

1778 The men of my regiment were armed with muskets and bayonets, they were no great marksmen, and were aukward at wood fighting. The bullet and three swan shot in each piece, made up in some measure for the want of skill.

There are also quite a few references describing loads containing multiple buck shot with no ball being mentioned.

Spence

 

[Rifleman1776]

Normaly, I don't see a point in it either. But, when I carried my Brown Bess squirrel hunting I also had some punkin' balls in the bag. If it was during a legal deer season I was ready to drop in a ball and harvest a deer. Never did. Upside was I didn't have to experience what surely would have been a painful shoulder thumper.

 

[ericb]

I end almost every session with the .69 Charleville with a few rounds of Paper Cartridge B&B just for grins (like ManyKlatch - "jes' cuz I can..." For the Charleville I use a .662 Ball and 3 .31 Roundball/Buckshot.

I load it the same way I load the Roundball Cartridges, with the empty part that contained the powder 1st, serving as wadding. Accuracy/Pattern? Well, shoot a few on paper and you'll see. There have been posts on the subject in the past, with some pics too; check 'em out. While I have no doubt of it's efficacy against massed troops, or on Perimeter Duty at night in the Allegheny Mountain Laurel, it's validity as a hunting load has been the subject of spirited debate.

It's hard to make a Pretty Buck & Ball Cartridge, but then, I don't reckon anything about B&B's s'posed to be pretty...

Eric

 

[wahkahchimaol.com]

I also found that I needed to put the ball in front of the buckshot. Otherwise the buckshot just scatters. But perhaps that was the point.

 

[satwel]

Ericb has it right; buck and ball, used primarily for anti-personel applications, was most often loaded using a paper cartridge. British army surgeon after-action reports from the battle of Concord and Lexington describe wounds to the Regulars consistent with buck and ball loads.

To George,
The stopping power of buck and ball was well known in the 17th century as well. Benjamin Church described the death of King Philip by the hand of the native scout Alderman as Philip tried to escape their ambush in a swamp on 8/12/1676; "They let him come fair within shot, and the Englishman's gun missing fire, he bid the Indian fire away, and he did so to the purpose, sent one musket bullet through his heart, and another not above two inches from it. He fell upon his face in the mud and water, with his gun under him."

 

[tg]

I did quite a bit of patterning with B&B loads in a .62 smoothrifle and found that a .600 patched ball with 6 .30 shot atop it gave me the best groups, actualy usable for hunting out to 10-12 yds. I did not get any kind of consistant patterning with the ball atop the shot. One really needs to do their own testing to find what works best and it is marginal due to being very range limited as a hunting load

 

[ericb]

What kinda charge did you you use with that combo, tg?

 

[tg]

I believe I used 70-75 gr of 3f it was a short range load so I thought it would hold together better with less powder, I used 80-90 gr 3f with just PRB it was a Getz 42" swamped smooth barrel 1 1/8 at the breech. I generaly use less powder with any shot load compared to what I run behind a ball. I think this is typical for most shooters. The .30 balls do not "stack" in the .62 bore but they were the smallest size I could leagaly use for a Deer load so I tried that size. I had a good short range pattern that would put a lot of lead in a small area but never used it as the ranbge limitations made it a highly location specific load. I had one ambush area at a trail into a huge blackberry patch that I had in mind for the load but never got around to trying it there. i have no doubt that at the close range possible there that any Deer that came thru would have not gone but a step of two after the shot with 6 .30 holes and one .62 hole, within 10"...lots of precious bodily fluid leakage no doubt

 

[62tulle]

I think the military application is to get maximum spread. Hit one opponent with RB, and wing the guys on either side with the buckshot. So the point nowadays is that some smoothbore woodswalk simply state 'Be prepared to use your smoothbore to its fullest potential'. They will often have one target with another on each side, and you get points for all hits.

 

[Many Klatch]

I sometimes use buck and ball on woods walks. I usually carry a Bess on a woodswalk and if the range officer does not say single round ball only, I figure it is OK to use buck and ball when it makes sense. The buck shot has scored me points when the round ball was deflected by a branch.

Many Klatch

 

[Stophel]

For those that say "what's the point", do you think that 5 or 6 or 7 projectiles are not more deadly than one???? :grin:

Oh, and "swan shot" is NOT the drippy little weird things from the Mark Baker video. :wink: It is round shot of a certain size (though I do not recall now exactly how big).

 

[tg]

I am thinking around .23 for Swan shot but not sure, the part about being round and cast is a for sure, homemade shot that came out with a tail got dubbed "Swan shot" at some time in the 20th century probably in the last 1/4 or 1/4 and stuck cause it looked cool, and some stated marketing it as swan shot and as usually "away we went"

 

[bangfxr]

I run B&B in my smoothy and run rendevous as a militiaman so I carry them in woods walks and to good effect on hostile targets. I make mine like museum examples and writen referances. Within the paper cartridge which doubles as patching material after loading 70-80 grains of powder in the barrel then the rest of the cartridge is put in the barrel round ball 1st with the buckshot on top.
1812 the english damned Americans for using such "an abombadable ungentelmanly type of ammunition". Santa Anna's troops felt the sting of B&B and in the CW B&B did great carnage to opposite ranks once they got within 70 yards. The Sunken road/ Bloody Lane is one of many places where B&B held high councel in carnage.

 

[Alden]

Swan Shot was not a particular size but was the generic pellet size between the likewise generic "(bird)shot" and "buckshot." You may presume it to be between roughly .15 and .25 caliber.

In my own studies I've found that bigger Swanshot, though present, was relatively rare on the battlefield vs. Buckshot in any regard. Excavations, artifacts, and records demonstrate this as well as the recognizeable ballistic effects of small shot with so poor a coefficient.

Through practical experience our forefathers determined .28 to .33 buckshot in their blackpowder arms was incredibly useful to cover the intermediate ranges of their smoothbore muskets. Swanshot is ideal only at short range -- still true today in defensive shotgun shooting and that's with heavier, harder, faster, denser patterns. If you've ever practiced woods-fighting you immediately realize how necessary B&B is. Think "Battle of Oriskany."

In October 1777, General Washington recommended the men deliver their first volley with a load of “one musket ball and four or eight buckshot, according to the strength of their pieces.” And from Army GENERAL ORDERS, Head Quarters, Perkiomy, October 6, 1777; “buckshot are to be put into all cartridges which shall be hereafter made."