Update on Brown Bess

[DerPanzerLieber]

Hey folks, if you don't remember me, I'm the guy who started the "Brown Bess Reproduction Shooting Blanks but Not Shot" thread.

I just today looked over my Bess (still haven't shot it, waiting for the weather to clear up), and experimented a bit with it.

I unfortunately couldn't find my bore scope to look down the barrel, but I think I may have found the problem anyway.

I took the lock off so I could look down the touch hole, put 100 grains of Goex 2F down the barrel, then I followed Loyalist Dave's advice and put a bare ball down the barrel followed by a cotton ball as tow. I tamped it down firmly but not hard, and I checked the touch hole, and saw a few grains of powder in the vent. I then picked the hole and the pick went straight in with no trouble.

Then, to see what I had been doing wrong before, I did what I had done all the times I had previously tried to shoot it: I rammed the ball down with my Neanderthal strength and threw the rammer until it just about bounced out of the barrel.

I checked the touch hole again, aaand I saw a grey wall instead of powder granules. I tried the pick, and it refused to go in at all.

So, I'm pretty sure I was ramming the ball WAY too hard and the ball was blocking the vent... in the future I'll try doing it like the old British military drills, with just 2 or 3 firm taps on the rammer.

Thanks all for your help!

Panzer

 

[Britsmoothy]

I never for the life of me understood this bouncing of a ram rod on a loaded barrel.
I don't know where it comes from or why it started and what's more I don't bloody care to know!
It's just not necessary.
If one can not feel for what ever has seated on the powder then something is very very wrong in their loading chain.

Even in videos you can observe folk doing it whilst staring at the camera grinning like some dumb cat!
Stop doing it, stop doing it right now I tell ya!

 

[DerPanzerLieber]

I never for the life of me understood this bouncing of a ram rod on a loaded barrel.
I don't know where it comes from or why it started and what's more I don't bloody care to know!
It's just not necessary.
If one can not feel for what ever has seated on the powder then something is very very wrong in their loading chain.

Even in videos you can observe folk doing it whilst staring at the camera grinning like some dumb cat!
Stop doing it, stop doing it right now I tell ya!

Yessir, just figured that out myself.

 

[hawkeye2]

It also deforms the projectile which hurts accuracy.

 

[Cruzatte]

I never for the life of me understood this bouncing of a ram rod on a loaded barrel.
I don't know where it comes from or why it started and what's more I don't bloody care to know!
It's just not necessary.
If one can not feel for what ever has seated on the powder then something is very very wrong in their loading chain.

Even in videos you can observe folk doing it whilst staring at the camera grinning like some dumb cat!
Stop doing it, stop doing it right now I tell ya!

It also deforms the projectile which hurts accuracy.

Amen!

 

[DerPanzerLieber]

It also deforms the projectile which hurts accuracy.

Yep, but in a smoothbore musket firing a ball almost 3 quarters of an inch in diameter I'm not too worried about accuracy haha...

But yes, indeed there is no good reason to treat the ball like it owes you money!

 

[Clark Badgett]

How is your touch hole far enough forward to even be possible to have the ball come near it with the powder column in the way?

 

[PathfinderNC]

So, using less than 100 grains is out of the question…. Not the best arrangement to have, but at least you know about this quirk now.

 

[Clark Badgett]

So, using less than 100 grains is out of the question…. Not the best arrangement to have, but at least you know about this quirk now.

Yeah, I’m having a hard time understanding how the touch hole could be about an inch forward of the breech plug face.

 

[Clark Badgett]

I never for the life of me understood this bouncing of a ram rod on a loaded barrel.
I don't know where it comes from or why it started and what's more I don't bloody care to know!
It's just not necessary.
If one can not feel for what ever has seated on the powder then something is very very wrong in their loading chain.

Even in videos you can observe folk doing it whilst staring at the camera grinning like some dumb cat!
Stop doing it, stop doing it right now I tell ya!

Because rifle shooters do it because they use overly tight patch/ball combinations and have to beat the ball home. Then they bring all those habits over to smoothbore shooting.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Because rifle shooters do it because they use overly tight patch/ball combinations and have to beat the ball home. Then they bring all those habits over to smoothbore shooting.

Still wrong with a rifle.

 

[Clark Badgett]

Still wrong with a rifle.

You won’t find a disagreement from me about that.