Well the S.O.P. for loading a musket in battle was to bite open the paper cartridge and prime the pan FIRST (don't do this at home boys). Then dump the remaining powder down the bore. Then ram the bullet, paper and all, down. Cock, shoulder, aim, and fire.
Or if you were a lobsterback it was cock, shoulder, and fire. :grin:
Now, I'm guessing they didn't have two different powders in those paper cartridges.
I'm also told that if you visit enough museums you will note a lack of "priming horns" as displayed artifacts.
Of interest the same is said for short starters - you just don't see 'em in vintage poss'ble bags. Nor do you see "short starter loops" on the bags.
Here's my guesses. Some of these "habits" are inherited from competition target shooters. See muzzle loading never did "die". There always was a small bunch of loonies out there doing it the hard way. But I'm guessing that muzzle loading did die among the standard hunters. It was kept alive by a fringe bunch who enjoyed punching holes in paper.
It was from that small group that we've probably learned much of our present-day habits from.
It's true, tight fitting patch/ball combos are more accurate. But that doesn't mean you can't get accurate "enough" with something that thumb-starts.
It's true, FFFFg in the pan probably will speed up lock time - but only fractions of a second.
This sort of fine-tuning is typically the habit of target competitors trying to shave off fractions of an inch at 100 yards. Just look at modern competitors. Very few contemporary hunters go through the hassles and routines that the target shooters do - fire sizing brass, seating bullets right on the rifling, etc.
If you've spent any amount of time wilderness camping - the type where everything you have gets put in a backpack - you can appreciate how important it is to have things that have 2 uses.
The old timers would carry gun powder in lead kegs. Lead kegs?! Sounds like hauling excess weight unless you think of melting the empty powder kegs into musket balls.
With that in mind - what uses has 4F powder? Priming a pan. It's not much use as a main charge. The reg'lar powder however CAN be used in the pan - it'll just slow the lock time a few hundredths of a second.
Then think - if you have two pounds of powder with, one is priming powder the other is charge powder, and you take a dunking in the river. Suppose by chance only one powder container gets wet. You may be in sad shape ifn that'd be your main-charge powder that got wet.
That extra bit of lock time gained by 4F might make the difference between a 1 1/2-inch group and a 3-inch group. Either way the elk/deer/bear/moose is dead. On the other hand, if you and I were competing to see who buys the beer the 4F would be worth it's weight in beer. :gulp:
