Double Balling the smooth bore Trade Gun

[Russianblood]

Stress. Cap may have gone off but not the powder charge and with everybody else's going off, they wouldn't know their's didn't.

 

[Toomuch_36]

If you want a real stake buster, try a reversed .69" Minie in a .70 bore Potsdam Musket! Shoot first and tell the troops to aim at the stake along a line horizontal to your wood crater!!

What works even better is after you have shot most of the stake away take and load your mini backwards and shoot for the top of the stake and snap it right off.

Toomuch
.............
Shoot Flint

 

[chuckpa]

You are right there would be alot of unhappy reenactors if I fired all of my wifes needels maybe I should go for the straight pins. I will get a .60 ball mold this week end.
I will be trying the double ball load with 60 grains of FFG to start. I'll let evryone know how it works for me.

 

[DrTimboone]

I read in Nathan Boone's interview with Draper that Daniel Boone used a fowler loaded with three balls and 5-6 buckshot at the battle of blue licks. Guess long range accuracy was not the :rotf: issue

 

[rich pierce]

I'll play "Dad" again here, cause I hate to think that somebody relatively new will think that double-balling and double-charging is just fun with no risk. Sure, it's fun if you've got a Bess-sized breech. Try that in some undersized 15/16" 20 ga barrel or some hydraulic tubing barrel and the results might not be good. Most of the accidents I know about in muzzleloading come about in this sort of "experimentation" with guns that are a little on the "iffy" side.

Driving 100 miles an hour is fun, too, if you're in the right place with the right equipment. But promoting it to the general public is probably not the best idea cause somebody in a jalopy is going to have some problems at that speed.

 

[Slamfire]

Along with two or three powder charges. Seems some soldiers would get too excited to shoot. They'd just load. :shake:

 

[paulvallandigham]

In he Civil War, soldiers on both sides were trained to load their rifles in cadence, called by their sergeants. They fired in volleys. If you have ever been a reinactor when a volley is fired, if you aren't wearing ear plugs, or muffs, you are not likely to be able to hear the sound of the next volley ! You will be more aware of what the men along side of you are doing and follow them to keep the cadence of the unit, than to be able to hear the sergeant call the commands. They practiced this until they did it like robots, without conscious thought. How else can you get men to walk into a hail of gunfire standing up, in a shoulder to shoulder line?

The guns were double loaded because they may hear or see the musket cap go off, but they can't hear or even feel the recoil of the gun going off. They were so scared( stress) that they simply were not aware that the gun had misfired. Since they were not trained to stop, and not load the gun in the cadence, and just put another cap on the nipple, and fire it again, they loaded the gun again, and again, until they were killed, wounded, or the battle ended. One rifle had seven separate powder and ball loads in the barrel when it was found. Just because someone did it back then does NOT mean it was a SMART thing to do, then or now.

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

If you want a real stake buster, try a reversed .69" Minie in a .70 bore Potsdam Musket! Shoot first and tell the troops to aim at the stake along a line horizontal to your wood crater!!

Talk about a lucky shot! Let's see, a .685 Minie in a .71 caliber Prussian (smooth or rifled?)... An undersized Minie only keyholes any way (personal experience) and, even if the gun is rifled, will wander in a way similar to the undersized roundball in a smoothbore. :shocked2: Add to that a reversed loading with deformed skirt from rattling out of the oversize bore and I can't see where it's possible that you will hit YOUR post - maybe that of the team you are shooting against? But you are right, it will tear a great big hole in whatever it hits, maybe even bigger than when it hits after being loaded properly. :haha:


And Paul and Rich, how right you are!! :bow: Most muzzleloading "mishaps", like other spectacular accidents are preceded with the statement "Hey, y'all watch this..." :youcrazy: :rotf:

 

[dlemaster]

Paul
I have reference to a rifle musket picked up at Gettysburg that had 23 loads in the barrel on top of the other. Talk about "Buck Fever"

Regards, Dave

 

[LarryB]

I have never double balled. How ever a southern friend of mine told me, if you don't double ball down here you will have a hard time winning a candle shoot. I think in some places it may be the norm for some events.

 

[chuckpa]

I went to the range today and tried double balling in my 20 gauge NSW Trade Gun. I fired 60 gr ffg and loaded the first ball bare the second was patached. At 25 yds the balls struct between 3 and 4 inches apart. Thanks for all the information on this subject.
Chuckpa

 

[paulvallandigham]

is it physically possible to put 23 loads in one of those rifles? I can see stacking 23 bullets( minie balls) on top of one another, but powder and ball? Wow! I had not heard or read of that gun before! I was always amazed at the one with the 7 charges in it! Thanks for the new information.

 

[dlemaster]

Paul
I can't remember whether I read about that in Edwards "Civil War Guns" or where it was exactly, I read it years ago when I was doing Civil War reenacting.
The Springfield rifle musket had a barrel 40" long and the bullet was a 460 grain .58 cal mini over 60 grains of powder. That load would be something under 2" in length but 23 loads would still be a full barrel.

Regards, Dave

 

[DrTimboone]

Perhaps some soldier was making a "boobytrap"!!