Bugman said:
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Logic says that our forebears used combinations which were not very difficult to ram, otherwise they would have had to carry a starter and a range rod which are more recent inventions.
OR logic shows they may have had coned barrels, and of course as mentioned, you don't know what they expected for accuracy.
I am extremely leery of suggesting that they had coned barrels in the 18th century and even into most of the 19th century - that is covered by the period of this forum up through the UnCivil War.
Though we don’t have a plethora of sources of 17th and 18th century written gunsmith techniques and not much more on early 19th century techniques, and as far as I know, none of them talk about what we would consider “coning” at least in the
modern use of the term. Admittedly we have even fewer engravings and descriptions of gunsmithing tools for most of the period, but “modern style” coning tools don’t show up there either. They had the technology to make tools like it, but again, those tools don’t show up.
MOST original rifle barrels (when you include the early to mid 19th century rifles) don’t have “coned” muzzles, again in the modern sense of the word. However, there is evidence on some original 18th century rifles that a “sort of” hand filed “coning” was done. IOW, both the lands and grooves were hand filed in a rounded fashion that went back a little ways into the bore. This would have allowed thumb pressing the ball into the barrel even with a fairly tight patch. However, this technique did not seem to be carried over much into the early 19th century. So one logically can/should ask the question, “Why not, if it worked well for loading and accuracy?”
Adding to what Curator mentioned, in the 1840’s through the 1860’s when they actually HAD precision calipers inexpensive enough they could be afforded by many in the mechanical trades, significant improvements in steel barrels and machine tools, better gun powder, etc., etc. did target rifles use the “hand filed coning” mentioned above? NO, they did not. As Curator mentioned, most of the Target Rifles had false muzzles even after the early smokeless powders were used.
OK, leaving aside the Target Rifles, how much evidence is there for hand filed coning of rifle muzzles in the early to mid 19th century? Not much at all. However, by the second quarter of the 19th century, short starters begin to show up rather commonly in original pouches.
Now, I remain open minded that one day we may find period documentation on using short starters in the 18th century, even though it has been demonstrated by experimental archeology they were not needed for hunting and as late as 1810 we have Audubon’s quote about pushing the ball into the muzzle with the knife handle. I also remain open minded that one day we might find evidence of “modern style” coning tools or coned muzzles. However, until such documentation evidence comes to light, I don’t believe we can logically say they had modern coned muzzles and short starters before they actually begin showing up, as in the case of short starters.
Gus
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