In one of the latest Osprey series there's an edition on Wellington's Light Infantry regiments. Interesting as that is, there's an artist's illustration of a French attempt to use buckshot in military muskets. Wish I could get the scanner to work right, pictures really are worth a thousand words! Anyway, it's basically a cylinder of wood that's slightly smaller than bore size for the French musket of whatever time it was from.(Author didn't mention it's diameter...rats!!). The cylinder has four holes drilled through it, side to side. If you looked down on the end of the cylinder, holes 1 and 3 would be from right to left and holes 2 and 4 would be top to bottom...basically, every other hole passed 90 degrees across the one next to it. The holes are just big enough to take two balls that just fit inside the diameter of the wooden cylinder. What you've got is a wooden sabot with 8 balls about .34", assuming about .69" bore and a tight fit. Theory was the wooden cylinder would splinter to bits from the powder explosion and the balls would be on their way! Great idea, wonder if it worked? :applause: :hmm:
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French "Buckshot" Load
- Thread starter Wes/Tex
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I'm not sure I understand how the holes were arranged, but it sounds intriguing. I wonder if this gave the shot a tighter pattern. :hmm: Did the book say if this was part of a paper cartridge? I am wondering how they carried the powdercharge for these.
I was afraid not being able to put up a picture would lead to confusion but let me try again. If you held the wooden sabot in your hand in an upright or vertical position and rotated it until the top hole drilled through it faced you so you could see through it, the hole immediately below it would be drilled at 90 degrees to it, or would be running from left to right through the sabot. The third hole, immediately below the that one would face you so you could see through it as did the top one. The fourth, or bottom hole, runs left to right like the second hole does.
Basically, every other hole drilled through the wooden sabot runs at 90 degrees to the one just above, below or both. Unfortunately, the author doesn't specify what type of wood was used, what time period it represented, what his verification is, etc. It' a really interesting projectile that would solve the ability to launch 8 large buckshot without flattening too badly in the bore as would the buck & ball type load would. Hope this helps clear up the confusion.
Found out some new info on this projectile. Seems they were made by the French garrison at Badajos to use on the English attackers in 1812. When the attempt was made at the 'curtain wall' there was a huge mine set off plus lit grenades and howitzer shells tossed into the ditch as the English assault troops tried to get into the breech made by the Royal Artillery. The French had made long barricades of logs with sword blades and pike points plus had cannon with double cannister in the breech and when it came to point blank, these wooden sabot with 8 buckshot were loaded on top of the standard ball cartridges and fired into the faces of the assarlt troops. The British made 40 charges in 2+ hours and all were thrown back in the face of such defences, small wonder! Wellington himself finally called off the attempts untill the diversionary attacks around both sides got into the town and the assaults were finally renewed and the city taken. The casualties were horrendous though light by comparison to what would come at Waterloo three years later!
Guest
Yes- the French muskets were .69 as were yours(US)as they were patterned after the French guns. The model 1895 was a close copy of the '63 Charleville. It wasn't until 1814, when Eli Whitney used the French 1777 Charleville's brass pan on his own contract guns for the military, that the brass pan evolved into the US guns. (according to the book I have on the subject)
You're right, we copied the French "Charleville", or so we called them all. Made no difference which arsenal they were made in, they were called "Charleville" reguardless. The first was the M.1795, just a typo, which was actually patterned after the M.1766 with it's lightened stock & barrel. The M.1766 was sometimes referred to as the "M.1763 Light Model" in period records...what did we know? 
Guest
you're correct- it was 1766 not '63 - my mistake. the 1766 was such a nice musket, compared to the 1777 club affair.
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