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"1806" .69 Baker?

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Well now Dan, that's a good point. But is it good enough?

Where we don't runaround saying ".75 Bess" or ".69 Charleville" we might refer to a .69 or .62 caliber rifle.

"Windage," the delta between the ball and bore in this context, might indeed get us down to .69 or so, but unpatched.

A Bess has a bore of 0.75 caliber, give or take. Took a, let's say, .693 inch ball. Hmmm...

Not 100% sure of the starting or ending points of your own mathematics but, as there was a good margin of variation in diameter for a number of balls per pound of lead, I am by no means dismissing your implication:

The .69 Musket Bore Baker Rifle was, for all intent and purpose, a Bess-Ball loading gun.

That would make such practical and quite reasonable logistics sense if the little whisps of men at the time could handle the recoil. OK, I took a liberty there as we fatsos today know the record shows the 18th C. man couldn't. In any case, maybe that tight fit was why .69's were issued with loading mallets (at least the first and second series models, which I think we still believe here were in .69 caliber)!
 
Squire Robin said:
Someone was selling original Baker balls on ebay with the leather wrap still in place. I bought some but they were too big for my Baker so I sent them back. Wonder if they were for this .69" rifle? I kept one, think it is in the patch box, have to measure it, could it be 16g :idunno: :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Let us know when you've had a chance to mic that thang!
:wink:
 
Most documented imformation at present points to a ball of .67 to .69 used in Land Pattern Muskets. When conducting trials on new guns the Brits often tested them in more than one gauge and Musket Bore was used often .
 
.75 was musket bore, .69 was pistol bore.

Then they invented dragoons. The dragoons thought themselves better than the grunts and wanted to be on a par with the cavalry.

The cavalry considered the dragoons as hoy-poloy on horseback and were having none of that nonsense.

The solution was the dragoons muskets were called carbines and made in cavalry pistol bore but called carbine bore.

All in all a glorious fudge which meant the battlefield was full of spare .69 and .75 ammunition while .625 was a bit scarce. You can see the attraction in a .69 rifle :thumbsup:

Whether Baker ever made military muskets in .69 I do not know, but that leather wrapped ball in the pic measures .657 to .674 on the lead and .707 to .727 on the leather.
 
Thank you brave Sir Robin.

So, those were indeed .69 Baker Rifle ball. Was that, where they, "Musket Bore"? It appears more and more likely that that is the case.

Thanks
 
Iam well versed on the calibers of British guns ,I was stating the ball size most commonly used. Now let's not get dragged of course , the Baker Rifle was .62 cal. end of story, it would appear that BAILY has found that some, a very small number were made in musket bore post 1810, your leather rapped balls could be for one of these or for many other British guns of the times. I to have seen these balls with leather patches they were in various cal. some were military issue and some were police issue.Most of the ones that turned up in Briton were from Irish police sources .
 
Well, you all convinced me...

My Rifle Shoppe .69 Baker Rifle w/sword bayo and tools.













And yes, it's rifled.
 
Cool! Now you know why the 95th and 60th had the command, "Fix Swords!" instead of the usual "Fix Bayonets!" :hatsoff:
 
Alden said:
Well now Dan, that's a good point. But is it good enough?

Where we don't runaround saying ".75 Bess" or ".69 Charleville" we might refer to a .69 or .62 caliber rifle.

"Windage," the delta between the ball and bore in this context, might indeed get us down to .69 or so, but unpatched.

A Bess has a bore of 0.75 caliber, give or take. Took a, let's say, .693 inch ball. Hmmm...

Not 100% sure of the starting or ending points of your own mathematics but, as there was a good margin of variation in diameter for a number of balls per pound of lead, I am by no means dismissing your implication:

The .69 Musket Bore Baker Rifle was, for all intent and purpose, a Bess-Ball loading gun.

That would make such practical and quite reasonable logistics sense if the little whisps of men at the time could handle the recoil. OK, I took a liberty there as we fatsos today know the record shows the 18th C. man couldn't. In any case, maybe that tight fit was why .69's were issued with loading mallets (at least the first and second series models, which I think we still believe here were in .69 caliber)!
Click to expand...

The 62s were also issued with mallets, one for every pair of riflemen from what I have read. These "20 bores" used +-.596 (22 bore) and +-.615 (20 bore) balls depending on the tactical situation
I have no indication of what the bore size of the 100 Pattern 1810 (according to De Witt Bailey) "musket bore" rifles really was (suspect it was about 71-72. Since there is only one known to exist it seems unlikely that they were any thing but a limited experiment.
Nobody knows what they were intended for but at best they were some special use rifle. But likely they were an experiment that didn't go anywhere. Takes too much powder to get decent velocity. Based on the 20 bore charge and the ball weight of the musket bore the charge is going to be in the 160-180 gr range. Not pleasant.

Dan
 
At this time (baker 1810 )nominal bore size for the infantry musket (British) was.775 , the ball size issued was reportedly around .670 and used the cartridge paper as wadding ,now that ball will fit with patching into the .69 Baker the gun we are discussing . :)
 
1601phill said:
The EIC type 2 Baker rifles (percussion lock) were made with a 2 grove barrel :)
These are post 1840.
Click to expand...
I did not know that the rifle at this time was still being called the Baker rifle. I always thought that the twin groove rifle model was called the Brunswick. Anyway, a very fine contemporary Baker you have there Alden! Made from Rifle Shop parts guarantee the best out there. Just remember to not reload the ole girl with the bayonet fixed!
 
Captjoel said:
Just remember to not reload the ole girl with the bayonet fixed!
Click to expand...

Thanks Capt. The instructions were written in British. I'll get it right next time though!



PS: Dan I understood the mallets stopped being issued with the .62's.
 
There are some good vids on utube by the 95th rifles Aus. worth watching, some of their Bakers are the real thing . :thumbsup:
 
Yumpin'-yimminy Alden, you gotta quit waving that .69 out where idjits like me can see it! It makes me go to TOTW every time and drool over that .69 claiber "Edward Marshal" with the Bill Large barrel and some really descent carving on the butt. Don't really need it, and that's for sure BUT, think of the fun it'd be to launch a .695" punkin' ball at one of these pesky little Texas whitetails! Probably knock him into next week! :wink: :haha:
Somebody buy it, please, before I make a $4000
mistake! :doh:
 
This is a very old thread but, if others come across it, I would mention that the Pattern1810 Infantry Rifle was described as ‘musket bore’ not in terms of it having the bore of a musket but in being for use with musket size bullets. Being about 0,685” in diameter to go patched into the 0,70” barrel. So a barrel at 0,70” bore as with the later Brunswick rifle. De Witt Bailey refers to the bore as 0,70“ in his book covering the Pattern 1810.

The plan would have been to have patched ball of a size suitable for that 14 bore size but, when rapid fire was necessary, ordinary paper musket cartridges could be used. The small windage would foul fast but probably good enough for 10 rounds. The same was done with the later Brunswick rifle of the same bore. As IT folk say, it is a feature, not a bug.

I suspect that a new reproduction Pattern 1810 Infantry Rifle might use a 0,69” barrel as barrel makers can use their existing machinery set up for 0,69” barrels.
 
Last edited:

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