• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Prussian method of priming

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Messages
20
Reaction score
0
Read a book on Frederick II last year and it contained a pretty decent chapter on small arms of the day. How effective they were (scientific testing, counting hits during volleys etc..) But it also made mention to two Prussian contributions to the musket design.
First was that the Prussians introduced the steel/iron ramrod, but more interestingly was a cone shaped vent hole. It allowed them to skip the priming of the pan because the powder would pour out of the breech into the pan with the frizzen down.

Was this ever replicated or is it even possible?
I was considering altering my vent before it dawned on me that it might weaken the strength of the breech.
 
The problem is not so much the weakening of the breech as the loss of accuracy. An oversized vent will allow a lot of pressure to escape. It won't always escape to the same extent. You'll find your shots stringing vertically. The loss of velocity will also mean that the ball will travel in more of an arc, meaning a bigger difference in point of aim depending on range.

I'd recommend keeping your vent below 1/16" diameter or so.
 
I had a 5/64th vent on a rifle and I found it to do this. Military men had to fire fast or catch a bayonet. I don't feel comfortable loading a primed gun , I always leave my frizzen open, but even with that I have found grains of powder that blew through the touch hole.
 
I remember hearing how some would rap the butt of their musket on the ground, after loading, to knock some grains of powder into the pan. The military forces during the French-Indian War and the Revolutionary War did not carry horns. They carried cartridge boxes. They would draw a cartridge from the box, rip it open, prime and close the frizzen, then dump the rest of the powder and ball down the barrel. There was no such thing as safety in those days :shake: . Their main concern was speed.
 
In "Bayonets in the Wilderness", there is an excerpt from a letter written by Gen. Mad Anthony Wayne in 1792 requesting permission from President Washington to enlarge the touchholes of their Charleville's to allow self priming. He was trying to develop a fast moving and fast firing army to fight in the Northwest Indian wars.
 
cowpoke1955 said:
The military forces during the French-Indian War and the Revolutionary War did not carry horns. They carried cartridge boxes.

Pretty much true. I have read though, that Goreham's Rangers (1761), The Queens Royal American Rangers (1762-63), and Roger's Rangers (1758) all carried powder horns.

Further reading of some of the ranger units showed that their cartridge boxes carried balls and flints but that the powder was carried in a horn.

In War On The Run there is a photograph of Roger's personal powder horn.
 
Actually rangers and light infantry that carried horns did so in the F&I as the cartridge boxes held between 9 and 18 rounds, and they needed more ammunition. Plus loose powder in a horn is more weather resistant than the cartridges and boxes of the day.

LD
 
This technique was used and "re-introduced" at different times throughout the flintlock period, with individuals trying to claim it was their invention.

Really it's only effective use, would have been for military arms, were speed of loading was the greatest concern. It was introduced by makers of sporting arms, such as by Joseph Manton, and was quickly rejected by the sporting community. Colonial Peter Hawker in one of his books, claimed that the biggest drawback of self priming guns was slow ignition (most likely from packed powder in the flask channel causing a fuse effect), and the higher tendency for these systems to be blocked by fouling.

Again, these drawbacks were not as big of a concern for military arms, but self priming guns never really seemed to catch on.
 
If my memory is right, I believe that Roger's Rangers often would enlarge their muskets' flash holes to make them "self priming" as well as shortening some of the barrels to make them easier to carry and load while "on the move". Accuracy wasn't considered as important as rate of fire. :idunno:
 
Trench said:
In "Bayonets in the Wilderness", there is an excerpt from a letter written by Gen. Mad Anthony Wayne in 1792 requesting permission from President Washington to enlarge the touchholes of their Charleville's to allow self priming. He was trying to develop a fast moving and fast firing army to fight in the Northwest Indian wars.

Thank you for that information. Very interesting that they would want to use every trick in the book to their advantage.

To my knowledge tap loading was a practice that gained notoriety during the Napoleonic wars, and yes light infantry troops carried powder horns for a while. It is also easier to reprime the pan after a flash in the pan with the horn. Personally I keep a priming cartridge of a 100grs FFFg on the tray inside the cartouche box for this eventuality.
 
Forrest said:
This technique was used and "re-introduced" at different times throughout the flintlock period, with individuals trying to claim it was their invention.

Really it's only effective use, would have been for military arms, were speed of loading was the greatest concern. It was introduced by makers of sporting arms, such as by Joseph Manton, and was quickly rejected by the sporting community. Colonial Peter Hawker in one of his books, claimed that the biggest drawback of self priming guns was slow ignition (most likely from packed powder in the flask channel causing a fuse effect), and the higher tendency for these systems to be blocked by fouling.

Again, these drawbacks were not as big of a concern for military arms, but self priming guns never really seemed to catch on.

Very good points, thank you.
 
Kabar2 said:
could you give the name of the book you make refrence to?

Colonel Peter Hawker's “Instructions to Young Sportsmen in All that Relates to Guns and Shooting”

I believe it was first published in 1814, and went through many subsequent editions. The earlier additions obviously focus more, or all, information on flint guns. His later additions replace text pertaining to flint guns, with information on the new fangled "detonators".
 
My Bess has a touch hole that has enlarged to about 5/64. When it is clean and hasn't been shot it can partly fill the pan when I load. However after a couple of shots, the fouling effectively closes the touch hole up and the self priming stops. So I wonder how large a touch hole would have to be to allow reliable self-priming during 20 to 60 shots. 1/8"?

Many Klatch
 
Klatch it's very interesting you said 5/64s, sent me on a google search. Now I know where to begin.


Found this on the Bess vent: http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=3406.10;wap2
Question at hand was:
Larger vents = a possible decrease in accuracy
and self priming locks and vent enlargement.


For all intensive purposes, being able to self prime on the first 3-5 shots would be a win in my book. You normally dont get more than 2 chances to hit the same deer.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't truly believe the tapering of the flash channel was done to the point of enlarging the touch hole to some unsafe extent. Remember the issue is combat reloading speed and the unnecessary injury of your own troops was considered a no-no, even though ole Fritz didn't seem too concerned about letting the enemy do it, as long as he won. The iron ramrod is an argued issue since some now feel they existed long since, though Frederick may have used them to a larger extent. Also remember, the Prussians later even adopted non-tapered ramrods to save the time involved with swapping ends twice with each loading exercise. This is all combat related issues with the winner getting there the 'firstess with the mostess'!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top