Smoothbores - Sea Service ( Daryl's new Bess )

[Liver eatin’ Johnson]

"Well, it arrived today. Overall I'm satisfied with this musket. I don't like the finish much and the wood needs some more sanding. I expect they scraped it as in the originals. Also, the original Sea Service muskets were painted, however this one has some sort of hardening oil/paste finish. At a short distance it looks really good, however close up, the fairly wide grain does show prominently.
I drilled the touch hole and inside chamfered it with the dremel- easy job, really. The breech plug wasn't a perfect fit, but then NONE of the present nor earlier production guns have proper fitting breech plugs. We pulled almost 15 TC's and all of them had a gap inside. Because of the size of the thread & low pressure of the gun, this slight gap isn't serious in the musket.
Inletting is very good & finish of the metal is very good indeed - about the same as my Bro's Bess. I will be browning the barrel only, same as Taylor is going to do with his Bess top reduce glare.
All of the underlugs are very shallow doevetailed and brazed as well as the bayonette lug is brazed to the barrel. This is GREAT- they won't ever come loose. Due to thinness of the tube, the only other recourse is to high-temp silver braze them. The mfgr used bronze rod That's OK.
The size and weight are TERRIFIC!!!!!
The rod channel is bored for the steel rod, however the pipes are as the originals in that they were lined to take the smaller dia. rod. These can easily be bored out for 7/16" rod and the channel opened up a bit with out problem. That's another job I may do, but I kind of like the weight of the steel rod as this musket is quite light & fast swinging, even with the steel rod.
As far a barrel weight is concerned, I don't find it heavy walled at all. From previous comments, I expected it to be twice the weight that it is. Perhaps the thin barrel is a trait only with this model?
The lock sparks very well indeed with either the 7/8" or the 1 1/8" flints. I think 1" would be the perfect size as the 1 1/8" as just a bit too wide, although they don't overhang the sides of the frizzen."

Daryl

 

Thanks Liver Eater! - i just didn't feel like typing that all over again as I didn't save it.
: I might add to these coments, that considering the price being some $550-$600.00 less than the Pedersoli Bess, this one is indeed a good buy. This Sea Service weighs 8lbs. 2 ounces, so it's a light/ fast swinging piece, handling more like a fusil than musket. 1" will be the proper size for flints for this model while the bigger muskets take 1 1/8".
: Also, not being used to tese big locks and huge flints, I managed to open my palm for about 1 1/4" when slapping the frizzen closed- HA! live and learn. It looks pretty cool with the plug bayonette. Also, the pinned barel is much nicer looking than bands, I think, however the next one will be the 1728 St. ETienne .69 musket.
: I might also add here, that commonly, breeches on original muskets and fowlers were comonly threaded from the bore size. That is, the bore was the top of the threads. This is the case in all 6 fowlers & muskets I have debreeched and all were English except one being a Belgium fowler 16 bore & it was identical. This musket is breeched more normally for today with larger threads than the bore.
: The gap in this one isn't big enough to catch a patch & is only slightly larget in dia. than the threads. I am not worried about it in the least, due mainly to the very low pressures in this size bore.
I'll try a variety of patch sizes as usuall when testing anew gun, as well as .715's and some .735's if I can squeeze some from Taylor. As well, I have a bunch of cgs. made however these have 3 1/4 drams of 3F and .715 balls, I think (memory- what a fleeting thing it is - good thing I marked them). I read somewhere that the blank cts. used by some re-enactors have 120gr. 3F & that's what one fellow tested his .69 '28 muusket with along with .662 balls. Today, we'll see how 3 drams of 2F and .715's work along with the ctgs. I haven't ground the bayoette lug off yet for replacement with the silver fusil sight.- later.
Daryl

 

[robinghewitt]

not being used to tese big locks and huge flints, I managed to open my palm for about 1 1/4" when slapping the frizzen closed- HA!

Best avoid the really big ones, you could take an arm off ::

Good to hear you're enjoying your Bess. I always have fun when I get mine out, can't hit anything but it sure is fun trying.

 

Just found out we can't go today. Have to make it tomorrow. It's a bit to hot already cause I can't handle much sun with this bloody medication I'm on.
; I'll make a point of going about 7AM tomorrow morning or perhaps this evening IF it cools down before 9PM.

 

[musketman]

Just found out we can't go today.

You're still waiting... :haha:

Better to wait than to end up in the hospital, you can still fire pans of priming powder in an empty musket in the house, just to set the smoke alarms off...

Now that's entertainment...

 

[buck]

Hi guys! I am new to the forum, and just getting into smoothbores. I was wondering where you got Daryl's Bess from? Always looking for a good deal.

 

[musketman]

Hi guys! I am new to the forum, and just getting into smoothbores. I was wondering where you got Daryl's Bess from? Always looking for a good deal.

Daryl ordered his bess from Military Heritage...

http://www.militaryheritage.com/

 

[Liver eatin’ Johnson]

The one Daryl is referring to is this one:

...and while you're there, be sure to check out the video clips: Videos

 

yes- that's the one. Still didn't get to the range- We left the soaker hose in the garden behind the house, on last night and drowned the guest room in the bsesment. We've spent all morning trying to sopp up the water with towels & now have a comercial de-humidifer going down there along with a large square fan to dry things out. Looks as if there is a crack in the foudation or it all came though unpluged(bad)construction bolt holes. Guess that means it has to be dug out and repaired - dag-nab-it :curse:.
It's only 11:20AM here and already it's up around 32C(90F) - too bloody hot to be in the sun for this old guy. Of course, it remains a nice cool 65F in the basement where my 'puter' & I and my new musket is/are. Daughter wants to go with me to shoot here new deer/moose rifle, a custom 6.5 Wildcat I developed and put together for her. Maybe early tomorrow morning.

 

Went out this morning with Carol, my younger daughter. She shot a few rounds into a 1" inch group with her .264 wildcat, then preceded to shoot several 3/8" groups with my CZ Hornet - all at 100 meters, off the bipod and with a rear bag, while I tinkered with the Bess.
: I started off with 3 drams(82gr. stricken) 2F WW ball and a .018 patch which comes out to a .751" dia. combination. The first group at 30 yds.(target frame too heavy to move closer) for 5 shots went into about 8". I was thoroughly disgusted with myself, but then, the bayonette lug isn't very precise and neither was I in holding, I guess. The flint was a new one, never napped but dry fired about 20 times at home and it still sparked fairly well. Ignition was good, but not special at all. Faboom - not faaaboom, but merely faboom. I checked the patches and they were black, shredded pieces of toasted denim. After that, I shoved a piece of cotton flannel down between the patched WW ball and powder as I haven't ordered wads from Track yet, nor have I received my order from October country that was supposedly mailed 2 or 3 weeks ago.
: With the double-patch, one loose on the powder & the other around the ball, the group shrunk to about 5", still not very good but the patches ended up in better shape.
: I then upped the powder charge to 3 1/4 drams(90gr.) stricken with a .024" denim patch and pure lead ball, which required a short starter and proceded to shoot a 3" group for 5 shots at 30yds.using an elbow rest on the bench. I was happy with that for the first day, considering the indistinct bayonette lug sight, which will be replacd by a sterling silver blade before the next day at the range.
: Also, I fired 6 shots at 100 meters, offhand and got an imprint of between 12" and 15", centred roughly 10" to the right, just off the target I'd fired at. Time to bend the barrel, I guess. For that, I used the WW balls and double patching. Altough dry conditions prevailed the was no smoldering of patches.I woldnt' use cloth for the 'extra' patch if shootng in the bush, though. We've enough forest fires buring right now.
: Up until shooting the 100meter group, I hadn't wiped the frizzen nor napped the flint. This was about 35 shots so far including the preliminary sighting shots to get the proper sight picture. (50 to 55 snaps of the flint so far total) When trying to fire the first shot at logner range, it missed firing the pan, so I napped it, and then the first shot went off before the trigger moved- not kidding! It fired NOW - and so did the next 5 rounds. Talk about fast- couldn't believe it! Instantaneous - felt identical to the .22 Hornet. I've shot some fast locks, but nothing like this one. The vent is only 1/16" and inside cupped with an 1/8" dremel ball, leaving a 32nd inch thickness of of straight 1/16" passage. The inside looks much like the cupped interior of a 1/4 White Lightening liner.
: Oh yeah, the recoil is quite soft for such a light gun which is barely over 8lbs. The stock is fairly short - too short, actually, but moving my shoulder forward slightly is a natural thing for me, and felt normal after just a few shots. My arms aren't too long, as I take a 34 1/2" sleeve. The stock's length of pull is 13 1/8". The butt plate is just shy of 1 3/4" wide & I thought the comb might be a bit sharp cornered, but was fine when shooting and didn't hit my cheek-bone at all, even though scruntching down for a barrel=level sight for the short range shooting. Altogether, I fired around 60 shots & the flint is still in good shape, the best 6 shots for speed of fire, were the last 6 fired due to having a nice sharp edge.
; Due, I expect, to the very high polish of the bore's interior, it cleaned up in a jiffy. I'm a happy camper - so far.

 

[rusty]

Hi Daryl glad to here you had a good day with your new Bess I hope you get many years of enjoyment from it.What do you mean when you talk about your powder charge eg.90gr stricken also I was thinking about getting the bayonet lug removed on my bess and replaced with a better one .thanks rusty

 

Are these made in India??

 

Fowler & Rusty - 1st of all, yes, they're made in India. Secondly, I set my adjustable powder measure at whatever mark indicating 90gr., 80gr., 1/2 way between lines, whatever shoots well during testing, then, once I get home, I throw that same charge of whatever powder I used, into the powder measure pan and weigh it. I record that weight, or those weights that shot well, so I know exactly how much powder that particular gun likes or how much powder that measure throws at a given setting. This is only necessary if you have more than one gun or lack the memory cells necessary to remember 100's of different loads for particular guns and ball/bullet weights.
: Loading from a horn or flask, into a measure of some sort, then into the barrel, is loading with a stricken measure. That is, you fill the measure the same way, strike the powder off level with the top of the measure (or whatever method for leveling you use) and dump it into the barrel. Stricken measure is simply loading without weighing each charge - technically. Some people might take that to mean, they never know what the powder measure is throwing, but use the marks only. The trouble not knowing the weight of the powder you are using, is if you happen to lose that measure - how do you know what your powder charge was so you can replace the measure without working up a load again?
; In the field, I prefer a brass, a horn or bone measure. The horn or leg-bone meazsures are less noisy and lighter. With the leg bone, use on of a size aorund 1" in ida, hollow out the core, plug one end with a wine cork, meausre in the powder charge youwant it to throw and cut it off just above that level. File a small spout and it's done- you can scrimshaw the weight of that charge on the side, horn or bone, whatever the measure throws. Every time you throw a charge from your new measure, from then on, you are throwing a "stricken" charge. I guess some people like using that word.
; Track has some very nice small sterling silver fowler sights. THAT's what my Bess is getting.

 

[musketman]

Daryl, you have shot many a Bess before, is there a general degree of performance from Bess to Bess that should be expected?

They're all suppose to follow a standard "BESS" pattern, right?

Will Navy Arms Bess #6,264 shoot as well as Military Heritage's Bess #1,627, or does it vary from company to company, Bess to Bess???

 

I have never seen the India made muskets,but I have seen there Enfield MK-1, 303 service rifles and Gurkas knives good steel hard carbon blade. Being half English I have allways had interest in Brittish weapons. My mum is a WW-2 warbride,brother born there in 1945,dad 8th airforce USA. Mom 83 ,dad passed in 98. Long live the Queen!!

 

Can't answer that precisely for different manufacturers - although Bess's from any given maker today, are closer to each other that were the originals. Are they close to each other? - yes - close in that what is listed as being .75 cal. will all be .75 cal.,not from .72 to .80 as they were in the 1700's and into the 1800's. One of the Sea Services Taylor re-built was .80 calibre, yet they were all supposed to be .75 I think. I see Loyalist has them from .66 to .69 or .62 to .66, something like that. I don't think that's correct. I am not aware of any originals that small. The Officers Fusils were small at .69 cal., I believe, or perhaps .66 to .69.16 bore to 14 bore), but that the Bess', were ALL supposed to be within the allowable parameters of around .75 cal., regardless of model.
: The original Bess closest to the dia. of the paper patched ball would have been the most accurate. Nasty would be the Bess of .80 shooting a call, probably around .690" in a paper ctg., although Taylor's .77 cal Bess shot .715 (loose) paper ctgs. into around 2 1/2" to 3" at 25yds. I managed to shoot a tight combination with pure lead ball into 3" at 30yds, but the ctgs. were spread out around 5-6" at 30yds. Taylor's "Lyman" Bess of years ago, shot into 8" at 90 to 100yds. quite regularly and stomped a moose at that range, one shot. Well, actually, she staggered to her knees, got back up and walked 20feet and crashed to the ground. The ball hit ribs on both sides, and was under the of-side hide, expanded to 1 1/4". It was a .735" ball which he thought to be more accurate than the .715's. That musket gave a velocity of 1,080fps with 80gr. 2F and patched .735" ball weighing 620gr.
; Now, all that said, the truer the barrel, consistant from the breech to the muzzle, the closer they'll shoot to a mark, given good loading practices with proper ball/patch or ctg. paper thickness.
: BTW- I did shoot some paper ctg.s from mine, wiping moose snot around the paper under and beside the ball prior to loading. When these were shot, the fouling remained soft to the breech, and patched balls were easily loaded afterwards without having to wipe the bore with a patch. I expect that had I fired more, the fouling may have built up somewhat, to a level, then still remained soft. The most I fired in a row was 5 then a patched WW ball, .715" + .018 denim patch(spit lubed) was loaded without any sort of difficulty.
; For rudimentary cleaning (I didn't feel like bucket cleaning it last night), I used 2 flannel patches liberally lubed with moose snot, with 2 clean patches in between & the barrel came out spotlessly clean (except for the breech-plug face, of course. To clean that, will require flushing with water with the 'kit' I purchased from track - first trial for it.(later) I was amazed at how well and quickly the moose snot cleaned up the BP fouling.
; Taylor came over last night to see my Bess- and was quite pleased with the quality, in view of the price paid. In other words, it is good value for what it cost me. I don't think I'd have been happy paying another $300.00 for it, but then that's almost 50% more, in Cdn funds. I would have purchased a Loyalist musket, had they been priced according to the exchange rate, but I'm not certain they are any better than what I got. Loyalist is overcharging Canadian's compared to the price for US citizen. It wold pay to buy US funds and pay with that I guess, but their current pricing 'fouled' me somewhat. My Bess has the same thin barrel the Itialian .75s have, from what I can see. It's the same thickness of steel as Taylor's Colerain barrel, although slightly smaller in dia. at the breech. It is possible the .69's use the same basic barrel & with the smaller hole, will have thicker walls as noted by someone on this forum, Robert Henderson, I believe, noted that.
: I will be buying another musket from Mil/Her & it will be the .1728 St. E'Tienne - probably some time in the fall. I am especially pleased with it's authenticity and aparent quality from the photos. I can see cutting the barel at around 38" or 39" and getting rid of that double band's weight, along with the bayonette lug. I am certain this would have been a 'standard' sporterization of the piece - perhaps, but metal cutting saws weren't common the frontier. I have seen several notations in books aobut the barrels being shortened with meat saws - hard on the teeth, I suspect. :blah: :blah: :blah: :blah: :blah:

 

[musketman]

Deryl:

How does the new bess effect your back?

Any signs of problems yet?

Hope not, have you tried swining on a target with it yet?

 

Swings beautifully with that short barrel - no problems at all as it's quite light in the muzzle, having no fore-end cap and only two pipes. I will do the same thing to the 1717 or 1728 French musket. The 1717 would need another pipe - still no problem.

 

[musketman]

Swings beautifully with that short barrel - no problems at all as it's quite light in the muzzle,

Good, glad to hear that because that is the reason (I took it to be) that you were getting the sea service in the first place...

Hope it serves you well, keep us posted...

 

[casey4469]

Daryl, very nice. I'm wanting one myself

Casey4469 eace: