Smooth bore-patches?

[Brokennock]

I have been using a 5/8" circular leather wad over the powder, then the ball, and a moist paper wad over the ball with pretty good results in my TOW fusil de chasse.

Yeah, yeah...I know. It didn't happen without pictures. I'll put some up in a few days.

Even without pictures, how do you define, "pretty good results"? Not challenging you, you always post good info,,, just looking for a standard.

 

[IanH]

I have tried all sorts of combinations in my .62. Most accurate by far for mine is lubed 15 thousands patch and round ball. Now IanH has me thinking about cartridges dang it...

I honestly found no good reason to use them for round balls unless you're going to war or only plan to reload two or three.

Now for shot, that's a different story. One trip with the rammer, prime from the horn, shoot. Repeat many times before needing to stop and swab out the crust from the "chamber" area.

I'll post some about it if anyone is interested but so far haven't seen much.

 

[Rendezvous Valley Trading]

I'll post some about it if anyone is interested but so far haven't seen much.

I would love to see your method! Absolutely.

 

[brushblind]

I took my .62 trade gun out today with lead shot, 60grns. Goex, hornet nest dampened with Ballistol/water mix (moose milk) .78oz of shot topped with another wad of dampened nest. I was very happy with results now I need to mould up some .595 balls and try the same method, distance was 20yds. or so offhand.

 

[Rob M.]

I have always patched my smoothbore round balls but I see Duelist 1954 drops the ball on a powder charge then rams a sheet of paper over the ball.
I have also seen him use tow.
What do you guys use under or over the R/B?

Strange but it depends on the barrel . Ive used a lot ofvLarry Zornes barrels and they are d@mn accurate barrels with a patched .595 ball . Ive used other barrels that a patched ball wasn't any more accurate than a patched ball ! Why ? No clue , so I didn't bother patching the ball in that gun anymore no need . The barrels I use now shoot decent with a loose patched ball but if you load a stupid tight ball its even better , but I dont care for a ball that tight so rarely load them like that . Really curious how these Rice barrels are going to shoot , my buddy just bought a dozen of them and I have zero experience with them . Try a patched ball and naked ball and see how they do at 25 yards. Let us know ... Best of luck

 

[IanH]

Try it at 50 yards. They all make ragged holes at 25.

I put a steep gable roof on my shooting shack last year and this year the red wasps found the rafters. Got five big nests going now. They leave me alone when Inshoot so I leave them alone....for now. This winter after they abandon the nests I will harvest them for wads. An armadillo dug up a ground hornet nest behind the house (thank gawd! I hate the buggar hornets, mean as all get out and steal meat to feed the larvae), anyway I saved some of the nest paper and tried it out in the smoke pole, stuff is like Kevlar and Nomex, tough and very fire resistant.

 

[Brokennock]

No point testing at 50 yards of they aren't shooting well at 25 yards.
But if planning to hunt with shots past 25 test at thar range. I've certainly had loads that grouped incredibly well at 25 fall apart at 50.

 

[Brokennock]

No, the old timers "didn't bother to write down that they used a patch or didn't," but they also didn't bother to write down they wiped their a__ after defecation.

Someone did write down the entire loading process he witnessed a rifleman use when embarking on a hunt, including use of the patch.
The rifle of the time didn't work well without a patch,,,, the smoothbore did, and the smoothbore was used for both ball and loose shot, the rifle inky shot ball. Why the rifleman would use a patch is obvious, why would the smoothbore shooter bother with a patch when he could use the same wadding for both patch and ball?

 

[tenngun]

No, the old timers "didn't bother to write down that they used a patch," but they also didn't bother to write down they wiped their a__ after defecation.

Someone did write down the entire loading process he witnessed a rifleman use when embarking on a hunt, including use of the patch.
The rifle of the time didn't work well without a patch,,,, the smoothbore did, and the smoothbore was used for both ball and loose shot, the rifle inky shot ball. Why the rifleman would use a patch is obvious, why would the smoothbore shooter bother with a patch when he could use the same wadding for both patch and ball?

In 1847 Levine of HBC wrote of patching ball in a smoothie. He was in Canada before ‘47, so this gets us in the ball park at the edge of our time.
He doesn’t lay claim to inventing it, but bespeaks it as if it’s common knowledge.
This is the earliest reference I know of to patching in a smoothie
But begs the question of how long previously it was done.
Ten to twenty years could make common knowledge but doesn’t get us back to colonial times. And it’s Canada not the US. Knowledge didn’t always cross the border.
People tend to hold on to the way it was done. Especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, unlike today people gave a jaundiced eye to ‘new and improved’.
So I’m put in mind of the Kentucky Rifles of Jackson at New Orleans. Many had lost their rifles in a boating accident and were shooting smoothies. Not just muskets but plenty of fowling guns and fusils taken from the people of the area.
These boys, twenty to thirty years old grew up in Kentucky, western Virginia and North Carolina and had been shooting rifles since boyhood. Patching would have been second nature to them. Would they have patched their smoothies?
We can’t prove they did and reasonable questions ain’t proof.
Go back a little further. A little before the revolution. Most people in the trans frontier had some sort of smoothie. But rifles are known and the rifleman are loading patch, did someone with a smoothie copy them.
Or the guy who’s bought a smooth rifle. Everyone else that has a gun that looks like his is running patch. He even has a patch box on his gun. Did he follow suit even though his gun was smooth?
We can’t say he did, reasonable questions aren’t proof.
So we are back to square one, by 1847 we know Canadians were doing it.
That’s as far as we can say historically.
That’s all I say historically.
Most of my shots are with bare ball. I just got a dog lock musket and I think paper cartridges will make up most of my shooting with this gun. And my TFC gets mostly bare on tow wads.(hemp fiber wads)
However I patch for hunting, and shoot enough patch in my TFC so I trust it’s aiming. Patch is pretty much all I use in my Lancaster smooth rifle.
Fact is wads and bare ball could well be trusted to fifty yards on game.
If it works why mess with it?
I don’t have an answer except that I mess with it anyway

 

[Grenadier1758]

I do know that when I load my King's Musket using the paper wrapped cartridge, the powder is poured from the cartridge and then the paper becomes the wadding as the paper wrapped ball is loaded. My loads were intended to be loaded quickly to send a ball towards the line of French troops (F&I War). Reliability of fire and rapidity of fire were the important consideration, not accuracy on target.

Note that for troops that did not routinely carry paper wrapped cartridges, loose ball and a horn of powder were carried. No mention is made of patching.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Matter of preference and finding out what works best for you. I used a prb in my Brown Bess.