Very light loads in a Brown Bess.

[mr.fudd]

So this weekend I took my daughter out to see her grandparents and since my nephew was going to be there I hauled along the Brown Bess, as he enjoys anything to do with the military or history. My parents live out in the country, but not that far out. I occasionally shoot a rimfire out there and none of the neighbors has ever complained, but I do my best to keep the shooting low key and I have a fantastic backstop.

So anyway, my nephew and I fired off a few shots with 80 grains of powder and I was thinking we might want to call it quits, but then I got the bright idea of using very light charges. I tried it with 30 grains and then 20 grains and the report sounded more like a hammer hitting a sheet of plywood than a gun shot. I was thinking, "this is great", so I tried a little less powder.

Now the powder measure I have only goes down to 60 grains, so I was already guesstimating on the 20 and 30 grain loads, but I tried another with maybe 12 grains and got a big "whoosh", from the touchhole. The ball was stuck about a foot from the breech, (where the barrel tightens up a bit), and I had to poke powder down the touchhole and reseat the ball in order to shoot it out.

Now after doing it, I'm wondering if I did something very dumb and unsafe or something fairly common and acceptable. If there's no safety issue involved, I'd like to try it again and I'm wondering about going to a faster powder. I've read of shooters using full charges of 3F in Brown Besses, so I'd guess that lighter ones are probably OK.

I've heard of the Secondary Explosion Effect before, but it's my understanding that it's an issue with half filled cartridges.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I don't think you did anything dangerous. You just reached a point, where, with a dirty barrel, the amount of powder was too little to push the ball out the barrel, and the "Whooosh" you heard was all the gas coming out the vent hole instead of partly out the vent, and the rest out the muzzle. Get a better powder measure to continue these tests. I would think a 25 grain load would be good enough for plinking at short yardage, and for letting the kids find out what its like to shoot this kind of gun. Be careful about the backstop you use. With the light loads, you are not likely to get much penetration. Instead, the big balls are more likely to bounce off, or back towards the shooter if they hit solid wood.

Altho you didn't describe how much shot you use in your loads, a light, 1 oz. load should be more than adequate for Skeet, and throw good patterns from a cylinder bore barrel.

 

[Freedom]

As long as the ball is seated on the powder there should never be a problem with useing just enough powder to get the ball out of the barrel. I love to shoot Gallery Loads in my BP's ....Only safety issue to keep in mind is that the ball will "Bounce Off" just about everthing you shoot it at so it will bounce right back and hit you if your not real picky about what you shoot them at.
Have Fun! :thumbsup:

 

[mr.fudd]

I was shooting RB's and although I still think of my nephew as a kid, he's 23 years old now and a lieutenant in the army. He still had one hell of a grin on his face when he fired the bess though.

It's great to hear that I wasn't doing anything unsafe as I really like being able to shoot quietly.

And I had a couple of straw bales set up in front of the back stop just in case of ricochets.

 

[dukewellington]

Firing a brown bess with 12grains of powder.
:hmm:

 

[J.D.]

Firing a brown bess with 12grains of powder.
:hmm:

Nothing wrong with firing a bess with 12 gr of powder as long as the ball exits the bore. Personally, I wouldn't use less than about 30 gr. of powder to make sure the ball does exit the bore. :applause: Otherwise, it's no big deal.

I would bet lunch that the ball will be visible with such light loads. Watching a ball fly down range can be fun, in and of itself. :wink:

 

[dukewellington]

What would be a good plinking load for a 45cal?

 

[paulvallandigham]

20 grains of FFFg powder.

 

[dukewellington]

Is 20grains engouth for say 50yard targets?

 

[dukewellington]

Would 40grains of powder in a brown bess be o.k for short range clay shooting?

 

[GBG]

When shooting a minimum powder charge is there any noticeable difference in noise level between flint and percussion?

 

[mr.fudd]

I don't own a percussion gun yet, but I doubt there would be any significant difference in noise. With the lightest loads I was shooting, the report didn't sound much like a gunshot, but it was still loud enough to drown out any noise from the vent hole. When I had the squib load, all the gasses exited through the vent and it still didn't sound at all like a gun shot. It was literally a big whoosh sound. The closest thing I can think to compare it to might be the sound an aerosol can makes if it is punctured.

I actually doubt that that same whoosh occurs during a normal firing. It just seemed to last longer than a normal report.

 

[paulvallandigham]

In a .45 rifle, a 20 grain charge will hit at 50 yards, but will hit low. Most plinking is done at 25 yards or less. The idea is to shoot at bottle caps, or other small targets at a range where you can still see the target! The purpose of plinking is to get you accustomed to the trigger pull and balance of a gun, allow you to shoot informal targets where it doesn't matter if you miss or hit, and when you hit the targets, they move, or disappear from sight!

For these reasons, most plinking is done today with .22 rimfire rifles and handguns, that have multiple shot capabilities. You burn up a lot of ammo plinking- far more than when shooting at bullseyes on paper targets. With BP rifles, or any single shot, you have the reloading time to factor in to the " fun " part of the shooting.

At my club, we call the plinking " target" shoots " Novelty shoots." We have shot at everything from soda pop cans, to eggs, to clay targets suspended from fishing line and rubber bands at long range-50 yards, to bottle caps, to wafer thick sections of the wood handle of axe that broke, that when hit, just blew up and disappeared. We have snuffed candles, and split the ball on an axe blade to break two clay targets with one shot. We have cut playing cards on edge with RBs. We have shot at soda crackers, Neco wafers, Cheese-its, graham crackers, and any other number of brittle foods that shatter, and then "melt " into the ground at the first rain. We have played, " Kick the can",where the only way to score points in the shoot is by kicking the can into the air. A ball through the pop can got you nothing, if the can didn't jump. Ties were broken by the can that was thrown the longest distance off its base mark winning the match. That is where a slow moving large RB hitting the dirt UNDER the can throws it much higher and further than a fast moving small diameter RB will. More dirt is picked up by the large, slower moving ball to hammer the bottom of the can upward, than happens with the faster, smaller ball.

Unless you are shooting a sub-30 caliber RB, you can't get the velocity of the fired ball fast enough to develop a secondary shock wave, as do modern rifle bullets. Even then, the velocity drops so quickly out to the first 25 yards, that only for that short distance can even the "Pea shooters" give you that kind of dramatic, hydrostatic shock on impact with a target, that you would see using a high velocity cartridge.

So, stick with the light loads for plinking, and just have fun. That is what this is all suppose to be about. :hatsoff:

 

[trent/OH]

although I still think of my nephew as a kid, he's 23 years old now and a lieutenant in the army. He still had one hell of a grin on his face when he fired the bess though.

That lieutenant may just put in for the Third Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard, at Arlington cemetary. Imagine the insider tours of Washington you could get!