round ball cartridges

Were round ball cartridges lubricated? Was the ball end of the cartridge dipped in a tallow/wax mixture like enfield cartridges?

No, if you are talking about Military smooth-bore muskets.

.69 Buck-n-Ball/Round Ball,Buckshot cartridges were not lubricated. Now the original .54 cal Mississippi Rifle cartridges were patched and lubed, made up in cartridge form.

I just know that after firing about 12-15 loads of B-n-B/RB in my repro 42, it starts getting hard to load then, (Fouling) and I have to stop and address the situation (clean it)!

Kevin Dally

Thanks. For that reason when I made up some ball or buck and ball cartridges I smeared some of my bees wax olive oil lube around the paper on the ball. I'm going to shoot them today.

So, how did it go?

It was a chilly day here in SC. For some reason the Harley road king won the coin toss . I will go shoot them tomorrow and let yall know how it went.

I got to do some shooting this morning. I made up about 20 cartridges each for round ball only and buck and ball. I loaded them with 90 grains of goex 2f and either a .648 ball or .648 ball and 3 .310 buckshot. At 50 yards the buck and ball was very poor. I was shooting at a piece of cardboard about 6 feet long with 4 yankees drawn on it standing shoulder to shoulder like a line of battle. The buckshots were widly dispursed, most missing the whole target. The 65 cal balls hit very low. With just a .648 ball cartridge, the balls hit mostly from about the soldier's bellies to shins. I am going to load it hotter with the 100 grain military load and see how it goes. I did encounter another problem though. My gun is acting up. It started catching in the half **** position when I try to fire it now. I took the lock apart but cant get the hammer off of the tumbler to polish the notches. I'm worried I will mess it up if I pound on it too much. Any ideas?

If it is catching on "Half-****" when you try to fire it-you definitely are having problems that need to be addressed by a muzzleloading gunsmith. Suggest you contact The Winchester Sutler [you can "Google" his website.] He can fix your lock.