2 Patched Round Balls

BlackHillsBob said:

when the natives, cree, fought the plains natives, they used a lot of northwest trade rifles, barrels were cut off shorter. they would two and three ball them when they fought. they wanted to make sure they came out on top. some lost fingers and thumbs when the ball came off the powder, but that wasnt too often.they would carry the balls in their mouth when they went into the fight, and they could reload real fast. crees were always out numbered. they killed a famous blackfoot chief with a 3 balled short barreled northwest trade rifle.

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Impressive detail about the shooting habits of the Cree, the sort of thing which is usually very hard to find. Is that recorded somewhere?

Spence

Feist Hunter said:

I have never heard of this. Sounds like a recipe for trouble to me if not loaded correctly or done in a compromised barrel.

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FH, you are observant and wise.
Personally, I believe this subject is in the same category as making your own black powder. Can be done but is unnecessary and potentially very dangerous.

Back in the "70's before we became so safety conscious one of the contests at the rondevous was to see which team could shoot a large branch in two. The branches were stuck in the ground, one for each team. We spat two bare balls down the bore and rammed them home as fast as we could and touched them off. We may have had sense enough to load from a measure instead of right out of the horn. That part I don't remember. It was fun and we lived through it but I wouldn't recommend it now.

No one seems aware of the fairly significant effect on the trajectory/velocity of adding a second ball. Whatever the one-ball velocity was, it will be reduced by 30% when a second ball is added, if the powder charge is kept the same. That's a big change, 1700 fps down to 1200 fps, for example.

Maybe that's what happened in this incident from 1783.

"The Pennsylvania Gazette
February 12, 1783
The Negroe having a pistol in his hand, discharged it at the subscriber, and the two balls that were in the pistol, hit the leather jacket he had on, but did not enter his body, though he was very much hurt,..."

Spence

George said:

No one seems aware of the fairly significant effect on the trajectory/velocity of adding a second ball. Whatever the one-ball velocity was, it will be reduced by 30% when a second ball is added, if the powder charge is kept the same. That's a big change, 1700 fps down to 1200 fps, for example.

Maybe that's what happened in this incident from 1783.

"The Pennsylvania Gazette
February 12, 1783
The Negroe having a pistol in his hand, discharged it at the subscriber, and the two balls that were in the pistol, hit the leather jacket he had on, but did not enter his body, though he was very much hurt,..."

Spence

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It would be worse in a pistol too.....

John Shaw said:

Back in the "70's before we became so safety conscious one of the contests at the rondevous was to see which team could shoot a large branch in two. The branches were stuck in the ground, one for each team. We spat two bare balls down the bore and rammed them home as fast as we could and touched them off. We may have had sense enough to load from a measure instead of right out of the horn. That part I don't remember. It was fun and we lived through it but I wouldn't recommend it now.

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Yeah, lots of stuff we did isn't allowed any longer. Truth is most fun comes with a little risk. I enjoy artillery, boating, shooting, riding horses, motorcycles, bicycles, and have no interest in staying safe.

The Lyman Black Powder Handbook of the pre Fadala versions have a section about double ball loading, and even have a picture of the balls in flight. As previously noted it was a common practice back in the 70's for those of us that shot in the stump/post matches to use a double ball , after all the object was to cut that post/stump in two as fast as possible... We also blew down the muzzle between shots...

There is historical precedent for this.
Ned Roberts mentions the practice for close-range moose hunting...

If you load patched balls you want to be sure air compressed between 1st & 2nd ball ones not force them apart, or at the very least you will ring-bulge your barrel if not blow it apart.
Dave

While I think it would be a waste of time a safe way (safer) would be an unpatched ball under the patched one. The two would be inches apart at fifty yards each capable on its own of being lethal. Since one fifty through the chest will drop a deer two would also drop it.
Some deer drop quick, some run a bit. Same wound, I don’t know why.
Moose? elk? Buffalo? I’ll use one thank you. I don’t think I‘ll get a chance to hunt anything bigger then Bambi again, so it’s just academics.

Dave Orchard said:

There is historical precedent for this.
Ned Roberts mentions the practice for close-range moose hunting...

If you load patched balls you want to be sure air compressed between 1st & 2nd ball ones not force them apart, or at the very least you will ring-bulge your barrel if not blow it apart.
Dave

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Amen, Bro.

i worked for the federal government at the turtle mountain cree chip tribe as a registered nurse for 4 years. they had a good tribal library their. read about the incident with the black foot who they were very outnumbered. they would triple ball their cut short northwest trade guns when they got close to the blackfoot and do a lot of damage on that first round they fired. the cree were very well armed with all the good furs they had to trade. they had first choise on guns with the french and english traders. they also hunted buffalo off a horse with cut back barrels on those n. west trade rifles. they would carry a mouth full of balls. load prime spit a ball down the barrel. when the ball hit bottom they would pivot the gun at the side of a black foot or buffalo and touch er off. that is why a lot of crees were missing fingers and thumbs. if the ball didnt hit the bottom of the barrel on the powder they lost fingers and a thumb. i used to pour over the hundreds of photos from those early days. what i like most is to see a braided white man in cree clothing with them. those were irish men who went native. they hated the french and british and many of irish men went native with the cree. however the cree liked the french but the brits were never popular in canada or the US with the natives. their noses were too far in the air. later the finns were very very popular with all natives up north, the fins are part mongol them selves and they felt at home with all natives.my great grand mother was french cree. the are tri lingual. they speak french, cree and english. the cree hate the raven and the owl. it is a omen of death. the bald eagle is a sign of the holy spirit watching over you. their women are very fine in the eye. they look much like the chinese in central china. when they buy a snowmobile. they take it inside and take it 100 percent apart. they polish every part inside and out. when they get done with it it runs way smoother than it ever was ment to. they make good doctors as they are very good with their hands. ive worked with a few cree drs. and they were the best of the best. ok, a old man going down a rabbit hole again, some may find it interesting.

I've read of spitting a ball down the bore. I think if the ball was that loose, it would almost certainly roll forward, endangering the barrel. Also, the English were very popular in Canada, the Hudson Bay trading company being very important. The British traded with the NAs more fairly than Americans did, giving a better price for their goods. I don't know about the French, but I would imagine after the F&I war, their activities were proscribed.

I've got a Hudson Bay blanket, a 5-line wool...the five lines at the bottom corner told the NA how many pelts required to purchase the blanket.

the english did the trading but the french moved in with the natives, as did the irish. your blanket is a treasure. not much english blood in the natives but a lot of french and irish blood.the mixed bloods up north traded with the sioux down here. the sioux had a word for the northern mixed bloods. it is slu slu da. it means so covered in slime that no one can hang on to them. the mixed bloods had a word for the souix. throat cutters. they traded, never liked each other and fought a few times. the mixed bloods always won the fight. they are way tougher in a fight than the sioux, in 1856 they fought once hard in northern n.dak. the sioux lost over 2000 men, the mixed bloods 2 or 3. they never fought again. except on one on one fights. their is a woods near washburn n.dak on the big fast river. its called painted woods in times gone by it was a battle ground for one on one fights for many years. if a man had a thing going with a man of another tribe he would go and put his family sign on a tree. then the two would meet and fight to the death. i caught many a good fish next to painted woods as the big river cuts into a creek thei and lots of fish their.