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.