Buck or shot from a Brown bess

[tenngun]

And too, even if some one didn't die of the infection they could be stopped by the thought of being shot. Animals dont know they are supposed to die when shot so we need to hit them with a quik killer in a vital spot. A wounded human can remove a threat regardless of dieing or not. During the philipine rebellion the Filopeanos didn't know that a bullit wound was deadly and "kept on comming" after being hit with the .38s the army was using. So the tried the new and largly untested .45 acp. A lot harder to keep going after a hit from americas (still)best millitary handgun IMHO.
All in all I think the sight of a bess pointed at me from across a rather small deck would make me think twice about advanving.The biggist warships were not 60 feet wide or much more then 200 feet long, most were closer to 30 by 100. From 50 feet a way that .75 hole wold look more like a 32 pounder if it were looking at you.

 

[satx78247]

AGREED on a Bess looking like a 32 pounder.

When fighting the Moro "pirates", the USA quickly started issuing .45 Long Colt SA/DA revolvers, as the Model 1911 hadn't been designed/built yet.

Of course, as soon as the Model 1911 WAS issued, they went primarily to the troops in the Philippines & the older .45LC revolvers were issued to the Philippine Scouts & "Local Defense Groups".

yours, satx

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Satx78427 wrote:
I'm not sure that hitting a prisoner with a stack of silver dimes (IF that is factual) was intended to KILL.

Well recovering all that silver from the guy with your knife would probably finish him off... don't ya think? :haha:

Wes/Tex wrote:
Nails, links of chain and all the rest would fly to every part of the surrounding area.

I think that some of that is due to the fact that some of the militia at the beginning of the AWI were caught with musket balls with a single nail through them, plus chain-shot was an artillery round used at sea to cut rigging, so it probably got bastardized a bit over time and by authors..., then you have the modern military flechette shotgun rounds from the 1960's further muddying what folks understand about projectiles. The uninformed simply think guns are guns..., for example the director of The Patriot, I'm told, wanted the swamp-amsbush-scene to start with the rebels standing up with their muskets, after being fully submerged, and then shooting the Redcoats... (hey the commandos in modern films do that :haha: what'dya mean they don't work after being under water??)

LD

 

[Wes/Tex]

Visions of frogman blunderbuss scenes is making my mental imager ache! :wink:

 

[azmntman]

Captain Marvel on the USS Constitution!! :rotf:

 

[Melnic]

digging this older thread up. I was reading about buck and ball. I don't reinact, nor compete. Just punch paper or shoot steel. At my range, we can shoot steel at 100 yards which is a stretch for a Smoothbore Bess. Was wondering about buckshot or similar. Hitting the base of the targets are a no no so I'd be looking at a spread of about 3ft or less getting my steel target up in the air. Is this dooable with loading with large shot? I can aquire buckshot although I have plenty of .390 balls on hand.

 

[hawkeye2]

A full load of buckshot in a 3' circle at 100 yards? I doubt you could do it at 35 yards with a cylinder bore.

 

[Rat]

A much easier way to load any kind of shot, is to make a paper cartridge using a wooden dowel, fill it with your load of shot, glue the end up. Then you quickly load the piece by just putting in your powder, and then ramming down your shot "cartridge". If you want to get more imaginative, you can make a paper powder cartridge, glue it to the bottom of the shot cartridge, then just tear, let the powder go down the barrel, then ram the whole thing down. Beats messing with wads...unless you like to take your time and load that way. If I was getting attacked by the wolves, (in which case buck shot might be useful) I'd not want to be putting in powder, seating a wad, pouring in shot, seating another wad....!!

I hunt turkey with my Bess, and it's got good range to it using the paper shot cartridges. Depending on how many wraps of paper you use, you can tighten up the pattern a bit. For grouse at close range I use a thin layer, or minimum amount of "wrap". For Turkey, a heavy "wrap".

 

[spudnut]

I always liked natural wadding, I used leaves and wasp nest but mostly use tow these days, the old rule of thumb about less powder more shot applies to buck too. I get a tighter pattern with a lower charge

 

[Grenadier1758]

A much easier way to load any kind of shot, is to make a paper cartridge using a wooden dowel, fill it with your load of shot, glue the end up. Then you quickly load the piece by just putting in your powder, and then ramming down your shot "cartridge".

When you make a paper cartridge with paper wrapped around a dowel, you need to know the diameter of your barrel. It is important to finish with a cartridge that slips down the barrel with just a bit of friction. This means that you may have to turn down the dowel so that the diameter of the dowel plus the thickness of the paper is equal to the bore diameter. You can taper the dowel a bit so the cartridge can be inserted into the bore for a more secure fit. If you use more wraps of paper to make a shot cartridge, you may need a smaller diameter dowel. Mark you dowels so you can keep track of which one is used for specific paper and number of wraps.

My paper cartridges just fit the bore. With the excess paper that makes a wad of sorts, I have the ball securely held in place. After two shots there is enough fouling to hold the cartridge in place.

 

[Beaver Trapper]

When you make a paper cartridge with paper wrapped around a dowel, you need to know the diameter of your barrel. It is important to finish with a cartridge that slips down the barrel with just a bit of friction. This means that you may have to turn down the dowel so that the diameter of the dowel plus the thickness of the paper is equal to the bore diameter. You can taper the dowel a bit so the cartridge can be inserted into the bore for a more secure fit. If you use more wraps of paper to make a shot cartridge, you may need a smaller diameter dowel. Mark you dowels so you can keep track of which one is used for specific paper and number of wraps.

My paper cartridges just fit the bore. With the excess paper that makes a wad of sorts, I have the ball securely held in place. After two shots there is enough fouling to hold the cartridge in place.

I had my neighbour turn a dowel on his lathe so a paper cartridge would fit snug down my .62 Poor Boy. I screwed this to a wood stand and make paper cartridges using printer paper and wallpaper glue. First I make a tube, then fold the paper over the end of the dowel and use the wallpaper glue to hold this in place. Once dry I put the shot in to the paper cup, put a cardboard card over the shot and then fold and glue that end.

 

[Many Klatch]

The only way I know that would deliver an effective charge of buckshot at 100 yards would be to encase the balls in a pouring of hot wax. Probably have to make a paper cup, fill it with buckshot then with wax. Load in the usual way. I have seen videos of one hole groups at 50 yards with such a load. I haven't done it and I don't recommend it, but if you do let me know how it works.

 

[Rat]

I had my neighbour turn a dowel on his lathe so a paper cartridge would fit snug down my .62 Poor Boy. I screwed this to a wood stand and make paper cartridges using printer paper and wallpaper glue. First I make a tube, then fold the paper over the end of the dowel and use the wallpaper glue to hold this in place. Once dry I put the shot in to the paper cup, put a cardboard card over the shot and then fold and glue that end.

I have found that grocery bag paper works great for me.

 

[Rat]

The only way I know that would deliver an effective charge of buckshot at 100 yards would be to encase the balls in a pouring of hot wax. Probably have to make a paper cup, fill it with buckshot then with wax. Load in the usual way. I have seen videos of one hole groups at 50 yards with such a load. I haven't done it and I don't recommend it, but if you do let me know how it works.

You beat me to it, I was going to say that if you poured some epoxy into the cup, with the shot, you could get that 3" pattern. Of course it would be a single hole, but probably about a 3" one as it would be tumbling.

According to Elmer Keith, some of the old timers used to mix tallow with their shot (punt gun hunters) to tighten up patterns. I experimented with that quite a bit, using tallow-type lubes, mixed with bee's wax to vary the consistency, and got pretty good results. It does work. These were with pistol shot loads (unmentionable pistols) for shooting grouse while big game hunting.

The problem was, how well they worked, depended on the temperature. Loads that worked good in mild weather, would "clump up" in cold weather, much of the shot would clump together. But if the mix was too thin, then there wasn't much difference between it, and a normal shot load. So. ??? I guess they were worthwhile for early in the season, and then one could switch to normal loads later, but I found it wasn't really worth the effort as normal pistol shot loads work pretty good. But it did produce a nicer, tighter pattern.

 

[Melnic]

3 foot pattern of say 10-12 balls is what I was looking for.

 

[Rat]

Yeah I noticed later it was 3 foot and not 3 inches. Fifty yards might be doable using the tallow trick, or perhaps a very-very thick paper cartridge holding the buck shot, or a combination of the two. I sure don't see the possibility at 100. But....???

 

[Eterry]

I've shot almost 500 rds of OOB in the past 30 years in competition and at work at varying ranges out to 100 yards. I've never seen a Single OOB Pellet hit its target at 100yards, using the standard B-27 target.

This was using cylinder bore; the standard info given to recruits was 1 inch spread per yard to target. I only carried mine going into structures, was so glad when we got carbines.

 

[Stumpkiller]

What Hawkeye2 said. I played with a load of 9 .315" balls in my Bess and at 30 yards it was a 3 ft ring of devastation. At 100 yards they would be less a pattern than random hits in a 15 ft area . . . on a good day.

 

[Rat]

One of these days I'm going to throw a mix of 00B and some .36 caliber balls down the barrel of Bess, and she what she does at 25 yards. Don't think I'll ever take such a load into the wilderness, although maybe it could come in handy if I ever have to fight them wolves that are always out to get me. Or thinking about getting me. I bet they think about it.

 

[FlinterNick]

Can shot or buck shot be fired from a Brown Bess musket and if so how would you go about loading it ? Thanks Mudd Turtle.

You can load all kids of shot in a Brown Bess, same thing for a Charleville.

For buck shot you could go anywhere from pellet shot to .30 buck load.

The bigger issue with using a musket for shot is its lack of choke.