First shots with flintlock

[Grenadier1758]

@BillyC, I saw your posting of the accessories you made. Nice job on the short starter. A suggestion for your next bullet board is to space the holes so that you can have the balls spaced so that by having the ball protrude, they will locate on the muzzle. You can have the balls flush and start each one just before loading to make alignment of the ball to the bore for starting much easier.

Here's an interesting read and there are other threads that can be found through the search engine.

https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/making-a-bullet-board.156547/page-2

 

[BillyC]

So I’ve been shooting a .440 ball with .015 patch so total .470 diameter.
Is there any utility to switching to .435 ball with .020 patch = .475 total diameter.
Will this make it easier or harder to load? Does patch thickness affect fouling or just the amount of powder?
I can’t shoot more than two balls without swabbing the barrel, it’s just too hard to load. Does that mean my pre-lubed patches suck or do I just not realize how hard it can be to load ?