Black Powder Part 3

AShooting Journal ^ | 6/21/2016 | Bob Shell

[w1n1]

Part III of black powder finalizes with a discussion of defouling, types of bullets and more.
Blackpowder fouls a lot and if you don't dry-brush out your barrel after every couple of shots, your bullet or ball will start becoming difficult to push down the barrel. If you brush it and dump out the residue, you can shoot all day doing that. I don't recommend any type of lube, as you might contaminate the powder and it won't help you in this operation. Use a tight shotgun-type brush for best results. Following those procedures and tweaking them to suit you should produce a lot of hours of enjoyable shooting.

As a note, some of the very early muzzleloaders had straight rifling to help deal with the fouling that blackpowder produces. Perhaps that’s where someone got the idea to twist it to stabilize a bullet. From a military point of view, they used smooth bores because of the mess that blackpowder produces. It takes more time on a battlefield to load a rifled firearm than a smooth bore. That is because the rifling fouls quicker, which makes it more difficult to load. When I am target shooting with a front loader, the bore is dry brushed after a few shots to keep it going. During the heat of battle a soldier doesn’t have that luxury.

Of course, the usable accuracy was only from 50 to 80 yards with such weapons. They generally stood on a battlefield in plain view of each other and they shot until someone said uncle. Marksmanship wasn’t a top priority in this type of battle. You just shot into the crowd and hoped to hit someone.

Shooting a cap-and-ball revolver is essentially the same. Put the powder in and seat the balls tightly against the powder. One difference is you need to put some substance over the balls to avoid all of them going off simultaneously. I use something like Crisco, which always works for me, and I have never had that happen – and would just as soon forgo that experience. After loading the powder and bullet, then put on the caps but not before. That way you will avoid a possible accident. I have .36- and .44-caliber revolvers and they both shoot accurately with balls. I have tried bullets in them, but there is no practical advantage 99 percent of the time. Read the rest of the Black Powder Pt 3 story here.

[Fido969]

The difference between a rifled barrel and a smoothbore is the same difference as a spiral pass, and a knuckleball.

A football thrown in a spiral is very accurate, a good quarterback can hit a racing received very accurately. In contrast, a ball bouncing down a smoothbore barrel and coming out anywhich way is relatively unpredictable.

[SJSAMPLE]

My chambers and barrel are the least of my troubles.

My Uberti 1847 Walker Colt likes to foul up around the arbor and against the face (forcing cone) of the barrel. After two reloads, it becomes very difficult to even rotate the cylinder. This, unfortunately, requires disassembly to clean.

[vetvetdoug]

I use grits over the balls on the black powder revolver. They are solid and not greasy like crisco or grease. Plus, if things get rough I can eat the grits.

[vetvetdoug]

I tossed the Walker because the packing rod wasn’t attached to the barrel and had a tendency to drop into the cylinder when fired thereby jamming the system. I prefer an 1860 Colt, Navy or Remington.

[SJSAMPLE]

Yes.
I download so I don’t have that problem.
The Texas Rangers and others were reported to have tied a leather strap around the barrel and rod.

[wastoute]

I bought a Ruger Old Army years before the old man went soft (no Ruger since). It is a real hand cannon. A friend said it could not be as powerful as his ,44 magnum. We were camping in Colorado at the time and I challenged him to find an aspen in a nearby grove that he could shoot through and I could not. We could not find one. We were both blowing rounds clean through 12 inch diameter aspen.

[Chainmail]

Disagree with the author: after about 4-7 shots you should use water on a patch to remove fouling. The water removes the fouling much better than dry brushing and the warm barrel dries out quickly. I have fired competitive black powder competition and this works really well for long, sustained target shooting.

Also disagree with the bullet lube. I always lube the bullets or the patches if I'm going roundball and I use a good quality black powder lube. Less fouling between shots, longer time between barrel cleanings. I use pure beeswax to lube the .635 balls for my Ferguson and Maxi-Lube on the lower 1/3rd of the breech screw and I have no fouling to speak of after 40 shots in a row.

[libstripper]

I really got some chuckle out of the bit at the end of the article about reloading a cap and ball revolver while being chased by Indians. I have a replica 1859 44 cal Remington Army Model. The only way that could be reloaded on the fly would have been either with combustible cartridges or by changing cylinders. Then there would have been the problems of sealing the chambers and attaching the caps to the nipples. Nowadays, without the old combustible cartridges, it’s a lot harder with loose powder and balls. My solution is to have several pre-loaded cylinders that I don’t prime until just before I’m ready to shoot. That brings up another point: changing cylinders is a very persnickety job that’s harder than changing magazines in a modern semi-auto. Being chased by “Native Americans” while on horseback it would have been a real challenge.