I’ve watched many YouTube videos concerning the Brown Bess though I never saw this one until today subject is the title of it. Was wondering if any other forum members did and what you think and how typical was it to spit the ball into the barrel followed by the paper cartridge and ramming it home? This chap says basically the way it was done by the British Army? I think today we all know about the toxicity of lead. Heck if they chewed them for dimpling seems like it could have been another less talked about the way loading was done. The video is less than 2 minutes long.
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How to Fire a Brown Bess Musket
- Thread starter Joemolf
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He is wrong. After picking the cartridge from the cartridge box, the folded (non-ball) end is torn off with the teeth. Some powder is put in the pan to prime, the pan is shut, and the open end of the cartridge inserted in the barrel, allowing the powder to pour down the barrel. The ball and now-empty cartridge are rammed home.
This video explains the whole proceedure.
This video explains the whole proceedure.
To be sure, spitting the ball down the barrel before pouring the powder from the cartridge is a sure way to begin the demonstration for pulling a bare ball from the barrel.
There are accounts of spitting a ball down the barrel on top of a charge of powder, but that is not a typical loading procedure. I've heard of that being done when hunting bison from horseback or as an emergency quick load procedure. That You-Tube video is overly exaggerating a rarely used loading procedure as if he really knows something.
Please note that since we are not in a line of battle, the loading procedure of priming the pan before loading the powder then ball (and rest of the paper cartridge) has been altered to prime the pan just prior to firing. I will spit on the paper wrapped ball after a few shots to keep the fouling soft when loading multiple shots in rapid sequence.
The video linked by @JB67 is good although the procedure is defined after the F&I War. There are subtle differences in the order of commands used by different companies.
There are accounts of spitting a ball down the barrel on top of a charge of powder, but that is not a typical loading procedure. I've heard of that being done when hunting bison from horseback or as an emergency quick load procedure. That You-Tube video is overly exaggerating a rarely used loading procedure as if he really knows something.
Please note that since we are not in a line of battle, the loading procedure of priming the pan before loading the powder then ball (and rest of the paper cartridge) has been altered to prime the pan just prior to firing. I will spit on the paper wrapped ball after a few shots to keep the fouling soft when loading multiple shots in rapid sequence.
The video linked by @JB67 is good although the procedure is defined after the F&I War. There are subtle differences in the order of commands used by different companies.
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FWIW, I loaded my BB like a rifle. Powder, patched ball. Granted, it would gunk up after several rounds and need swabbing. But I swab as a matter of course so that was not an issue.
To get out of the awkward squad a british soldier had to shoot fifteen shots in three and three quarter minutes that’s fifteen seconds per shot. I would be awkward. At least I’ve never fired my fusil that fast. Some crack troops were faster. I saw a Rodgers Ranger reinactor Ted Spring do it in 12 seconds, getting twenty two shots off in that time frame. Added to the danger of trying to spit a ball I doubt one could improve the time.
As for riding and shooting Buffalo by spitting the ball down the bore you could always find those that did it by the absence of teeth
A horse on rough ground riding beside a Buffalo at about twenty miles an hour, held in the saddle by knee pressure alone with an iron barrel close enough to your mouth to spit a ball down the bore is highly discouraged by dentists
As for riding and shooting Buffalo by spitting the ball down the bore you could always find those that did it by the absence of teeth
A horse on rough ground riding beside a Buffalo at about twenty miles an hour, held in the saddle by knee pressure alone with an iron barrel close enough to your mouth to spit a ball down the bore is highly discouraged by dentists
I’m pretty sure I said after the powder
Sounds to me as if the ball precedes the cartridge with the powder. I suspect you left out the step where the powder was poured out of the cartridge, then the ball was spit down the bore with the remaining paper used as an over ball wad.
He tears the ball with teeth from cartridge, primes, pours remaining powder down the barrel, spits the ball down the barrel, stuffs the remaining wad down the barrel packs it aims and pull s the trigger! Sorry I even mentioned it!
chewing on lead balls is harmless. you just get terrible headaches from doing it!! sorts loke a kid back in the 50's chewing on a wooden window sill while looking out the window, most were painted with lead paint! again LEAD!. not a good practice!
Sooty Scot
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One small quibble/clarification: lead paint contained (white) lead oxide, which is a cumulative poison. That's a key difference. Clean elemental lead is not as dangerous - unless approaching at speed, or battering your enamel.
Was some one insulting of you or you question? I thought you were asking if this vid showing spiting the ball down the bore was an accurate representation of what they did in the past.
That’s a good question.
There is a lot of good stuff on you tube. Unfortunately there is a lot of manure, and stupid stuff.
Watching you tube you will learn there was no King Arthur, or that he was a real king. That warp bubbles for interstellar travel is possible and right around the corner, or impossible.
That Biden would s the best president ever or spawn of Satan.
You can learn how to put tile up with bubble gum or make adobe brick that will last your life time.
You tube is full of wonders and manure.
Why are you getting all bent? Welcome to the internet. Anyway, that guy is doing it wrong. Like others have said, pour the powder and stuff the ball, still wrapped in the paper cartridge in the muzzle and ram it down. Prime before or after.
So that's a video made from a much older movie.
What the 19th century Light Infantryman (He mentions Waterloo and Spain) is showing you is the emergency procedure for fastest possible loading in the 19th century. I suspect he has seen, or somebody in his unit has seen too many of the BBC Sharpe's Rifles TV series.
So it's not "wrong" if you're about to be over-run by Frenchmen, but it's not the proper loading procedure.
Here's where he learned it, or somebody in his unit did. They added the ramming part to be "safe"... Sharpe Teaches Loading (c. 1993-1997)
@JB67 has a video that shows the proper steps, but properly trained lads are much faster when given the command to load.
LD
Not at all I’m ****** I left that out I should know better Tech Writer by occupation! Good grief sorry for crashing the jet
Many things right or wrong were and are done present and past due to field expediency. Let the situation govern what must be done. Be not critical but try and understand why something is done the way it is at the time it is done.
I was just at an event. A guy was selling rifles and equipment. He gave a little lecture to tourist about trade guns. How Indians were given cheep fusils that couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn and only shot one time in three.
These sort of myths exist and still exist. And on you tube look great on camera
You don’t ask you can’t learn. And the info your given while learning can be pretty poor.
Then living history blends well with bushcraft. And what seems like a great idea wasn’t done in the old days.
Ml are fun, and requires a learning curve. Back in the old days they didn’t have much of a means to test ideas and they too operated from myths we don’t do today.
Should one want to do it the old way the info is available, but the myths persist, even from the most experienced
This is an ever learning black hole. We never reach the bottom. Acme is behind on orders and has yet to deliver my time machine.
These sort of myths exist and still exist. And on you tube look great on camera
You don’t ask you can’t learn. And the info your given while learning can be pretty poor.
Then living history blends well with bushcraft. And what seems like a great idea wasn’t done in the old days.
Ml are fun, and requires a learning curve. Back in the old days they didn’t have much of a means to test ideas and they too operated from myths we don’t do today.
Should one want to do it the old way the info is available, but the myths persist, even from the most experienced
This is an ever learning black hole. We never reach the bottom. Acme is behind on orders and has yet to deliver my time machine.
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If you want to see the English infantry drill for loading and firing the so-called Brown Bess, we were lucky enough to be visiting Chester Castle last Sunday morning, and watched a recruiting detachment of the 33rd of Foot, Lord Cornwallis' Own, go through their evolutions.
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FWIW, My circa 1965 4th grade American History textbook had two pages devoted to firing an "American Revolutionary War" musket. The first page was a cartoon of how to make a paper cartridge, showing how to fold the paper, fill the powder, and twisting the end with the ball in place. According to this cartoon, there was a "small bit of twine" used to tie the cartridge between the ball and powder. The next page was a series of B&W photos of a man dressed as a Continental soldier loading the cartridge by ramming the entire cartridge, intact, down the barrel. There was no photo of the musket actually firing. My question has been, even if one used nitrated paper for the cartridge, in a flintlock, would it have even ignited? And isn't a "small bit of twine" a very poor wad at best?
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