Shooting black powder?

[Specster]

I know that the question was asked in terms of 1860s black powder rifles. Yet, even using a modern .50 sabot, muzzle loader., and lubricating that round with "Bore Butter" it will be harder and harder to seat the round to the point that after 10 shots or more, it is difficult to seat the round without me puncturing my hand. I dont doubt the accounts given in the foregoing posts. What I am wondering is whether, in order to shoot 40 reounds or more without fouling, the round is by design smaller than the bore of the barrel., and/or that the lubricattion was used much more liberally in the 1860s. I have had a local gunshop owner tell me that I should clean my muzzle loader after eevery shpoot. . (Patch and solvent).

 

[Specster]

Sorry about the spelling and such. Im using an older browser and I cannot see what I wrote until I post it...

 

[Specster]

Also, I had been using Pyrodex with a .50 sabot in a Thompson Centerpoint. I have also tried Triple 7's whic is suppose to be cleaner. I no I may be out of line here but even with these modern products and lubes, I have had instances where I have a significant difficulty seating the round after a small number of rounds. I am wondering if the 1860s Springfields and enfields were bored a little wider, or the rounds were bored a little thinner to avoid the fouling issue. And again I understand there is a big downside to that in terms of accuracy

 

[thomas aagaard]

As Don Dixon mentioned the british enfield bullet was .550 inches to a weapon that was .577.

that is sort of the whole point of the minie bullet (and other bullets for rifle muskets)
It is sufficiently smaller than the barrel to make it easy to load. Then when fired it expand to catch the rifling... and drag out an fouling from the shot before it.

 

[Specster]

Im watching re enactors performing the loading sequence on ACW period Springfield/Enfields and its pretty amazing how easy the minnie seats. They are basically tapping the ramrod to seat the round.

 

[Booner]

I've read that back in the day when black powder was the only choice of propellant, that the better grades of powder where more moist, burned cleaner, and somehow the higher moisture content lead to a fouling that was also more moist. The belief was that moist fouling doesn't effect accuracy, or doesn't effect accuracy as much as hard or dry fouling does. Moist fouling would of course make it easier to load a muzzle loader , especially if the bullet was less-than-bore sized.

The problem of "dry " fouling is more pronounced with modern black powder, as it's dryer than the powder of 150 years ago.

 

[DR_Hanna]

Wasn't the minie designed to scrape out the bore with each shot?
I would have thought urinating down the barrel would be done to cool it off.
I shoot 54 cal patched round ball and a quick field cleaning after 15 shots pyrodex is useful, but the barrel becoming uncomfortably hot is a bigger issue.

 

[Don Dixon]

When Colonel Benjamin Huger of the Army's, Ordnance Office described his 1853-4 experiments at the Harper's Ferry Armory which led in part to the adoption of the Model 1855 Springfield system of weapons, he stated that the improved Minié bullet designed by Master Armor Burton for the Model 1841 Mississippi Rifle was grooved and "dipped in melted grease [so that] it lubricates the bore and keeps it clean." Huger observed that as many as 50 rounds had been fired without wiping out the bore, and that 25 rounds were always fired without cleaning. In October 1854, Lieutenant James G. Benton continued the experiments with bullets at Harper's Ferry. All of the conical bullets tested were lubricated with a "composition of Beeswax and tallow." In the spring of 1855, the tests, still under Benton's supervision, moved to the Springfield Armory. Again, all of the conical bullets tested were greased with beeswax and tallow. When the Model 1855 Springfield arms went into series production, the grooves of the Minié bullets were lubricated with a mixture of one-part beeswax to three parts tallow. By 1861, this had changed to a mix of one-part tallow to eight parts beeswax. In 1862 Benton cited the lubrication mix as being one part tallow to four parts beeswax, and stated that with this bullet lubrication the rifle musket could be fired at least 200 times "without inconvenience." (War Dept. (Experiments), pp. 15, 31, 32, 44, and 115; 1861 Ordnance Manual in Thomas (Roundball) I, p. 33; Benton (Course of Instruction), p. 316)

Prior to, and after, the adoption of the Pattern 1853 rifle musket, the British conducted detailed experiments looking for the best cartridge for use in the Enfield. Initially, they discovered that dipping the base of their paper cartridges in a heated mix of five parts beeswax to one-part mutton tallow worked very effectively. In hot climates, however, the tallow in the mix penetrated the paper cartridge wrapper and caused corrosion of the bullets, resulting in fouling problems. Consequently, the lubrication for cartridges used in India was changed to beeswax on 26 July 1858. When the British Army reduced the diameter of the Prichett bullet from .568 to .550 inches in February 1859, it noted that pure beeswax worked just as effectively as the beeswax and tallow mixture, and it was adopted as the cartridge lubricant for the entire British Army. Any new Enfield ammunition imported by the Confederacy from Great Britain during the Civil War would have been manufactured with paper cartridges lubricated with beeswax . Like the British, the Confederates used a paper wrapped cartridge which was greased with two parts of "bleached wax" to one part of tallow. (Rhodes (British Soldier's Firearm), pp. 148-9; Hawes (Rifle Ammunition), pp. 56-61; C.S. Army (Field Manual), p. 74-5)

The 1857 manual for the Muster 1854 System Lorenz family of arms states that the paper wrapper of the Austrian cartridge was lubricated with pure mutton tallow. According to the manual, the lubrication filled the rifling when loading the cartridge, coated the barrel, softened burnt powder fouling, and allowed for the smoother ramming of the next cartridge into the bore. (1857 k.k. Manual, p. 29)

In the mid-1800s, the professionals used natural lubricants. If you use straight Crisco -- particularly if you fill the base cavity -- white lithium grease, petrolium based lubricants, and other cr*p, you will get fouling, particularly if your bullets are undersized and you are shooting in hot, dry conditions. Since the powders no longer exist and I can't test them, I tend to regard the "wet" vice "dry" discussion regarding old powders as something of an old wives' tale. On the subject of which, the only powder worth dirtying your bore with is Swiss.

Regards,
Don Dixon

 

[TomP]

At the battle of Tupelo (Harrisburg), MS the 12th Iowa Infantry and 7th Minnesota both had issues with fouled weapons which was believed to have been caused by poor quality powder. Col. William Marshall of the 7th wrote, "My men went in with forty rounds of ammunition. When this began to fail I got up a fresh supply. The miserable quality of the powder caused the guns to foul, so that many became unservicable, the balls sticking halfway down." OR 39, v.1, p. 272.

 

[Craig L Barry]

Sam Watkins writes in Company Aytch about firing his Enfield 12o times and the barrel getting so hot the black powder was igniting before he could ram the ball home. He says he had to exchange his rifle for one that had cooled down (from a fallen comrade) but he doesn't mention fouling in the bore or not being able to ram a round home due to fouling.

I know from firing blanks that after twenty or so the barrel gets very hot. I can only imagine what 120 would be like...

 

[thomas aagaard]

guess that is one reason why 60 rounds could last for more than 20 minutes of combat...

 

[TomP]

Battle of Corinth, October 3, 1862. Col. Thomas W. Sweeny's brigade was fighting near the White House late in the afternoon. In his report he wrote,
"The fire was so hot and well sustained by the men that several officers of the Fifty-second Illinois told me that the gun-barrels were so heated the men could scarcely hold them, and the charges actually exploded while being loaded, and wanted to know what to do. I told them to continue to fire, if necessary, until the guns burst."

Lt. Col. John S. Wilcox of the 52nd Illinois - "For about two hours we held the greatly superior forces of the enemy in check at this point, when, the left having given way, our ammunition being nearly spent, and many of the pieces becoming so hot that the men's hands were blistered in handling them and the powder exploded while charging them..."

OR Vol. 17, part 1, pp. 273 & 277.