Welcome to the ranks of the Musketeers. Shooting Smoothbore Musket is a whole new World, quite different even from shooting a "Smooth Rifle" or Fowler. Nothing, IMHO, can duplicate the experience of standing on your hind legs and cutting loose with a big honking Musket.
You can obviously shoot patched balls, but I would suggest that, to make the experience complete, that you explore Paper Cartridges too. You'll find lots in the Archive; simply punch in "Paper Cartridges".
As far as loads, as with any weapon you'll have to sort out what works best for you and the Musket. The competition guys often use lighter loads, but, while more accurate, the Rainbow trajectory can be a bit problematic if shooting at a wide variety of ranges. With my .69 Charleville I generally use Paper Cartridges and 80/85 grs. 2F, which puts it Dead-On at 50yds. Shooting a patched ball with over-powder Card & Fiber Wad and 60grs. 3F gave deadly accuracy, but Point of Impact was a quite a bit lower.
Also, be aware that while with a Rifle a .005 undersize ball may work fine with a .018 patch, the same combo with a Smoothbore may be impossibly tight, cuz without the grooves of the rifling the wrinkles in the patch have nowhere to go - I find with my Charleville that a .672 Ball with a Pillow Tick Patch is fairly tight, especially when shooting 40/50 shots a session.
With paper cartridges I use a .662 Ball with either .005 Newsprint or .004 Liquor Store Brown Paper Bottle Bags (Excellent Results - Very Tough Stuff, despite how thin it is).
TOW offers a variety of cast balls suitable for playing around with a .69 caliber Musket - but Rifleman is right - you probaly do need to ascertain what exactly for bore size you have...
Eric
ps - While you can use 2F for priming, I do find that 3 or 4F tends to be a little quicker, and it also tends to burn a little cleaner...
