Ferguson Rifle demonstration at King's Mountain

[Grizzled Roberts]

I dip the balls in bees wax as a bare ungreased ball leads up the bore in six shots! Tallow on the breech threads and bees wax or tallow on the balls this is a lot to keep up with for a military rifle is it not. Add to that it takes 1/2 gallon of boiling water to clean out the black powder fouling, tallow and leading in the barrel. Also the cost of the Ferguson rifle was four times the cost of a Bess. It had to use the High grade German triple glazed powder the Jaegers and Tower rifles used. This powder was eight times as expensive as musket powder All of this kind of takes the shine off the penny!
:hmm:

 

[Trench]

I dip the balls in bees wax as a bare ungreased ball leads up the bore in six shots! Tallow on the breech threads and bees wax or tallow on the balls this is a lot to keep up with for a military rifle is it not. Add to that it takes 1/2 gallon of boiling water to clean out the black powder fouling, tallow and leading in the barrel. Also the cost of the Ferguson rifle was four times the cost of a Bess. It had to use the High grade German triple glazed powder the Jaegers and Tower rifles used. This powder was eight times as expensive as musket powder All of this kind of takes the shine off the penny!
:hmm:

Well, now I'm starting to understand why more of these weren't used in the Revolution. Too much money to maintain such a small supply of rifles, eh?

 

[Sharps1863]

I was planning on going to Kings Mountain Saturday and my plans did not come together. I hate I missed it. Thanks for the video.
The cost of the rifle compared to the Brown Bess and the fact that Ferguson didn't make it off of Kings Mountain Alive, sealed that rifles fate in the eye's of the British Military.

 

[goon]

Thanks for posting this. I love history and these rifles are really under represented. I've only read a very little about them. It's cool to see that someone is putting one to good use.

 

[Many Klatch]

This would be harder to film, but I have seen Ricky shoot almost as fast while advancing toward a target. The Ferguson also is the only gun of the era that can be easily loaded while lying prone behind a fallen tree.

Many Klatch

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

After Patrick Ferguson got out of the Rifle Business The East India Company purchased Ferguson pattern rifles for their Sepoy militia and for sporting rifles. Most of these records
were destroyed in the Sepoy rebellion so details are few and far between. While Captain Ferguson was supervising the construction of his 100 experimental rifles in 1776, the East India Company tried to steal his rifles! Patrick Ferguson discovered this and put a stop to it. Of course when a rifle ball destroyed Ferguson's right elbow at Brandywine in September 1777......

 

[Naphtali]

A bullet question: Part of a Ferguson's loading procedure is to drop a round ball into the vertical breech opening and tilt the muzzle to allow the RB to roll forward.

When muzzle loading RBs, a sprue, tangential or teat, can be positioned where the loader prefers, most preferring sprue forward. Loading a Ferguson renders positioning of sprue a manure shoot.

When I shot several custom built Fergusons, the builder cast RBs, then put each RB back into his iron casting mold, put mold blocks into a vice, and squeezed RBs spherical by positioning the sprue and seam differently from as-cast. When I saw him doing this, I cringed, thinking his mold would last less than a week before being deformed.

So there must be a different, a better way to achieve the nearly perfect spheres Fergusons prefer. Swaging RBs is an answer, but when I think of this process, visions appear of expense way out of proportion to the number of shots anyone might fire in his Ferguson.

 

[poordevil]

Weren't the balls swaged? I know they were by the 1860's not sure when before that??

 

[paulvallandigham]

If the ball is cast from pure lead, its soft enough to be reformed in a Steel mold- I am not so sure about using an Aluminum alloy mold for this purpose-- to reduce the size of the sprue.

More importantly, testing was done just a year ago, that says that the location of the sprue is NOT important for accuracy, as we all believed, and had been taught. The Weight of the balls being consistent has much more to do with their accuracy. :hmm: :thumbsup:

If you are loading ( casting, and shaping balls) for a replica Ferguson, Take the time to cut or file the sprue off as close to the diameter as possible, and then weigh the balls. Balls that are lighter in weight in all Probability have casting " bubbles" in the lead, under the sprue, and should be set aside for plinking loads, or to put back in the pot to be recast.

The bubbles show up in the cast balls due, primarily to the lead being too cool by the time the last lead is entering the mold.

Coolness can be the result of:

1. melt temperature in the pot;

2. holding the mold too far from a bottom pour spout;

3. using a ladle that is Not kept hot between pours;

4. holding the spout of a ladle too far from the mold when the lead is poured;

5. waiting too long to pour the lead into the mold; and

6. pouring lead into a mold that has too small a hole in the sprue plate( cut-off plate), which allows the lead to cool before the mold is filled.

These technical issues become an even more critical problem when using gang( multi-cavity) molds.

If you are going to use a steel mold set of blocks as a swaging tool in your vise, take care in how you use the vise to press the two halves together. Pad the jaws, so that its teeth don't damage the mold blocks. Don't expect it to squeeze out a lot of excess lead- MOLDS are simply not designed for that purpose.

A better way to use a mold to reduce the size of sprues, is to put the ball back into the mold blocks with the sprue protruding up through the hole in the blocks, with the sprue cutter plate left OPEN. Then use a file, chisel, or knife carefully to file or cut off the lead sticking up through the hole.

Tanner makes old fashion scissor style molds of brass, that have no cut-off plates attached. He sells a set of wire "nippers" that have a curved set of blades to cut off the sprues even with the curve of the ball. There are " side cutters" for cutting rod, and wire available that can also be used with soft lead to cut off the sprues cleanly.

Paul

 

[Naphtali]

. . . More importantly, testing was done just a year ago, that says that the location of the sprue is NOT important for accuracy, as we all believed, and had been taught. The Weight of the balls being consistent has much more to do with their accuracy.
Paul

Paul:

Please furnish me with a link to these data. If no link exists, would it be feasible for you to send it to me via attachment to an email?

 

[paulvallandigham]

Sorry. It was in one of the Bevel Brother's columns within the last 18 months. I don't have time to go through the issues now, but I might be able to get back to it in a couple of weeks. If and when I find the article, I will be happy to give you the information. In the meanwhile, you might contact the Editor for Muzzle Blasts, Eric Bye, or his staff at the NMLRA, and see if they can't find it in their indexing.