Author Topic: "Wild West Tech"-- BS? (Read 1459 times)

simonkenton · « **on:** May 28, 2004, 05:56:20 AM »

I was watching this show on the History Channel, all in all a very good show. In fact they had the details of Billy Dixon's 1500 yard shot at Adobe Walls, fascinating.
But, they had one "expert" who said there was some danger in reloading that guys would take a short cut on occasion.
When the Indians were attacking, according to this guy, sometimes a guy would fire, then pour powder into the barrel straight from the powder horn. Then, he would smack the rifle on the left side to hopefully knock some powder into the pan.
Then, the guy would drop a ball into the bore without a patch, and smack the butt on the ground, to try to seat the ball, no use of ramrod.
Then the guy, hoping that the lock was primed, and the ball was seated, would fire at the Indians.
He said the drawback was, that first the powder could ignite from a spark still glowing, and the flame would run right up the barrel and blow up the powder horn. Second, if the ball were not seated, the barrel would blow up.
Well, I know those two problems to be fact and I have never been in combat with a flintlock.
Is there any recorded instance of someone deliberately taking these shortcuts? It seems to me like you would be better off to draw the tommyhawk, or else to just use the gun for a club.
It looked to me like this expert was making something up just to get his face on the screen for a few minutes.

Good time Charlie · « **Reply #1 on:** May 28, 2004, 10:06:06 AM »

I saw that same show. I think we can safely say that expert never fired a flintlock in his life!
Charlie

sabotloader · « **Reply #2 on:** May 28, 2004, 10:53:26 AM »

GTC - the guy may never have fired a shot, but there are history/hunting records that do record in the time of war or even dangerous game hunting solders and trappers alike have short loaded their weapons - the difference being they knew their rifles like their wives. Pouring powder from the horn directly to the barrel was not uncommon, it can only burn so much, bufflo hunters would load drop the ball and pound the rifle on the saddle horn to seat the projectile and fire it off, carried the projectiles in their mouth.

Look at the old blunderbuses it really made it easy to short load.

Not the ideal way to load, I agree, but did it happen, quite often.. the military, especially the English, often even loaded double balls and even more common was buck and ball...

Good time Charlie · « **Reply #3 on:** May 28, 2004, 10:57:56 AM »

I don't know about your flinter but you can beat on the side of mine all you want you are not going to put powder in the pan to get it to fire.
Charlie

sabotloader · « **Reply #4 on:** May 28, 2004, 11:34:29 AM »

I admit in the guns that this done in were most often were percusion, but it was done quite often with flint pistols, using the finer grade pan powder dumped in the barrel as the charge. The old Brown Bess was probably a canidate for this also. The ball doesn't know what shot it. And if you need a shot that bad that quick it must be awful close.

All of this is recorded in history, especially in the war journals. Again the English were masters at getting shots off in the shortest amount of time and at that time their muskets would have been flinters -now with todays modern flinters - I couldn't tell you, but 4f is pretty small stuff.

Of course I wasn't there so all I can do is pass on the information that I have discoverd a histor teacher and a history buff.

Ramrod · « **Reply #5 on:** May 28, 2004, 11:45:35 AM »

In "Firearms of the American west 1803-1865" by Graravaglia and Worman, there are documented accounts of this form of loading. One account was of guys running buffalo on horseback, holding balls in there mouth and spitting them into the barrel. It was mentioned that several had lost fingers due to blowups from short seated balls.
Sorry Charlie, the "expert" did in fact know what he was talking about.

sabotloader · « **Reply #6 on:** May 28, 2004, 12:18:23 PM »

No expert here, I just remember reading all that stuff one place or another... The accounts of the old timers blowing down their barrels after a shot still makes me shutter - adding all that oxygen - that has to be asking for it - but again those guys were amazing people in an amazing time.

Ramrod · « **Reply #7 on:** May 28, 2004, 01:05:39 PM »

sabotloader, the old timers knew what they were doing. #1, there are NO sparks left in a barrel after firing. #2, blowing down a barrel adds MOISTURE, to keep the fouling soft, not oxygen. Exhaled breath is mostly carbon dioxide anyway.
Many folks look at these things through 21'st century eyes and are agahst at some of the practices, but back in the day they were alot more worried about losing their scalp than some old "you'll put your eye out" wives tale.

crow_feather · « **Reply #8 on:** May 28, 2004, 02:29:05 PM »

Ramrod,

I don't remember the gentleman's name, but in the thread on swabbing tween shots, he tells of a person loosing two fingers from a hot spark setting off the powder charge while this person was loading.

I guess it's better to always err on the side of safety, (cept for swabbing tween shots).

C F

Ramrod · « **Reply #9 on:** May 28, 2004, 02:48:04 PM »

Quote from: crow-feather

Ramrod,

I don't remember the gentleman's name, but in the thread on swabbing tween shots, he tells of a person loosing two fingers from a hot spark setting off the powder charge while this person was loading.

I guess it's better to always err on the side of safety, (cept for swabbing tween shots).

C F

crow-feather, maybe, maybe not. He wasn't talking about loading from a horn, he was trying to prove you need to swab between shots. You don't believe everything you hear, do you? I do know that a British soldier in the 1700's was drilled to get a shot off every 15 seconds with their Brown Bess'es, with paper cartridges. If ever there was going to be a spark, it would be from the paper, not from the powder. The guys in the North South Skirmish Association do this as well, with Civil War guns. Every weekend!

simonkenton · « **Reply #10 on:** May 28, 2004, 03:00:07 PM »

Ramrod- regarding the content of exhaled breath.
The air we breathe is 21 per cent oxygen. Exhaled breath contains 16 per cent oxygen.

Shiver me timbers, the expert on Wild West Tech was right! Thanks for the well informed replies, I will call Keith Carradine and apologize.

Ramrod · « **Reply #11 on:** May 28, 2004, 03:11:31 PM »

But what is the percentage of CO2? Or water vapor for that matter, Mr. Smartypants? :wink:

Good time Charlie · « **Reply #12 on:** May 29, 2004, 03:28:33 AM »

I would like someone with a croney to load just like the expert said. Hit the gun on the side to try and knock powder into the pan so the gun will shoot. After you tire of this pour some powder in the pan and shoot the thing over the croney at a target. If the ball has not rolled back out the barrel, The powder would blow by the ball so bad I doubt it would hit hard enough at 50 yards to do much damage.
Charlie

crow_feather · « **Reply #13 on:** May 29, 2004, 03:54:36 AM »

Good Time Charlie,

Actually this was done and reported on in one of the muzzle loading books put out either by Lyman, Fadala, or Bridges. As I remember, there was loss of velocity, but not as much as you might expect and there was enough velocity left to put a hurt on somethin. I believe the ball obdurated and somewhat sealed the bore.

C F

simonkenton · « **Reply #14 on:** May 29, 2004, 04:09:03 AM »

Ramrod-- Per cent of CO2 I don't recall. No doubt, there is lots of water vapor. Still, 16 per cent oxygen is a lot oxygen.

My namesake, Simon Kenton, was famed for his ability to load his flintlock while on a dead run. He was well known to his enemy, the Shawnee. The Shawnee name for Kenton was "He Whose Rifle is Always Loaded."
I bet that Kenton used this shortcut technique for loading his rifle on the run. I never could figure out how he messed with a patch and priming powder while trying to outrun a gang of angry Shawnee warriors.
In his book The Frontiersman, Allan Eckert never explained the details of how Kenton reloaded his gun.
I have little experience with a flintlock, but I have read that a well tuned flintlock will fire with no powder in the pan. Maybe you could make a little bit larger touch hole. If no powder was dislodged from the barrel into the pan, with the larger hole you would still have a good chance of ignition.
Also, whereas we would use FFg in a hunting rifle, if you knew you were going to have to load quickly, you could certainly switch to FFFg for your main charge, better chance of getting the smaller powder into the pan through the touch hole.

filmokentucky · « **Reply #15 on:** May 29, 2004, 06:53:56 AM »

Somewhere in all the stuff I've got around here is a story or article about
how smooth bores were loaded back in the day. It mentions something called windage. Apparently. the balls used in muskets and fowlers were well under sized, even though no patch was used. This would have allowed for rapid reloading, but would have given poor accuracy. I tried this in my 20 bore fowler using balls of .595, .60 and .61 caliber. They hit all over creation. Patching them immediately returned accuracy to an acceptable level with all diameters. I didn't have a chronograph so I have no idea as to velocities. I found no sign of barrel ringing but I made certain the balls were seated down on the charge and I kept the barrel elevated. As an experiment I loaded the .600 ball and kept the muzzle down and walked for a quarter mile. In that instance, the ball had moved about a half inch off the charge. So, I think that a chance of harming a gun did exist.The vent is too small for slap priming. I think that
probably worked best on older guns that had worn or burnt out vents.

willysjeep134 · « **Reply #16 on:** May 30, 2004, 05:15:32 PM »

Now you will never see rifling on a once-fired patched ball if I am correct, but around old forts that were attacked by indians back in the day archeologists often turn up balls with erratic rifling patterns on them. These balls were "naked loaded" without patches. There were even experiments made by the british to issue two sizes of balls to troops. One was to be patched when they had time to reload, and the otherlarger size was to be naked loaded for the last few vollies before hand to hand combat ensued. The theory was good, but the logistics made it hard to keep troops issued with both sizes of balls.

Another interesting fact is that old flinters often had oversized touch holes. Wrought iron barrles touch holes would actually wear out. SOme so large that a hole was bored in the stock to hold a turkey quill, which was used to plug the hole during loading. Modern touch holes are often lined with stainless, which doesn't wear out as easily. I could see mabey an old well worn flinter being able to spill some of it's powder charge into the pan.

Winter Hawk · « **Reply #17 on:** June 01, 2004, 08:24:55 AM »

I have carried my Lyman GPR flintlock loaded without a prime in the pan but the frizzen down. After half an hour or so I will have some powder in the pan. I have drilled out the touch hole to 1/16" so it is a tad larger than stock. I also use 3f down the bore and prime from the horn.

Based on this I think it would be possible to drop the charge down the barrel, give the stock a sharp rap and have enough powder go into the pan to prime the next shot.

-WH-

Thunder38849 · « **Reply #18 on:** June 22, 2004, 02:54:00 PM »

They had tons of Indians coming at them..... I am almost positive they were not worried about losing a couple of fingers.

And as far as the oxygen goes..... hold a lit match in from of your mouth and see if you can breathe fire.... simple enough to answer.

Guardian · « **Reply #19 on:** June 24, 2004, 07:35:46 AM »

Billy Dixon was not using a Muzzle loader at the battle of Adobe walls!
I think it was a 50-90 or a 50-140 which he borrowed from someone?
Most Buffalo (hide) hunters didn't use muzzle loaders either. At the time of the Market Buffalo hunters 1870's-1890's, Cartridge Guns were well established. Most of the Hunters were "Company Men" and had some really fine weapons, sometimes two or three of them to swap out when the barrels got hot. They would take up a "Stand" at a good distance
and Shoot a Large cow in the heard deliberately too far back to wound
it and not kill it. The others would mill around it while the hunter picked them off. This would make the "Skinners" job easier because the Buffalo
would all be in a reasonably small area. At it's peak, Buffalo Hunting
became almost a science! As for riding and loading with the bullets in
your mouth, I have read accounts that the plains indians did this with their trade rifles! I have also read that they rode at a full gallop and slid to the side of the horse and fired from underneath the horse and under the horses neck with their rifles, and bows for that matter! These things may have happened on occasion, but I don't think It was something you would see very often. looking at these things from a practical standpoint, Practicing these things would have been difficult for the Indians or Settlers., Lead and powder were not easy to obtain, and it was not something to be thrown/shot away without good reason. Most Myths have something that they are originally based on, But then they grow! I think a lot of stories that came out of our history are Myths based loosely on fact.
I have found less than 10 true "Meet in the street at noon" type Gunfights
in the entire History of the old west that are probably factual (Formal Duels excluded)But according to T.V. it happened all the time!
Who knows what stories the people of the future will tell about us!

HWooldridge · « **Reply #20 on:** June 24, 2004, 05:02:17 PM »

I recall that Dixon had a .50-90 and even he said it was a lucky shot.

crow_feather · « **Reply #21 on:** June 24, 2004, 05:47:23 PM »

In my previous life as a hide hunter, (I told my pardner they wasn't friendly Injuns- well he found out!) I taught Billy how to shoot. He was never a braggin man - actually he was amin to cut the feather off the injun's head and shot a little low. Makes me mad, I taught him how to shoot better than that.

C F

S.S. · « **Reply #22 on:** June 25, 2004, 08:57:07 AM »

I wonder what the amount of "Hold Over"
was! He had to be lookin at clouds to arch
that bullet in from a 50-90!

HWooldridge · « **Reply #23 on:** June 25, 2004, 10:43:22 AM »

I think some of the serious Sharps shooters over on the Shiloh rifle forum tried to reproduce this and the holdover was substantial - like 45 feet or something similar in midrange trajectory. He probably perched the Indian on the top of the front sight plus several inches of barrel.

crow_feather · « **Reply #24 on:** June 25, 2004, 11:33:18 AM »

In the article I read that used the army's counter motor radar unit, they said that the hold over wasn't extreme. Whatever that means.

If any body would like to see the article, I can scan it and send it via e-mail.

C F

Ramrod · « **Reply #25 on:** June 25, 2004, 01:08:37 PM »

Hey, there would not be ANY holdover if the gun had a folding ladder sight and he knew the range! Don't go away folks, I'll plug some numbers into a ballistic calculater using a 100 yard zero, which is NOT what a buffalo hunter would have done but is closer to what we all do now. I can't wait to see the wind drift, which would be the same at a given range regardless of elevation.

Ramrod · « **Reply #26 on:** June 25, 2004, 01:51:02 PM »

OK, results not good. First, the online calculator I used crapped out at 1000 yards because the numbers in inches were too large with a 100 yard zero. It should be good to 2000 yards with modern guns. So no 1500 yard data. Here is what I came up with for ONLY 1000 yards. I'll stick with my last post and say he had a GOOD rear sight.
I don't have the BC of the bullet, it could have been anything from the .50 government 425 grain to the 500 grain Sharps 2 1/2" so I went with a middle of the road .24, with a velocity of 1450 fps.
1000 yards remaining velocity 652 fps, with 472 foot pounds energy.
Drop 1778 inches. = 148 feet.
10 mph crosswind deflection 20 feet!
I expect the drop and wind deflection to double at the claimed 1500 yard range.
P.S. We are getting off topic here, this is not the BP cartridge forum. But it is interesting to put these ranges in perspective. The military was quick to give up killing power for increased range, hence the invention of smokless powder and small caliber bullets.

Roger_Dailey · « **Reply #27 on:** June 25, 2004, 02:26:21 PM »

Quote from: Ramrod

1000 yards remaining velocity 652 fps, with 472 foot pounds energy.
Drop 1778 inches. = 148 feet.
10 mph crosswind deflection 20 feet!
I expect the drop and wind deflection to double at the claimed 1500 yard range.

I ran it through a program that indicated with a 150 yard zero, the trajectory would be about 540 low at 1500 yards. I believe that means about 4-5 inches of sight elevation correction (assume 1 yard between front and rear sights).
YMMV