Chokes

[George]

I dont have access to the context of the "open behind" reference in Hawker. Can you post it?

I don't have Hawker, but I believe I have a description of the "open behind" form he was referring to. This comes from a book published in 1718 in Portugal by three gun-making brothers. Their experience extended back into the late 17th century, and they quote the Espinar mentioned before, saying he had 40+ years experience.

"Espingarda Perfeyta, The Perfect Gun
Cesar Fiosconi & Jordam Guserio

The barrel of the Guns shall be fashioned for better aim, and range of shots, both in the forge and with the file, with the circumstances which we recommend, and when it has been wholly completed, everything inside even, it shall be enlarged by the breech with the same rods to the width of half an adarme, to the distance of two palms forwards, and this width we do not exceed, because use of the fire may increase it, and this excess will not have any worse effect, this width ending in diminution at the aforesaid distance, to be followed by the equality of the barrel as far as the last three fingers of the muzzle, which shall also have the width of exactly one adarme, and this shall diminish inside the muzzle, finishing at the end of three fingers."

As best I can decipher it, an adarme is their term for balls-to-the-pound, so they are saying that in a 12 ga., for instance, they relieve the breech to 11 1/2 ga. for two palm's width, approximately 6"-8", from the breech plug, tapering back to 12 gauge, continue at 12 ga. to 3 fingers from the muzzle and there expand again by one adarme to 11 gauge.

Spence

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Thanks Spence.
That is not jugging or choking as we know it either and that wonderful book with it's contents has been a topic of conversation here on some good threads in the past.
That method was very common all thru the flint era and many times distinguished fowling pieces for shooting shot from fusil type barrels intended for ball. Other variations were the opened muzzle and a roughened breech and just the opened muzzle.

 

[George]

They also describe leaving the bore rough, believing that did good things. And a bore widest at the breech with a straight taper to a smaller muzzle was also described as having been tried by the old masters. Plus several other things.

Yes, it is a wonderful book, but it gives you a headache to read it. Flowery ain't in it! You start off reading a passage and meet yourself coming in the opposite direction and in the same lane.

Spence

 

[roundball]

Yes, it is a wonderful book, but it gives you a headache to read it. Flowery ain't in it! You start off reading a passage and meet yourself coming in the opposite direction and in the same lane.

Or like an old saying...the way they talked is like going around your elbow to get to your.....well, never mind

 

[George]

That method was very common all thru the flint era and many times distinguished fowling pieces for shooting shot from fusil type barrels intended for ball.

That's one puzzle I haven't been able to solve in the book. They include a drawing of the interior profile of the bore showing the relief in both breech and muzzle, but it has what appears to be a ball in the barrel. Could be just a gauge to illustrate the variation in diameter, and not intended to show a bullet at all, of course. And, buried in their convoluted explanation, it may say the illustration shows the error made by their critics as to the degree of relief they recommend.

In any case, I believe this is the "open behind" profile Hawker was thinking of.

I have an original smooth rifle with relief at the muzzle, but to a considerably greater degree than "one adarme", it expands from 28 ga. to 20 ga.

Spence

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Bore determination for barrels intended for shot was also factored by the multiples of bore sized ball to a given weight. My guess is that it is in fact a ball in the illustration and is only to show the differences in bore size throughout and has no relevance of shooting said single projectile.

 

[George]

My guess is that it is in fact a ball in the illustration and is only to show the differences in bore size throughout and has no relevance of shooting said single projectile.

You may be right, but they use the term bullet very often, they spend a lot of time discussing whether the gasses pass the bullet and oppose its flight, and such things, and they tell of some inventions which can only be appropriate for ball, such as loading it under the trigger guard or pounding it into the muzzle with a mallet or of wrapping it in an oiled leather. The jury is still out for me. I'm hoping some repeated readings will smooth my understanding of their ideas.

Spence

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Same type of thoughts here Spence. My opinions are also skewed with18th century use of those types of barrels for shot as evidenced by 18th and early 19th c. writings and examples.
The book of course is much prior to that. Fun stuff to plow through though. :grin:

 

[Jason Lewis]

not a response to anyone but, in this day and age where we are seeing our "traditional" BP shooting underfire from every gun writer and hunting writer out there, who has probably never shot or hunted with a PRB let alone a flintlock. i don't believe we can afford to be picky about minutia such as wether or not jug choking is tradtional or not. maybe we should be focusing on what type of ignition people choose, style of gun, the truth about hunting and shooting real BP and the PRB, minie ball and BP shotguns of anyform.

perhaps we should be extolling the merits of not hunting harder, but "learning" to hunt. pulling off killing shots on a turkey at 60yrds with a modern gun is no trick. i know, i've done it more than once. luring an old tom or young jake into 30yrds or less is were the skill is. yes there are going to be times where we go home empty handed, but who cares as long as we learn something from the experience and apply it to next year.

to the PC/HC guys out there, i get it, i truly do. But let's face it guys, just like the real history of the revolution is lost to time and myth, so is what historical muzzleloading shooters did. just like today, one person did it a little different than the next person.

 

[George]

I will just mention one more time it is not about using this technology just whether it fits in the scope of this forum as it is basicaly a non ML tech and past the cutoff date.There are a lot of things man people use that does not fit here for the same reasons, have the guidelines been set aside for post 1865 tech as valid topics or is it a matter of whtether a bunch of people really like the stuff so we loook the other way and live with a growing list of white Elephants.I will not comment on it again.

You have a valid point, tg, and I appreciate your concern. I think we are all sometimes guilty of violating the guidelines of the forum, in fact if not in spirit. Personally, I never want to do that, but I wonder why the guidelines specify 1865 or the end of the civil war as the cutoff date when it seems fairly obvious muzzleloaders continued in widespread use for several years past that date. It would seem more appropriate to cut it off after the transition to breechloaders was complete, not while underway. Discussion of anything concerning muzzleloaders should be acceptable as long as muzzleloaders were originally in use in any significant way.

I have read a fair amount about the development of chokes, and it is my honest opinion that what we call jug choking first began in the period 1870-1872. I also believe it was applied to muzzleloading shotguns, to some extent at least, during the period of transition to breechloaders. If that were true, it would mean that jug choking would be a fair topic for discussion on this board and that it would be an acceptable technology for actual use in our ML guns while not violating the "traditional".

So, tg, i agree with you about a lot of the modern stuff which gets discussed on the board, but I'm not positive jug choking fits in that category. It does if we absolutely cut off at 1865, but with a little flexibility in the service of the facts, it might be legal.

Spence

 

[leslie]

Its well established that gunmakers were machining a form of a venturi into a barrel in the 1700s.In an engineering sense thats what a choke is.As with most other machining procedures improvements have been made in the process with the final result leading to an improved shot pattern.We are still shooting a flintlock smoothbore not a breech loader.IMHO this is no different than the changes that have taken place in the traditional muzzleloaders since the 1700s ie stainless steel touch holes,vastly improved metalurgy in all the parts and so on.I will readily admit my ignorance when it comes to dating the era of origin of the style of the flintlocks,but I think the rigid placement of chokes as being out of the time limit for discussion on here is a non-starter.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Maybe in an engineering sense but not not in ballistic engineering sense. Unless someone has just found new information, they had not met the definition of "choke" as far as shot patterns are concerned in the 18th c. Attempts were surely being made though to improve shot performance in many ways. Some were precursors to now developed technology and some were snake oil.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

And by the way... The snake oil is still alive and well in shotgun related gimmicks today. :grin:

 

[leslie]

Ballistic Engineering is a specialty not a an Engineering discipline,it is a mix of many of the traditional Engineering fields. Physics and math and the application of the Bernoulli Equation to a constriction and expansion of a flowing gas whether its carrying shot or not is the same no matter what you call it."Ballistic Engineers" as you call them,study the same math and physics all the rest of us did and apply it in the same way.Yes snake oil is very much alive and well all over.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Understood and I am aware of what you say. I believe it's just the word "choke" being a semantics problem in the context. Open fore and aft and the other various attempts of the 18th c and earlier do not a "choke" make in the sense of "choke" and it's effects as it is understood in shotgunning and ballistics of shot patterns. While by science we could define a pipe with more open ends and a narrower waist to be "choked" it is not so in it's results down range in relation to what the word "choke" means to shot patterns.

The summary version of what I was originally attempting to point out is maybe choked in physical appearance of the tube but NOT choked in physical performance and results. :thumbsup:

Early attempts and trying to control the pattern but success in the 19th century instead of the 18th.

 

[KJGROHS]

With all do respect, I can appreciate pc/hc that's were I'm normally at, and build rifles and smoothbores, butim real interested in jug chokeing only because I have a traditions single barreled shot gun that for years has frustrated me too no end.
It will not pattern- and I've used every thing made comercially or made by me, every cocievable concoction of shot and powder lubes wads, natural and man made , it will not pattern, the best it does consistantly , is 15 yards w/ maybee 15-18 pellets, so jug choking could. Help, otherwise it's goi g to be beat into a sword or a few knives, and stock I to firewood I'm so ugly with it I won't trade it to anyone, the only reason I kept it this long is it shoots .715 rbs well, and have taken many a smoothbore match with it, so it's killing me

 

[Golfswithwolves]

I would suggest that you have to match the gun to the game. With turkeys you can get them in close enough for barrels with no choke to be effective, especially as you can load up a lot of shot for these birds that are moving slowly on the ground. With grouse you don't need choke. Other birds require hitting them real hard whether they are at close or not-so-close distances; I have found that non-choked barrels can not be counted on to put an effective enough pattern out there to do this job. For some types of game and hunting, I would not feel well armed enough with a cylinder bored shotgun- I offer wild prairie pheasants as a good example of this type of game, because if such a bird is not hit hard it usually runs off to die a slow death. So I will choose to use the gun that is required to be effective in order to respect the game animal; if I was restricted to cylinder bored muzzleloaders I would then not use a muzzleloader for some of my favorite kinds of hunting. I will therefore use the most traditional fowlers when it is practical, like for grouse or rabbits or squirrels that don't require quite so much killing force to bring them to bag. But despite my own inclination to be as traditionally correct as possible I don't think that the game animal should have to pay for this preference to be HC/PC.

 

[KJGROHS]

Well I understand what your saying , but like I said before it will not shot a pattern worth a hoot, the thing will not hold a pattern past 15 yards , at best I get 15-18 in a thirty inch circle, no matter what wad or powder shot combination, so like I said the jug choking could be it's only savior, also like I said I have.
A tulle, in 24 ga. and English northwest star one in 2o ga. That both are fantastic shot throwers as well as ball launchers, they love buck and ball too, so you can now see my frusration. I hope. Flintlock 54

 

[KJGROHS]

Oh , boy I just had a idea moment and never thought about it before, that barrel might just might be just out of round causeing gas blow by, gee duh, well have to find out.
Flintlock 54

 

[Golfswithwolves]

Jug choking does seem to be an option worth considering for your gun.