In a repro, how many shots can you fire from a rifle musket before it fouls too much to load?
Curious... can you point me in the direction of any primary source documentation that supports this please?With the "Burton" bullet, the grooves are not for lube but to be "scrapers" to help remove fouling from previous shots.
Williams bullet as I understood was designed as an improvement over the simpler Burton bullet. It included a pin in the base that on firing was driven into the bullet cavity forcing expansion of the bullet at the front part first. At the same time a concave tin disc, between pin and bullet base, was flattened and expanded into the rifling. The purpose of the disk, according to Williams’ patent, was to eliminate windage. Any bore cleaning properties of the bullet were a secondary benefit and I don’t think were referred to in his patents - although this action lead to their description as ‘cleaner bullets’. Insofar as I have found Williams’ primary goal was a more accurate bullet.I believe the reference should have been Williams bullet instead of Burton.
I don't dispute that - I gather they were made in the millions. It does not however answer my original question though regarding Mr. Curator's assertion that the grooves in the Burton bullet were not for lube, nor have I found anything that suggests the Williams bullets were used without lube. I'd understood the cleaning action of the Williams bullet was from the expansion of the concave tin disk into the rifling and nothing to do with the grooves in the bullet...they were adopted by the Federal Govt as cleaning bullets...
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