1F in Muskets?

[nightwolf1974]

Can you shoot 1F in a .58cal Musket? If so, what would be a comparable load to 60grs. 2F?

 

[Gun Tramp]

I have the same question.

 

[eggwelder]

i`ve tried it in a .50, equal measures. Can`t say the difference in velocity, but I remember a distinctly different boom and it seemed way more smoke

 

[excess650]

fg should be the proper powder for muskets and larger bore shotguns. You might need another 5-10gr over your ffg, but it'll be fine.

 

[sawyer04]

Can you shoot 1F in a .58cal Musket? If so, what would be a comparable load to 60grs. 2F?

Have to work up a decent load, it'll be fine.

 

[springfield art]

Can you shoot 1F in a .58cal Musket? If so, what would be a comparable load to 60grs. 2F?

Sure! I just missed picking up some 1F for my Bess before the shortage.

 

[brewer12345]

I use 1.5F Olde Eynesford in my 58 Zouave. 75 grains and PRB is very accurate. No doubt 1F would work as well. I'd start at 50 or so and work up a load.

 

[blackeagle]

I used o use 1.5 Fg in my T/C Hawken. It was all I could find at the time and I used it in equal measure to my normal load of 50gr 2F. Worked fine. Only thing I noticed was a bit more fouling at the breech while cleaning. Had to use a scraper if I shot more than 5 times.

 

[Sam squanch]

Don’t tell britsmoothy …..sshhhh…

 

[megasupermagnum]

It works really well. It's what I shoot in my 54 caliber rifle, as it produces tighter groups than any other size. I noticed no difference in fouling or smoke. I'm not sure what you mean by comparable. Just load and shoot Fg, and find what shoots best. It will either work better, or it wont.

 

[Bob McBride]

Sure you can. A bit less kick and velocity and a bit dirtier overall but otherwise you can certainly work up a good load with 1f. I like it with some of my 12bores just to tame them a bit. Give her a try and let us know how it works out. Something like 70g +/- 10g should put you at the same impact point.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

So I've tried 1Fg in shotguns with shot, and with round ball, and also with conicals.

So with shot I didn't get the performance. It's just a tad to slow in the acceleration I think..., but I was only using 80 grains and maybe I needed 110 grains ???
However with 2Fg the same shot load worked fine with 1.5 ounces of shot.
The conical was just a test and simply was a waste of lead so I didn't look into it after it was a clear miss of the target x3 times.

On targets the round ball didn't do so well and it's also was lighter than the shot... 2Fg worked much better

Can you shoot 1F in a .58cal Musket? If so, what would be a comparable load to 60grs. 2F?

So you're using a .58 minnie ball, which is a tighter bore than my .75 musket, and while the bullet is about 1.5 ounces, it's snug in a rifled barrel and will obturate, so the tighter bore and the friction will likely give a better performance than I got. A lot of the manuals say the grain sizes cause a 10% variance, so that would be 55 grains of 2Fg so just round it up to 55, or heck just shoot 60 of 2Fg..., 60 grains is not near a max load in most .58 rifled muskets.

LD

 

[Steel Guitar]

Well, obviously there ain't no cigar smokers out there because you can shoot that 1f and then be able to light you cigar from that beautiful flame out the barrel !! I use to load it in my muzzleloading shotguns with short barrels at a SASS match and it was a real crowd pleaser and sounded like a cannon, what fun !!

 

[Grenadier1758]

In a Long Land Pattern musket, 1Fg can be used in the pan.

Viewed from the side there's not all that much flame.

 

[rodinal220]

You can. You need to chrono the loads to see what difference in velocity you are getting and of course your target results. I use 1F in Brown Bess, 7 Gauge flintlock shotgun, .577 Snider and 577-450 M-H. I normally shoot FFg in .58s.

 

[megasupermagnum]

I took my TC Renegade 54 caliber out today using the same load I finally figured out after months of trial and error a few years ago. I tried 4 ball sizes, a dozen patches, multiple powders, tons of lube. All said and done, 1Fg was the top performer, although it is not as big an effect as ball/patch. The last time the rifle fired a shot was last December when I shot a ball through a fine whitetail buck. It has since been shuffled around, moved states, stuck into a new safe, and all I did was load it and shoot. At 100 yards, I hit perfectly centered, 4" low. I then continued to put 3 more into a group 2 1/4" CTC. I moved the target to 50 yards, took a single shot, perfectly centered, about 1 1/2" high. Well, I'm ready to hunt this weekend. I didn't dare shoot any more, stop when you are ahead. I know I'm still sighted in, and that's all I needed to know.

To be frank, I could shoot this rifle with FFg, and would be fine. 80gr FFg shoots an average of 4 1/2" at 100 yards. 90gr Fg shoots an average of 3 1/2". By average, I mean I can shoot five, 5-shot groups, and average the group sizes.

For those of you with a TC rifle that is struggling to get to shoot, the #1 most important thing I did was find the ball and patch it shot well. At one time I had three TC percussion rifles, a TC flintlock, and a TC scout pistol. The normal recommendation was a thin patch, and .535" ball. In every TC gun I had, that was the WORST possible combo. I mean really, really bad, might as well shoot a bare ball. I can get a smooth bore to shoot better. Instead I found a thick patch, and small ball was the best thing I ever did. The exact load I use is as follows

CCI #11 magnum caps
90gr Goex 1Fg
two 1/8" thick 5/8" diameter felt wads, ramed down to compress the powder
Carhartt jeans duck canvas patch, lubed with bear grease (mink oil worked just as well)
pure lead .520" ball cast from Lee mold, visually inspected and weight sorted within .5 grains of maximum

I ram down the ball so it sits on the wads, I do not bounce the rod or do anything else like that to further compress the powder. I do tap the lock area a few times with my palm after pouring powder, to insure powder is under the nipple. At the range, I also wet and dry swab both between every shot. It is not needed for hunting, and you could easily get 5 shots off without it, but it becomes very difficult to consistently seat the ball after that. Read that again. You could continue to seat a ball indefinitely, but you need to be able to seat a ball the exact same pressure on the powder, every single time. Swabbing makes that easy. Don't make things hard on yourself.

So anyway, don't knock Fg until you try it. The claims of it being dirty or loud, are bigger myths than the idea that plastic wads will fill your shotgun bore with plastic.

 

[Frederickdav]

I'm sure glad you guys did the testing of Fg for me! That's all I could find and was wondering how it will work in my Bess.

 

[megasupermagnum]

Just yesterday, 25 pounds of Goex Fg showed up at my door step. Possibly the last Goex I'll ever buy, so I made sure to buy the best.

 

[FlinterNick]

I use 1F when re-enacting, makes the cartridges look bigger Lol.

I use it cartidges sometimes, it will foul out the bore pretty quickly A lot quicker than a 2f.