Paper Cartridge shooters, how should they fit?

[Rudyard]

I rather doubt the idea of using the paper as a top wad .Rather prime first pour down the powder shove the rest down few taps finnish .The excepted way it was originally .What moderns do is up to them , What Company commanders thought best was also up to them but the first plan is the simplest. But fiddling with picking out the ball ect are all needless notions. Better plan is the the K I S S principal. The Enfield Pritchett cartridge was simply pour powder, invert bullet tear off paper once placed in the muzzle paper torn off and ram. The US idea of taking out the bullet was fiddly and both sides went with the Pritchett plan later in the war (US Civil war ) .I use such cartridges with a 24 bore flint rifle saves the dangling powder flask and load blocks the ball in its patch squeezed into the muzzle and rammed home fiddly to make up but saves time in the field hunting the paper in this instance discarded . But at the end of the day its up to the shooters fancy . Rudyard

 

[Stantheman86]

I bit open the cartridge, poured the powder and shoved the whole thing in tail first. The tail sometimes bunched up and got in the way.

Fired 20 rounds no problem , could have done 20 more , I guarantee.

Removing balls and dropping them down , and shoving paper on top seems like it would maybe work in a heated engagement/competition when theres no time to clean and you have to keep firing.

 

[DaveC]

I rather doubt the idea of using the paper as a top wad .Rather prime first pour down the powder shove the rest down few taps finnish .The excepted way it was originally .What moderns do is up to them , What Company commanders thought best was also up to them but the first plan is the simplest. But fiddling with picking out the ball ect are all needless notions. Better plan is the the K I S S principal. The Enfield Pritchett cartridge was simply pour powder, invert bullet tear off paper once placed in the muzzle paper torn off and ram. The US idea of taking out the bullet was fiddly and both sides went with the Pritchett plan later in the war (US Civil war ) .I use such cartridges with a 24 bore flint rifle saves the dangling powder flask and load blocks the ball in its patch squeezed into the muzzle and rammed home fiddly to make up but saves time in the field hunting the paper in this instance discarded . But at the end of the day its up to the shooters fancy . Rudyard

If the undersized round ball is going in a smoothbore, then the first dozen shots, give or take, can simply be the paper wrapped ball, with the paper helping with the interior "windage."

In competition with a smoothbore, where using a patched round ball to reduce the interior bore "windage" is not possible, one will discover that no paper of any kind can be on the much more closely fitting projectile.

If firing a rifle musket, then one could use a paper-patched Pritchett or paper-patched Wilkinson-type bullet, or a naked-but-for-grease-grooves Minié/Burton ball. The Confederates came to prefer the British Enfield type cartridge. The Union cartridge went from a three pieces of paper Model 1855 cartridge, followed by the much simpler Model 1861 that used just two pieces of paper. By 1863, the linen thread or pieces of string used in the cartridge's construction was eliminated, and the two-piece cartridge simply used folds to hold everything together. These are quite satisfactory in my own limited experience. A well-rolled Enfield cartridge is very nice to use, and it sort of "snaps off" at the muzzle with a brusque motion, without a need to really tear the paper away.

 

[Rudyard]

Dave C understands the matter other than that the service loading allowed for lots of shooting, the ball and its paper being deliberately undersized in relation to the actual bore . Accuracy might suffer by competion standards but this wasn't a consideration . I Did' Do' Waterloo in 1995 with an original Bess .And done a lot of competition shooting There are numourous and varied means used to get the best results from muskets . but you can get too involved with loading fancies and the MLAIC International matches give you just 30 minets time (Some are ten rounds in 10 minets UK MLAGB ' Brown Bess' event at 75 yards) Wherass the MLAIC match is 55 yards best ten of 13 OH. Not sure about cleaning ( not shot for years at that level ) Became addicted to the snap matchlock , slippery slope, no cure. But saves on powder & lead and flints aren't needed . Won a gold at Bisley but today you need a possible to place with any surety . best I shot was a 93 .But the international Matchlock target is the 200 yard? French target much bigger that the smaller PL7 International target used in most other matches, Muskets use the same. All good stuff Regards Rudyard

 

[RAEDWALD]

Powder end goes down first, ball end up.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I have found, as the "battle goes on" in the Woods Walks and the fouling builds up, that accuracy improves and targets that I missed earlier in the walk are now being hit.

Sure that would make sense as the fouling reduces the interior diameter of the barrel for each shot, so the barrel "snugs down" as you shoot a bunch of rounds and there is less of a variance as the bullet exits.

Alas, we don't have anybody in the 18th century who took note of a long battle where lots of volleys were fired, if the muskets seemed to increase in lethality. Too many variables, and too much emphasis on rapid volleys, so we do have complaints that any hope of accuracy disappeared during very rapid firing.

LD

 

[Grenadier1758]

What I do know from the shooting of a Woods Walk that required close to 30 shots fired, that the condition of the bore and the flint edge had a significant impact on shot performance. The unit load was a 0.715" ball wrapped in a thin paper cartridge. The powder charge was 4 drams (110 grains) of Jack's Battle black powder. Priming is done from a separate priming horn or flask. This is a very dirty grade of powder and fouling builds up quickly. At about 10 to 15 shots, you had to knap the flint edge (I held the edge under the frizzen and pulled hard to pressure off a few flakes) and the fouling was so heavy that a ball would get stuck in the bore. We could get the ball loaded with our steel rammer, spot a bit of water in the bore to moisten the patch, we fired quickly so the extra moisture didn't have an adverse effect on the powder. We then had to wipe the bore with a damp wad of tow or patch to load the next round. The fouling was wiped from the face of the frizzen and the pan. Its not really surprising but the fouling in the pan would be moist as humidity was drawn from the air.

From our experience, in a battle, a soldier could expect to start to have loading and firing issues at about the 6th to 10th round. Sustained volley fire would have to take these sure to be expected failure to fire situations into consideration. Little wonder that most line of battle tactics called for three shots followed by a bayonet charge.

 

[DaveC]

It apparently was often the case that the NCOs would try to slow down the rate of fire a bit so the soldiery wouldn't fire too high...

Could the .715 be just a hair too tight a ball for your .75 or .76 caliber Brown Bess muskets? I seem to recall that a .69 or .695 was often used?
Before I cast my own, I once got a bunch of .675s for use in my U.S. .69 and discovered an unholy mix of .715s floating around mixed in... I had to go through and pull all of those out of the pile and consign them to the casting pot!

Very glad to hear of the live fire woods walk exercises. Spit on the ball indeed! I've never fired that many actual honest-to-goodness "issue" cartridges with the full house powder charge. In skirmishing, as you know, the powder charge is much abbreviated and the ball is not the actual issue undersize .65 or .643" (depending on era). I have read that on the War of 1812 U.S. Model 1808 cartridge box, that once the 26 cartridges in the block were fired, it was pretty much time to get out of the line and swab out some fouling, or fix bayonets and charge.

Good insight about the "3 volleys" and charge drill... Of course there's also Platoon firing, file firing, and on and on if not doing light infantry exercises, no?

 

[Enfieldguy]

I'm still experimenting, I found pure Beeswax for Minies to be a pain when having to run them through the sizer to get the excess lube off.

Sizing of the beeswax lubed cartridge was part of the manufacturing process. Straight beeswax is correct for the British manufactured .550" and .568" Pritchett cartridges. When dip lubing my Pritchett rounds, I have a push-thru sizing gauge made from a cut off .50BMG case. I'll run them through the gauge right as the wax begins to solidify immediately after dipping. I don't have any issues with the lube seeping through the paper as the correct linen paper I'm using is more resistant then a modern wood pulp paper. As per manufacturing regulations, the wax should be no hotter then 210 degrees. They're only dipped to the shoulder of the ball so there's no chance of any contamination of the powder cylinder.

 

[Stantheman86]

I think 30 cartridges is my "max" before I start thinking about running a few patches down the bore.

I did 20 and started to feel a little resistance at the muzzle end when loading.

At the range it's not a big deal, after 20 rounds it's time to take a break anyway , as I'm not in battle and have that luxury lol. Running a few wet patches, a dry one , then popping a cap is a good prelude to changing the target, eating a Clif bar and drinking an ice coffee.

 

[Rudyard]

Powder end goes down first, ball end up.

That's how I believe it went .Pity I cant get to Alberta shoot maybe catch you next year in UK Regards Rudyard