early rifle charges

smo said:

Anyone know how much powder a thimble will hold? 1f? 2f? :hmm:

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Can't help with the 1F, don't use it.

Thimbles come in various sizes. My wife's is about average size. Tapped down and dashed off, it holds 44 grains 3F, 43.5 grains 2F.

There is a non-zero chance he was not speaking literally in mentioning the thimble. As in the movie, Das Boot, when the sub stops plunging into the depths because of a small knoll of sand, the captain says something like, "saved by a shovel full of sand". He didn't mean it. :grin:

Spence

The volume of a sphere is = d^3*Ï€/6

The volume of a 0.570 ball is 0.097 inches cubed which comes out to 69 grains for the three times load and 93 for the 4 times load.

Not much difference really, but at times I want more precision. You have it right Zonie, just had to verify the numbers myself.

I have two powder measures for my .54 rifle. I use a .526 ball. For close range shooting say 25 yards I use 55 grains of powder. For anything over that I use 75 grains of powder. Looks like I am using both 3 and the 4 times values for powder.

Seem like mighty light charges to me. You just cannot get good accuracy with low pressures behind the ball. Gotta keep those pressures up.
My experiences put my paper punch charges at 45-55 gr. 3Fg with a .440"-.445" ball and hunting charges at 65 gr. The 65 gr. kills a whitetail jest as ded as 100 gr.
Wouldn't it be a hoot to have some dry stored 200 year old powder to test and shoot? (make that 241 year old powder atriot: )

Spence, neat info as always.

Haven't we discussed before that Duane's manual was a direct rip off/plagiarism of the English manual, except Duane added some rather unusual/strange/almost inexplicable stuff as well?

Gus

I think you are right about that. Duane's manual does have some strange stuff in it, for sure.

Spence

Rifleman1776 said:

Seem like mighty light charges to me. You just cannot get good accuracy with low pressures behind the ball. Gotta keep those pressures up.
My experiences put my paper punch charges at 45-55 gr. 3Fg with a .440"-.445" ball and hunting charges at 65 gr. The 65 gr. kills a whitetail jest as ded as 100 gr.
Wouldn't it be a hoot to have some dry stored 200 year old powder to test and shoot? (make that 241 year old powder atriot: )

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What twist? Originals tended to be about 1-48, I think.

Early in the muzzleloader rebirth, many shooters were hunters and became concerned that round balls at low velocity could not possibly kill cleanly. People were looking at muzzle energy charts and remaining energy at 100 yards. So heavy loads were favored and they needed slower twist barrels. So now shoooters are forced to shoot heavy loads just to get a decent group even paper punching.

I have an original .62 jaeger barrel about 28" long with a complete twist in the 28" length. I bet it was shot with about 60 grains of powder.

The barrel weighs 6 pounds. Not the rifle. If I read it right.

So far as powder charges. The men who were shooting people at extended ranges, like the 300 yard shot at Gen. Fraser, were not shooting a thimble full of powder. Hanger would be a better source, and I have quoted him, if he did not make some of the statements he did. Nor do we know how much powder a thimble of the time would hold. Its like saying some preferred a ball the size of a Cranberry. how big was an 18th c. cranberry? My reading of Hanger states that he never saw a rifle LARGER than 36 to the pound. IIRC.

Rich Pierce said:

Early in the muzzleloader rebirth, many shooters were hunters and became concerned that round balls at low velocity could not possibly kill cleanly. People were looking at muzzle energy charts and remaining energy at 100 yards. So heavy loads were favored and they needed slower twist barrels. So now shoooters are forced to shoot heavy loads just to get a decent group even paper punching.

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I haven't heard it expressed quite that way, but I like it. It sure reflects my own experience with an array of twist rates. Thanks.

Elnathan said:

Rifleman1776 said:

Seem like mighty light charges to me. You just cannot get good accuracy with low pressures behind the ball. Gotta keep those pressures up.
My experiences put my paper punch charges at 45-55 gr. 3Fg with a .440"-.445" ball and hunting charges at 65 gr. The 65 gr. kills a whitetail jest as ded as 100 gr.
Wouldn't it be a hoot to have some dry stored 200 year old powder to test and shoot? (make that 241 year old powder atriot: )

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What twist? Originals tended to be about 1-48, I think.

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In museums I have visited where details about the rifles are posted, 1:48" seems to common to about 95% of them.

Golly, even back then folks must have been complaining about "compromise" twist rates! :rotf:

I'm reading a book - "forty-Four Years, The Life of a Hunter."
About Maryland Hunter, Meshach Browning. Takes place late 1700's to 1830 or so. Meshach shoots a lot of bears, and talks of getting 2 pounds of the best powder, and 4 pounds of lead.

Claims to have killed 2000 deer, 400 bears and 50 panthers in 44 years. Must have known what he was doing.

Read that book. Interesting read, to say the least!

I've read that book. Fascinating. He was using 2:1 lead to powder because he was, as they say, "loaded for bear". :haha:

I see a lot of people on the forum that really like large powder charges in their rifles.

Most of them are wanting very high velocities at longer distances when they are hunting.

Unfortunately, although the velocities at long ranges with large powder loads are a little faster than small powder loads give, they are not that much faster.

It has long been noted that the faster the ball is moving when it leaves the muzzle, the faster it slows down as it travels downrange.

To show this in graphic form, I created two graphs.
One is for a .50 caliber gun shooting a patched .490 diameter roundball over a 50, 80 and 100 grains of 3Fg powder load.
The other graph is for a .54 caliber gun shooting a patched .530 diameter roundball loaded over the same 50, 80 and 100 grains of 3Fg powder load.

Each dot on the graphs show the balls velocity at intervals of: Muzzle velocity, 20 yards, 40 yards, 60 yards, 80 yards, 100 yards and 120 yards starting on the left hand side.





Notice that the velocity difference between the three powder loads are quite large on the left side, they become more and more alike as the ball reaches 100 yards (2nd set of dots from the right). At 120 yards (dots on the right end) there is even less difference.

Looking at the charts also shows that although the .54 caliber ball is starting out slower than the .50 caliber ball using the same powder charge, at 100 yards, the difference in velocity is very small.

With a 100 grain 3Fg powder charge, the .50 was traveling 190 fps faster than the .54 at the muzzle.
By the time they reached the 100 yard distance the .50 was only going 33 fps faster.
This is because of the greater sectional density of the larger ball.

Is it possible that the old timers back in the day understood that using very large powder loads did not make much difference out at longer ranges?

I for one, think they did.

My 16 bore rifle (ball weighs exactly an ounce) makes 1600 fps with 140gr of ff Swiss. This is almost exactly 1/3 ball weight. It shoots fairly flat, but the larger ball retains velocity a little better than a 45-50 caliber will. The problem with the 1/2 ball weight is that is only works for rifles from about 40 to 54. Above ball size this the powder charge is generally too heavy (in the 16 bore, .662 ball, this would 217 grains of powder) and below its often too light. Many people get best accuracy from 40 calibers with 70 grains of powder behind a 93 gr ball. 1/4 ball weight in a 32 will be a very short range load, yes I have shot 15 gr in a 32 when killing rabbits in the grove around the house when I was a kid. Range was usually in feet. For squirrels 30-35 grains were needed. This is well over 1/2 ball weight. The heavier the ball the less powder is needed to give a useful velocity. This can vary somewhat with where you hunt and the preferences of the rifle. I have seem people shooting light charges in matches and not being able to stay on the paper at 60 yards going to 40-50% of ball weight gave better accuracy. For hunting in a 50-54 90-100 gr of FFF will give a flat trajectory for as far as one should be shooting game. 115-120 yards for deer sized critters and a top of the back hold to almost 150. Where I live shots past 100 are not unusual. If you shoot a 54 with 70gr at 110 yards then there must be significant hold over. Where as 90-100 (90 of Swiss is equal 100-105 Goex) will allow a center hold at 110 if the rifle is sighted for the best trajectory.
If we go with the old "1 grain per caliber) we get a pretty good load with a 32, over 1/2 ball weight. But with a 58 its too light for a flat trajectory past 50 yards.
There is no formula of this type that works with ALL calibers.
A 12 pound Napolean cannon shot 2 pounds of cannon powder (much larger granule size than Fg) as a service charge. The 12 pound Mtn Howitzer shot one pound of powder. Both with a 12 pound+- projectile.

I think we need to look at the trajectories rather than the remaining velocity. RBs shed velocity at a rapid rate and even at 1800+ most 45-54 cals will be falling subsonic at 100.
In a HUNTING rifle trajectory is important unless all the game is shot at pistol distances.

Dan

Dan,

Good to see you posting again.

Spence,

I would bet their idea of tolerable "kick back" was more than we might normally think today. However, reducing the charge once they hit the point of too much recoil made/makes sense.

Of course we must also consider the average powder was not as good in the 18th century as it was in the early 19th century.

Though some adjustable powder measures were available in the 18th century, they most likely were not common. So one gets all kinds of descriptions that don't make much sense to us today, but they would have made some comparative sense in the period.

Gus

Claims to have killed 2000 deer, 400 bears and 50 panthers in 44 years. Must have known what he was doing.

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I've not gone through the book to count how many times he uses a butcher knife to finish off the bear. :wink:

LD