Patch History

[JCKelly]

There is some discussion concerning who first used a patched ball. Whoever it may have been, they are recorded as being used in Portugal by 1718. At that time, Portuguese barrels were considered the best made. The book ESPINGARDA PERFEYTA (The Perfect Gun) has been translated from old Portuguese and published in English by 1974. I personally find it rather difficult to read, as it is the observations of skilled smiths at a time when far less was known about iron and steel, as well as preceding Isaac Newton’s laws.

“Others made barrels with rifling inside, some with more, and others with less rifling, all of them deep and twisted in the form of a spiral. These were loaded by putting the bullet in little piece of leather of a thing glove, folded only once, dipped in oil and thus it was pushed down to the bottom in sch a manner that the bullet may not lose its roundness; and since it seems that the rifling weaken the bullet by contamination wit the air and because of this the barrel my repress the shot, experience has shown that this same roughness of the rifling gives more force to the powder, so that it expels the bullet to such an extended range that it is double that which is given by barrels which are of equal bore throughout and well fashioned.”g

Interesting book, maybe allow for a couple of readings before it makes sense. Available from abebooks

 

[Cruzatte]

I understand that the Swiss were holding regular shooting matches in the 16th century, that they were shooting rifled bore guns as well. Not knowing any better, I assumed they were patching their rifle bullets, too. But maybe not.

 

[ohio ramrod]

interesting