Fraged by My Musket

[beardedhorse]

It is customary and considerate and a requirement on most black powder ranges and clubs to notify the shooter to your left (if shooting a left handed flintlock) or vice versa to audibly say "Flint" before shooting. Some close quarter re enactments use flash deflectors on muskets having an outside frizzen screw. Youo will have to do your research to find out if they are period correct. Loose or poorly fitted touch hole liners, worn drum threads on convertibles, poor bolster to barrel fit of the lock can be cause of identified flying objects The latter is a source of your priming powder falling inside the lock mortise, accumulating and one day giving you a heck of a surprise. One "range officer" had a cap fragment shield installed on his percussion rifle but did not have enough threads on the nipple engaged and it came flying out, missing his eye by fractions of an inch. Loose flints in the jaw have been blown toward the lock side as well. Lots of safety details to keep informed and aware of. There is an old movie about making gun flints that shows early NMLRA members shooting flint rifles in close formation and you see a lot of guys flinching when hit by touch hole expectorants. Period correct eyeglasses are not a good substitute for shooting glasses or goggles. Be aware of the condition of not only your firearms but those next to you.

 

[beardedhorse]

P. S. There are examples of a shooter standing next to a flint shooter whose fringed cotton hunting frock caught on fire. I did a test on ghillie suits made of burlap fabric. Some knucklehead said that hair spray or artist's spray fixitive is good to keep the lint down on the burlap. It caught fire in less than 2 seconds. Burlap is made from jute, the material that modern "buckskinners" use for tinder in their flint and steel fires.

 

[Billy Boy]

Howdy All,

It is good to be back on the board. I bought a used Zoli Zouave from a skirmisher. The wood to metal fit is bordering on horrible the front sight is bent to zero but this thing can shoot like I've never seen. With 42 grains of 3F and a Lee .578 460 grain Minnie bullet it shoots cloverleafs at 50 yards, Not kidding it will do it all day long.

The guy I bought it from had the lock and trigger tuned. The trigger is crisp and light. So, I took it out today to shoot it and after 12th shot I got a cap fragment to the forehead. Not painful at all and I started to reload for the next shot but the blood got in my eye and I kinda freak out a couple of guys around me at the range. Glad I was wearing shooting glasses.

Does anyone make one of those brass guards that go around the nipple that will fit a musket nipple?

Did you check for an exit wound?

 

[Dillon W.]

I actually caught more shrapnel and other things on the forehead BECAUSE OF my flash cup. I quit using it and never had another problem. Not to say that it couldn’t happen though

 

[Muley Gil]

"The 'Lyman Black Powder Book and Loading Manual' does not list 3f for any 58 caliber load."

I started shooting .58 muskets in 1969. I tried FFg one time and the accuracy wasn't there in my Zoli Zouave, so I went back to FFFg. My loads range from 42 to 48 grains with a Minie, a Lee full wadcutter or a Raphine semi wadcutter.

 

[SDSmlf]

The "Lyman Black Powder Book and Loading Manual" does not list 3f for any 58 caliber load.

Lyman Blackpowder Handbook (first edition) has a the six page Val Forgett article on hunting ‘Really Big Game’. He goes into detail about using 200 grain and 180 grain charges of 3F under 610 grain Minie bullets in his various Navy Arms 58 caliber guns.

Squeezing the trigger on one of those loads should knock all the plaque off your teeth.

 

[M. De Land]

Howdy All,

It is good to be back on the board. I bought a used Zoli Zouave from a skirmisher. The wood to metal fit is bordering on horrible the front sight is bent to zero but this thing can shoot like I've never seen. With 42 grains of 3F and a Lee .578 460 grain Minnie bullet it shoots cloverleafs at 50 yards, Not kidding it will do it all day long.

The guy I bought it from had the lock and trigger tuned. The trigger is crisp and light. So, I took it out today to shoot it and after 12th shot I got a cap fragment to the forehead. Not painful at all and I started to reload for the next shot but the blood got in my eye and I kinda freak out a couple of guys around me at the range. Glad I was wearing shooting glasses.

Does anyone make one of those brass guards that go around the nipple that will fit a musket nipple?

Sounds like you may need a new nipple if the caps are coming apart. This can happen as the orifice gets burned out in the nipple.

 

[M. De Land]

Lyman Blackpowder Handbook (first edition) has a the six page Val Forgett article on hunting ‘Really Big Game’. He goes into detail about using 200 grain and 180 grain charges of 3F under 610 grain Minie bullets in his various Navy Arms 58 caliber guns. View attachment 72851
View attachment 72852Squeezing the trigger on one of those loads should knock all the plaque off your teeth.

I have the heavier Hawken Hunter rifle referenced in this article and my favorite load is 175 grains of 2F behind a 620 grain Maxi bullet of my own make. It is very punishing even in the offhand but also very accurate to 100 yards. I was getting 2 minutes with it in a nice round group from the bench using a Past shoulder pad .
My gun has the Beryleum copper nipple which is supposed to be much more resistant to burn out although I can't imagine firing this load enough to burn it out.

 

[nit wit]

Open up the front of your hammer, caps will blow forward.
Nit Wit

 

[Capnball]

Safer? Stand next to the touch hole when the gun fires.

I did have a particularly impressive lock ignition once that really irritated the guy sitting next to me. To be fair, I did warn him.

 

[Marshhawk]

It's what was used to print newspapers with and it's even harder than wheelweight as it had to
last through many printings.

Linotype demo

wm

Thanks for the trip down memory lane. In my youth I knew the Linotype keyboard by touch. It was a clinking, clanking contraption and lord knows how much lead we all breathed in. Still have faint scars from lead "squirts" from a too-loose line of type. When they retired my old machine, No. 7512, they made me a plaque.

 

[Crow-Feather]

Lyman Blackpowder Handbook (first edition) has a the six page Val Forgett article on hunting ‘Really Big Game’. He goes into detail about using 200 grain and 180 grain charges of 3F under 610 grain Minie bullets in his various Navy Arms 58 caliber guns. View attachment 72851
View attachment 72852Squeezing the trigger on one of those loads should knock all the plaque off your teeth.

I don't think that the military rifles were made to handle those hunting charges. Probably more like the 58 caliber hunting rifles.

 

[SDSmlf]

I don't think that the military rifles were made to handle those hunting charges. Probably more like the 58 caliber hunting rifles.

Remember reading that Forgett’s Hawken was based on a cut down Zouave rifle.

 

[Crow-Feather]

Remember reading that Forgett’s Hawken was based on a cut down Zouave rifle.

I remember a writer in a rifle magazine report that he used balls made from wheel weights when he tested a muzzle loading rifle.
I stopped believing everything I read. The writers were too far away to kick in the butt when they were wrong. Now Mr. Forgett is a knowledgeable person and I respect his opinion. But I will always take manufactures specifications over someone who makes his money writing stories in a magazine.

The Lyman book states that the max is with a 150 grain charge. The recoil is 68fps. A 30-06 recoil is 39 fps. The person who filmed shooting this load pulled the trigger with a string.

 

[SDSmlf]

I remember a writer in a rifle magazine report that he used balls made from wheel weights when he tested a muzzle loading rifle.
I stopped believing everything I read. The writers were too far away to kick in the butt when they were wrong. Now Mr. Forgett is a knowledgeable person and I respect his opinion. But I will always take manufactures specifications over someone who makes his money writing stories in a magazine.

The Lyman book states that the max is with a 150 grain charge. The recoil is 68fps. A 30-06 recoil is 39 fps. The person who filmed shooting this load pulled the trigger with a string.

Val Forgett was the owner of Navy Arms and he was writing about Navy Arms guns in an article in the Lyman Black Powder Handbook. He describes the loads, his guns and the East African species he took with them. Got to say that his article was one of the things that inspired me to go on an African Safari, although it wasn’t possible to use muzzleloaders and blackpowder when and where I hunted. Maybe next time. Reread the article. Don’t think he was pulling strings.

 

[M. De Land]

Remember reading that Forgett’s Hawken was based on a cut down Zouave rifle.

I had both, one is a cut down 58 Zoave and it was called the Buffalo hunter. I still have the other and it is a much heavier barreled .58 cal and was called the Hawken Hunter.

 

[SDSmlf]

I had both, one is a cut down 58 Zoave and it was called the Buffalo hunter. I still have the other and it is a much heavier barreled .58 cal and was called the Hawken Hunter.

Also had both years ago. Regretted letting them go after having time to think about. Don’t really ‘need’ either, but have been on a quiet search for some time. Came close a few times and returned a Buffalo Hunter that looked good but had a rotted out bore.

 

[Crow-Feather]

Val Forgett was the owner of Navy Arms and he was writing about Navy Arms guns in an article in the Lyman Black Powder Handbook. He describes the loads, his guns and the East African species he took with them. Got to say that his article was one of the things that inspired me to go on an African Safari, although it wasn’t possible to use muzzleloaders and blackpowder when and where I hunted. Maybe next time. Reread the article. Don’t think he was pulling strings.

Thank you

 

[griffiga]

Just tell the guys it's no big deal. It does that all the time.

Besides, tell the White House that your great great ancestor died in battle by having that happen to him and there is probably some compensation you can receive.