gang molds redux

[George]

Some pictures of early gang molds from the little booklet by Codman Parkerson in 1974,_A Brief Guide to Bullet Molds_.

A brass one circa 1775, it dropped two different size balls. Wooden handles would have been on the two prongs. View closed, then open.





The term 'swan shot' shows up very frenquently in the old literature, and also 'swan shot molds'. Here's an original one, English, circa 1750. It appears to drop 30 shot in two rows of 15.



This one is said to drop from dust shot to OO buck for the smoothbore shotgun. It's wrought iron, handmade, circa 1825.



And one with no picture, from Mark Baker's Sons of a Trackless Forest, a ledger entry showing that on June 23, 1768 James and Drinker delivered to Baynton, Wharton and Morgan the following items:

“10 Chests each containing 30 French guns with neat blue & Gilt Barrels & List cases is 300 Guns (at 32 shillings a piece)

4 Brass Bullet Moulds in Chest No. 3 to run 30 bullets at once in each (moulds at 55 shillings a piece)”

Notice that the molds cost almost twice as much as the guns.

Spence

 

[Zonie]

I can see the need for casting lots of little shot back in the day before shot towers were common but it seems to me that either they accepted the little sprues formed by the gates or they must have spent hours trimming them off of each little ball.

Seems like if they were left on, the sprues aerodynamic effects would have really made some irregular. ugly shot patterns.

 

[Dean2]

Swan shot was named that because of the tail sprue being on it and resembling the neck of a Swan. It was usually of fairly large diameter. Even when they started making it by dropping through a screen, they tried to get the same elongated shape to replicate. There was a belief it flew better than round shot and if you pattern swan shot you will see the pellets tend to penetrate sideways and actually pattern quite well.

 

[George]

I don't think that's accurate. Swan shot have been advertised for sale since early in the 18th century. At that time the varying sizes of shot were named for the game they were appropriate for, like this:

The Pennsylvania Gazette
October 27, 1768
Imported in the Brig Nancy, Captain Leech, and Ship Pennsylvania Packet, Captain Falconer, just arrived from LONDON,
...short pipes; F and FF gunpowder; mustard seed, bird, squirrel, duck, goose and swan shot; guns from 4 and a half to 5 feet in the barrel for geese;...

The Pennsylvania Gazette
March 12, 1761
Imported in the last vessels from London, Liverpool and Bristol,.... horse fleams, gun screws, gun flints, swan shot, high duck, low duck, pidgeon and bird shot, gimblets, awl blades,

The Pennsylvania Gazette
June 1, 1758
Just imported from London, and to be sold very cheap by STEPHEN CARMICK, ”¦Indian guns, and a few neat fowling pieces, FF and F gunpowder, bird, pigeon, duck, turkey, and swan shot,

Swan shot molds are also advertised:

The South-Carolina Gazette
January 28, 1751
CHARLES-TOWN
”¦. chamber and kitchen bellows, smoothing irons, gun-powder, shot of all sizes, French oyl flints, bar-lead and swan-shot moulds , bohea tea, cut and roll tobacco,

I think the idea that swan shot was called that because it had a swan-looking neck is a modern re-enactorism, not accurate to the early times.

Spence

 

[Dean2]

While I agree that Swan shot was a size designation in use at the time elongated shot has been around a long time and is not a modern romanticism.

Excerpt from a book worth reading.

Lead Shot of the English Civil War: A Radical Study

In a Northamptonshire deer park during the English Civil War a body of light cavalry carried out advanced target practice to prepare for battle. They left behind more than 1,800 lead shot to be found by archaeologists 360 years later, and which transform our view of 1640s smallarms fire and training.

The troopers were using not just a single round ball or some buck-shot as hitherto assumed, they also loaded buck-shot on top of a ball or loaded two and even three full-sized balls together, to increase the chances of a hit. Even more remarkably they used several forms of elongated shot to penetrate the enemy's armour or deliver a knockdown blow to him or his horse ”” 200 years earlier than we thought elongated shot came into use. Not least, there is evidence that the men were being trained to use all kinds of ordinary and sophisticated loads on the move in tactical scenarios.

This pioneering book enables archaeologists to 'read' the marks on lead shot, showing how to distinguish between damage caused by loading, by compression and gas escape in the breech on firing, by impact, and by agriculture while in the ground. It also greatly advances understanding of the internal and external ballistics of muzzle-loading and early breech-loading smallarms.

Only through this radical study can archaeologists, firearm specialists and military historians understand smallarms fire and lead shot of the pre-1850 era.

Softback only; 220 large-format pages (210 x 297mm, 8.3 x 11.7in), 100,000 words, 101 photos, 22 line drawings, 14 bar charts, 514 source notes.

 

[Wes/Tex]

For whatever reason, Lyman did some serious research on this and published their final "best guess" based on what they'd found as .20" being the magic number for swan shot.

 

[George]

While I agree that Swan shot was a size designation in use at the time elongated shot has been around a long time and is not a modern romanticism.

I didn't say elongated shot was a modern re-enactorism, I know they've been around a long time, at least since Rupert shot in 1665. What I meant was that their being called swan shot because of their shape back in the day was not correct.

I've used elongated shot, it performs pretty well. It's just not swan shot.

Spence