PRB heresy???

The las thread on accuracy led me to dig out my copy of Firearms traps and tools of the Mountain Men by Russell. I was looking under his accuracy heading, when I came across this quote fromR.J.A. Levinge from his book Echos from the backwoods, Or Sketches of Transatlantic life. From 1846. Referencing smoothbores he says to choose a fusil “which throws a ball true at 60 yards. It is the best weapon for deer hunting as most shots got in the woods are within that distance... Patch the ball; in 99 cases out of 100 a patched ball will fly nearly as true at 60 yards as one fired from the best rifle”
A reference to a patched ball in 1846 referencing events some years before that says nothing about fifty years before, but it is food for thought.

60 yards has been my outer limit with a round ball from a smooth bore.

blows my arguement of twenty years where they always reffered to a smoothbore being wadded as apposed to a rifle useing a patched..I know I know patch works better,but I just like to try how the old ones did it.

That’s some of what I was thinking. Now we can’t say based on this one quote that PRB in a smoothie was common, and just because it’s recorded before 1846 doesn’t mean it was done in 1746.
However I often thought of boys who shot smooth rifles, or riflemen who had been forced to use a smoothie would have been feeding it PRB.
I don’t know if our blanket statements that PRB in a smoothie is a modren idea. I think we need to think deep about fusils on the frontier.

tenngun said:

That’s some of what I was thinking. Now we can’t say based on this one quote that PRB in a smoothie was common, and just because it’s recorded before 1846 doesn’t mean it was done in 1746.
However I often thought of boys who shot smooth rifles, or riflemen who had been forced to use a smoothie would have been feeding it PRB.
I don’t know if our blanket statements that PRB in a smoothie is a modren idea. I think we need to think deep about fusils on the frontier.

Click to expand...

Good thread and good points in this post.

All things considered, it still does show PRB's were used in smoothbores during the historic period.

Gus

Mine, too.

I rounded up the original statement by Levinge, and it has some interesting differences in the details.

“On the whole, then, as there is not the facility of carrying about several kinds of guns, a smooth-bored “double gun,” which will throw ball true at sixty yards (and most guns will) is the best weapon for deer-shooting, as most of the shots got in the woods in upper Canada are within that distance. It is, therefore, available for small game. There is a prejudice against firing ball from a smooth-bored gun, as it is supposed to injure it for shot. No sort of damage is done by having the ball cast in a mould one size smaller than the gauge of the barrel ; and by placing them in the ends of the fingers of kid gloves, cut off long enough to cover the ball, they will fly quite true, and will not injure the gun in the slightest degree ; and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a ball will fly nearly as true at sixty yards, as one fired from the best rifle turned out of Moore’s or Lancaster’s shops. It is to be remembered, however, that only two-thirds of the charge of powder used when shooting with shot is required when the same gun is to be loaded with ball.”

Spence

Do you have his book? I wonder why Russell would have ran the quote, or I wonder if it was from a different passage.

I don't have it, but it's online.
https://archive.org/details/echoesfrombackwo00levirich

No doubt it is the same passage, I would say.

You referred to the 1846 edition, the edition I linked is the second edition, 1847, so maybe the author made changes in the later edition.

Spence

Maybe :idunno:

There is another possibility, of course. Russell could have committed the cardinal sin of the historian and put quotation marks around a paraphrase of the original which he had done, leading the reader to believe he was quoting it as it originally occurred.

In any case, a very good find, IMHO. Not a 'patch' in the true sense, but leather was know to be used as patching, as was leather with seams around the ball. It doesn't sound very precise, according to our modern ideas, but it might fool us.

His statement that it was thought shooting ball in a smoothbore would damage its ability to shoot shot is a new one to me.

Spence

Tenngun, I found the 1846 first edition of the book, which is in two volumes. In volume two I found the passage, and it is identical, word for word, with the one I posted from the l1847 second volume.
https://play.google.com/books/read...c=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA235

i think Russell owes us an apology.

Spence

I don’t think we will get one. :haha:

Though even if Russel was being sloppy, this is an example of a leather patched ball. I would be surprised if someone after ten shots didn’t grab some soft thin deer skin... or cloth.

Or order more gloves.

Spence

With buckskin being a common currency, and "free for the taking", I would think it's use as patching would not have been so unusual. A good use of trimmings.

In a smoothbore, I would think a leather patch, somewhat tightly fitted, would compress enough to be rammed down the bore fairly easily, yet expand to hold the ball in place, and maintain an accurate fit exiting the bore.

Mind you, I have no experience whatever with smoothbores or leather patches, just my musings on this thread. :idunno:

It would be informative if some of you smoothie shooters have a go at this, and let us know your experiences.

One of the great things about this Forum is the exposure to all the different aspects of traditional muzzleloading beyond what brought us, individually, here in the first place. More and more, I find the smoothbore of great interest.

Richard/Grumpa

George said:

There is another possibility, of course. Russell could have committed the cardinal sin of the historian and put quotation marks around a paraphrase of the original which he had done, leading the reader to believe he was quoting it as it originally occurred.

In any case, a very good find, IMHO. Not a 'patch' in the true sense, but leather was know to be used as patching, as was leather with seams around the ball. It doesn't sound very precise, according to our modern ideas, but it might fool us.

His statement that it was thought shooting ball in a smoothbore would damage its ability to shoot shot is a new one to me.

Spence

Click to expand...

This statement made me think of choked barrels. He was speaking of double barrel shotguns in 1846. Were barrels choked in any way that early on?

Here ill save you some time


https://youtu.be/LbnCwr0UJXI

Hi Richard,

Before he passed, Forum Member LaBonte (Chuck Burrows) mentioned he used brain tan deerskin leather scraps in his rifles with balls as tight as .005" undersize from bore size and had no problems with the deerskin compressing easily when loading. Now since he worked with so much Brain Tan Buckskin and almost always had scraps, he also mentioned he had almost stopped using cloth patching material. Finally, he said he did not have to "skive" or thin the buckskin even when scraps came from thicker parts of the hide.

So if the same kind of buckskin that was available on the frontier, works in the tighter ball to bore size we use in modern rifles, there would be no reason it would not work in Smoothbore guns in the period.

Of course for most of us, we can't afford to use brain tan buckskin to patch balls for our rifles or smoothbores.

Gus

Native Arizonan said:

Were barrels choked in any way that early on?

Click to expand...

Choke boring in the modern form we are familiar with wouldn't come along until about 20 years later.

Spence