Buck & Ball Loads

When you do buck and ball loads do you load the round ball on top of the buckshot, or do you load the buckshot on top of the round ball?

I have always loaded the buckshot first under the theory that the heavier ball would disrupt the shot pattern if it blew through the shot.

Mike;
My philosophy, that the heavier ball eventually blows through the shot and upsets the pellets, and this has tested true by some.

Read someone below's great original post and thread on this and use Search function generally here.

The following's an excellent recommendation of which size buckshot is ideal for which bores to optimize size and eliminate wedging in stackable, single, non-binding, layers behind the ball.
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showpost.php?post/1381566/

For what this may be worth...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_and_ball

I've seen that X-ray before, but never figured out if there are additional lead balls in the barrel ahead of the buck and ball, or if those are something else entirely. Any ideas?

trent/OH said:

I've seen that X-ray before, but never figured out if there are additional lead balls in the barrel ahead of the buck and ball, or if those are something else entirely. Any ideas?

Click to expand...

I'd guess that they are indeed 5 or 6 smaller, lighter (therefore faster?) shot that has 'fused' together due to oxidization and has slipped forward together, as a set, down the bore due to handling.

Whaddya think?

Pretty cool picture!

Looks like a buck and ball and shot load to me.

Probably thought up by the first Boy Scout in America.

He didn't know what he was going to shoot so he put in something for anything he came across.

The first example of the motto, "Be Prepared". :grin:

I think that it's a case of a gun being left loaded with buck and ball and forgotten. Then someone rammed home a shot load and realized the ramrod wasn't going down far enough and never got around to pulling the loads.

Alden's theory is probably correct in that the buckshot is more likely to fly true loaded under the ball. However, the U.S. military "Buck & Ball" load had three pieces of #0 on top of the ball in the paper cartridge. Soldiers could, obviously, load them either way, under or on top by reversing the cartridge after the powder was poured down the barrel since the cartridge paper was rammed down along with the projectile(s). Examination of numerous fired balls from several "Seminole War" sites here in Florida show three distinct "dimples" on the top of the ball. Fired balls without dimples are nearly round while those with dimples are laterally compressed and quite oval. Apparently not all cartridges had the additional buckshot or some soldiers did not load them. "Dropped shot" is quite common on the battlefield sites where fired shot is not.

British brown bess recovered from a ship wreck .(transport ship )

Ok. Thanks for the replies in both threads. I was surprised to see that 00 buck is too big for 20 ga buck and ball loads. Luckily my gun doesn't know this. So they have worked fine for me. But, now that I know, I'll look for #2 buck shot.

For what it is worth I did use the search function before posting. I got about 1,000 hit, none of which seemed to actually be related to buck and ball loads. It looked like every post that contained the word "ball" came up. I guess I don't understand how to search.

I used the Advanced Search on the Smoothbore category only.
Put "buck and ball" in quotes, got 175 hits.