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tg

Cannon
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I tried on another forum but got no reply, with the"apostles" used in the matchlock era what was in the wooden bottles, just powder or the ball and wadding or patching I would think that it would be powder only with the ball and wadding if use carried seperatly if so how was the ball and wadding carried? did the prime also come from the Apostle?I am assumimg this was before the use of patches, but am open minded to those who have studied this early era of ML's as Ihave dome virtualy no research n this era.
 
I was told that they were used for powder, I believe they used it for prime also. As for the bullet I believe it was kept in leather bags, as for patching I dont know.
 
That is what I thought Bill, I think priming horns were at times carried with the cartridges in the boxes system as a backup source.I believe these are being used as a historical reference on another subforum completely out of context, maybe I am to pickey, I am very curious about the wadding/patching issue with the early gonnes
 
Having fired a matchlock for 25 odd years using apostles to load from, I found that cutting a square of patch material and placing it under the top of each apostle not only kept the top on when running but also showed which apostles had been fired. Very useful when the enemy is storming the barricades!
 
Was the patched used with a ball when loading and if so was this a documentable practice? or was the ball held by the patch being used as wadding? thanks for any info you may have there seems to be nothing in the way of information suggesting that a PRB was used in smoothbores in the 18th century so going back farther in time may help explain the evolution of this process if there was such a thing
 
Hi tg. All my research shows the Apostles were used to carry pre-measured powder charges. Historical drawings and a sample in the London Museum show a seperate ball pouch and seperate priming flask. Same with the wheellocks. The patching is a complete mystery to me. Have never read anything that was used pre 17th Century.
Deer Diver: That's a good idea!!! Thanks. Rick.
 
Rick

For the .75 cal ML what was the average
gr amount used to fill each charger?

Rob
 
The set of apostles that I use, which I believe to be historically accurate and based on an image from Jacob de Gehyn, has a separate bag for containing the shot with a suspended flask for priming hanging from the bottom. I will post a picture if I can work out how to do so. I must also dig out my de Gehyn book as it goes through the complete loading procedure in detail for a variety of weapons and I'll check to see if wadding is used in the process.
 
Further reading has shed a bit more light on the subject of wadding, but not a lot. In Eduard Wagner's book "European Weapons & Warfare 1618 - 1648" he mentions that musketeers were using paper cartridges by the second quarter of the seventeenth century, containing both powder and ball. These were considered a huge improvement on previous methods. Having used paper cartidges to load from, I assume they bit the top off the cartridge, dumped powder and ball down the barrel and then put the empty paper cartridge down the barrel and then rammed the whole lot to get a good compressive seal. The type of paper used? Why cartidge paper of course!De Gehyn's Book "The Exercise of Armes" has no mention of using wadding. In no contemporary source can I find any mention of "Apostles" either. All references are to "bandoliers". I have the feeling that I have seen reference to the fact that "Apostles" is one of those Victorian constructs with no foundation in history. Bandoliers could have any number of wooden charges, ranging from eight to sixteen.
 
Thanks for the research it may have been by that time the ball was tied into the paper and the paper actually stayed around the ball acting much like a cloth patch does plus the excess as a wad of sorts.Sometimsd the further back we go the less detail there is to be found.
 
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